The science game EXAM ONE Scientific inquiry strives for an understanding of reality that is true and the way that you go about formulating this understanding is what makes your endeavor scientific or not o The primary goal of the scientific inquiry is to arrive at an understanding of reality that is true o Make the endeavor scientific or not 3 non scientific modes of understanding and their limits Consult our experience What seems to have been true for me in the past o Limits experience is confounded Hard to isolate the true cause Too many things happening at once Ex you are paying more attention in class it is because the energy drink or the amount of sleep you got o Limits it does not allow for systematic comparison We cant test alternatives no access to parallel universe There is no comparison group It is not falsifiable does not have the chance to be proven wrong Make a matrix and figure out percentages o Limits research is probabilistic Inferences are not expected to explain all cases at all times You shouldn t overlook experience but you shouldn t overlook research as well Consult our intuition what feels like the true answer o Present present bias you focus on what is there instead of what is not o Limits prone to mistakes and biases in intuition Ex patternicity we are motivated to find meaningful patterns in meaningful and meaningless noise Ex rustle in the trees Ex The availability heuristic we tend to think that more memorable phenomena are more likely or true Plane crashes vs car crashes We remember events that are more vivid in our mind o Limits Beliefs are reinforced through confirmation bias People seek out information that confirms their original positions cherry picking People are more critical of evidence that Confirmation hypothesis testing disconfirms their beliefs ask questions that would confirm their hypothesis rather than open questions that are unbiased people Ex prove introversion What makes it hard to open up to people We become overconfident in what we think we know Consult our tradition and authority what does my culture believe to be true What do trusted and knowledgeable people claim to be true o Limits authorities prone to same biases Normative beliefs going against the group have social consequences Sometimes we are unaware of how extensively our culturally learned assumptions influence our worldview and its facts The golden rule of science scientific claims must be subject to empirical tests that produce empirical evidence Empirical Evidence o An observation or measurement that contributes to either verifying or falsifying a claim about what s true Its is objective or independent of the observer The evidence will be the same no matter who observes it Empirical testing o Any situation or procedure that creates empirical evidence which allows a claim on truth to be verified or falsified Must be replicable and verifiable Golden Assumption If an object of study exists in nature it is knowable o it is possible to fully describe and explain even highly complex things o the object of study is lawful if we can control all of the input variables we can predict and control outcome The cycle of scientific progress Observations theory research questions hypothesis data o The role of if then reasoning in helps us answer the question WHY Theory data cycles most important in science Theories developed to help us answer why the data turned out the way that it did o If theory x is true then we should expect to see y happen o Enables us to test and refine theories You ask a question then test your theory If that doesn t work then you move on to your next theory Basic applied cycle scenarios Take basic findings and apply hem to more realistic o Basic research enhance the general body of o Translational research the bridge from basic to knowledge applied research o Theory testing and multiple levels of analysis Multiple levels of analysis so we need multiple levels of analysis to explain human behavior more than one theory can be right o Generalizability the extent to which we can extend these findings to other people Is it true or other people other than the ones in the sample THREATS psychology is disproportionally american EXTERNAL VALIDITY o W E I R D this is not necessarily the norm Western Educated Rich Democratic Industrialized Not Necessarily the norm Psychology is disproportionally American Not representative of the world s people May not have external validity is only testing WEIRD people o Represent a historic anomaly o Act like outliers in cross cultural research more often than we might expect o Psychological constructs Any explanatory variable that is not directly observable or tangible Ex happiness intelligence addiction Conceptual or Construct the definition of the variable in question o Operationalization The process of turning a concept of interest ABSTRACT CONSTRUCTS into a measured or manipulated variable Must be reliable and valid Also always a compromise between pragmatically measuring your construct and collecting data that validly tests your hypothesis o Three ways to operationalize psychological construct Self report measures interview or questionnaire items verbal responses to EX five item scale strongly agree strongly disagree Measuring stress how often have you felt nervous or stressed o PROS o CONS Easy and low cost Large anonymous samples can be quickly studied May be the most appropriate format Open to fabrication and social desirability biases Memory distortions Lazy or inattentive responding May not be useful for non conscious or non declarative constructs o SOCIAL DESIRABILITY BIASES giving socially acceptable responses To stop this ensure anonymity Include items that allow the participant to agree with either side of the issue Remind them that there are no wrong answers Try to keep your hypothesis unknown o Order and priming effects early responses can bias later ones To stop randomize order o Response acquiescence caused by mental set similar responses to a few initial questions that establish a pattern of responding Reverse score 30 40 of the items Observational measures behavioral measure Operationalizes a variable by recording observable behaviors or physical traces of behaviors Ex measuring happiness by recording how many times a day someone smiles IQ test measures intelligence o PROS More shielded from respondent bias Can be recorded with less interference less obvious Sometimes most appropriate More complicated to collect
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