The Seductive Allure of Neuroscience Explanations

Deena Skolnick Weisberg, Frank C. Keil, Joshua Goodstein, Elizabeth Rawson, Jeremy R. Gray

DSEID: DSEID-005-4236303
DOI: 10.1162/jocn.2008.20040
Journal: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Publisher: MIT Press - Journals
Published: 2008-3-1
Status: temporarily_unreachable

Abstract

Abstract Explanations of psychological phenomena seem to generate more public interest when they contain neuroscientific information. Even irrelevant neuroscience information in an explanation of a psychological phenomenon may interfere with people's abilities to critically consider the underlying logic of this explanation. We tested this hypothesis by giving naïve adults, students in a neuroscience course, and neuroscience experts brief descriptions of psychological phenomena followed by one of four types of explanation, according to a 2 (good explanation vs. bad explanation) × 2 (without neuroscience vs. with neuroscience) design. Crucially, the neuroscience information was irrelevant to the logic of the explanation, as confirmed by the expert subjects. Subjects in all three groups judged good explanations as more satisfying than bad ones. But subjects in the two nonexpert groups additionally judged that explanations with logically irrelevant neuroscience information were more satisfying than explanations without. The neuroscience information had a particularly striking effect on nonexperts' judgments of bad explanations, masking otherwise salient problems in these explanations.

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Metadata

Title: The Seductive Allure of Neuroscience Explanations
Delta ID: DSEID-005-4236303
Authors: Deena Skolnick Weisberg, Frank C. Keil, Joshua Goodstein, Elizabeth Rawson, Jeremy R. Gray
Abstract source: crossref
Source URL: https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2008.20040
Access: closed_or_uncertain
Licence: unknown
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