How to Improve Your Own Scientific Thinking

Abstract

Chapter 14 suggests concrete ways to improve your scientific thinking about your own hypotheses and how to identify them in the scientific publications of others. The chapter continues exploration of the effects of unconscious mental processes on scientific thinking by emphasizing methods for minimizing such effects. Practical exercises include finding and diagramming hypotheses, illustrated by a detailed example from the literature. Building on the notions that scientists’ own intellectual productions entail significant ego investment and are subject to the concerns from behavioral economics that were raised in Chapter 11, this chapter suggests ways for scientists to step back and view their own scientific thinking skills objectively. The goal is to help promote sound thinking by calling readers’ attention to subtle intrinsic forces that can undermine it. Strategies for improvement include avoiding the “curse of knowledge,” taking the “outside” view, and ignoring the “sunk cost fallacy” when it comes to their own ideas.