The seductive allure of neuroscience explanations.

The seductive allure of neuroscience explanations. Weisberg, D. S., Keil, F. C, Goodstein, J., Rawson, E., & Gray, J. R J Cogn Neurosci, 20(3):470–477, 2008.
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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) x 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.

@Article{Weisberg2008,
  author      = {Deena Skolnick Weisberg and Frank C Keil and Joshua Goodstein and Elizabeth Rawson and Jeremy R Gray},
  journal     = {J Cogn Neurosci},
  title       = {The seductive allure of neuroscience explanations.},
  year        = {2008},
  number      = {3},
  pages       = {470--477},
  volume      = {20},
  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 na\"ive 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) x 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.},
  doi         = {10.1162/jocn.2008.20040},
  institution = {Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA. deena.weisberg@yale.edu},
  keywords    = {Adolescent; Adult; Cognition, physiology; Female; Humans; Judgment, physiology; Male; Middle Aged; Neurosciences; Personal Satisfaction; Probability Learning; Psychological Theory},
  language    = {eng},
  medline-pst = {ppublish},
  pmid        = {18004955},
  timestamp   = {2010.10.29},
}

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