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Motivation, cognition and pseudoscience
Author(s) -
Lindeman Marjaana
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9450.00085
Subject(s) - pseudoscience , psychology , comprehension , cognition , experiential learning , social cognition , subliminal stimuli , cognitive psychology , function (biology) , social psychology , mathematics education , medicine , philosophy , linguistics , alternative medicine , pathology , neuroscience , evolutionary biology , biology
The article proposes a framework that views pseudoscientific beliefs as a joint function of the basic social motives and the default way of processing everyday information. The interplay between the basic motives and experiential thinking is illustrated with three examples. The first concerns comprehension of self via astrology and graphology, and the second involves the comprehension of unexpected events (one domain of the motive to comprehend the world). The last example describes health control by alternative medicine, as a modern way of controlling future outcomes.