Psychology studies the mind using the mind. It investigates memory using memory, examines bias using cognition that is itself biased, and produces knowledge about human nature using human researchers who are subject to everything they are studying. This book asks what that means.
30 For 30 TOK: IB Psychology is the eleventh book in the 30 For 30 TOK series, which pairs thirty IB diploma subjects with thirty searching questions about the nature of the knowledge it produces. This volume focuses on the IB Psychology course, asking questions about the methods, assumptions, and limitations of a discipline that is simultaneously one of the most fascinating and one of the most epistemologically challenged in the IB curriculum.
From the replication crisis to the cultural bias of WEIRD samples, from the ethical legacy of Milgram and Zimbardo to the question of whether diagnosing mental illness is a scientific or a social act, the thirty questions in this book press on what psychological knowledge actually is. Sample responses model what careful, critical engagement with psychological evidence and theory looks like in practice.
Designed for IB Psychology students, teachers, TOK educators, and anyone fascinated by the question of what we can know about minds, including our own.
