Falling on deaf ears.

Psychological research can yield truths, but sometimes those truths are hard for people to swallow. When scientific evidence challenges an important belief, people often defend the belief by resisting the scientific conclusions. There are a variety of techniques by which people discount research evidence, including the scientific impotence excuse. People reject belief-threatening evidence by forming another belief - that scientific methods are unable (or impotent) to yield valid answers about the topic. Interestingly, the scientific impotence belief can also generalise to other topics, creating a general erosion of belief in the effectiveness of science to yield 'truths'. Is psychology particularly prone to this process? How can psychological researchers and educators spot and reduce such discounting? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]