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Number 4/2008
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On psycho-business, tolerance and responsibility or
strategies employed by pure scientists
Tomasz Witkowski
Moderator Editors
Paweł Fortuna
Institute of Psychology, JPII Catholic University of Lublin
Abstract |
The article deals with the relationship between academic psychology, pseudoscience and psycho-business.
The first part discusses possible methods of eliminating pseudoscience. Described is
the first Author's provocation carried out in 2007 in the popular science journal "Charaktery".
Its main purpose was to demonstrate that it is possible for pseudoscience to be judged credible
by journal editors and its readers. In the next step, reactions of the academic community to the provocation
were classified and analyzed. Four basic strategies were described: ignorance, playing down, reorientation,
and exploitation. In the further parts of the article there are presented results of a short study
in which a group of students was asked to judge how credible and how interesting the therapy described in the provocation was.
In readers' opinions the text was credible. Based on these results the authors conclude that
it is relatively easy to introduce a new fake therapy into everyday practice. The authors believe that
the indifferent attitude of the psychological community may play a crucial role in this process.
Key words: psycho-business, pseudoscience, pseudo-therapies, science popularization, provocation.
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