PSY 313 Exam Review Sources of Belief Method of Tenacity I o Involves holding on to ideas and beliefs simply because they have been accepted as facts for a long time or because of superstition o Based on habit or superstition Habit leads us to continue believing something we have always believed referred to as belief perserverance EX Cliche You cannot teach an old dog new tricks More often we are exposed to them the more we need to believe them Advertisers take advantage of this method o PPT Accepting something as true because it has always been believed Opposites attract chicken soup cures a cold Flaws Difficult to correct these errors Information is not always correct Method of Authority Faith I o A person finds answers by seeking out an authority on the subject Can mean consulting an expert or doing research relying on assumed expertise of another person EX books people television internet newspaper Experts include physicians scientists psychologists lawyers etc Quickest and easiest way to obtain answers Formal education is based on the notion that answers can be obtained from experts teachers and textbooks Pitfalls include not always accurate authorities can be biased information could represent subjective personal opinion rather than true expert knowledge Person s high status does not make them an expert should we listen to Blake Griffin about Kias People usually accept an expert s statement without question Too much trust in experts Method of faith parents and religion Not all experts are experts o PPT Believing something because an authority figure expert someone you trust says it is true Medical diagnosis Tooth fairy left money under your pillow Flaws Opinion or truth Information may be biased Method of Intuition I Rational Method I information o information is accepted as true because it feels right Person relies on hunches and instinct to answer questions Method is quickest way to obtain answers Use when we have no information at all and cannot refer to supporting data or use rational justification we often resort to intuition Used to make personal choices what should I eat Should I go out o PPT Accepting something as true because it feels right It feels right to have both hands on the wheel when driving and so hands free devices must be safer Flaw No mechanism for separating accurate from inaccurate o Involves seeking answers by logical reasoning Begin with a set of known facts or assumptions and use logic to reach a conclusion or get an answer to a question Uses premise statements facts or assumptions that are presumed to be true If the premise statements are incomplete or do not totally represent the real world situation then the conclusion might not be accurate set of premise statements that are logically combined to yield a Uses arguments conclusion Limitations People are not particularly good at logical reasoning o PPT Use logic and reason to infer information All birds have feathers A flamingo is a bird Therefore it has feathers Flaws Must start with a known fact Empirical Method I o Attempts to answer questions by direct observation or personal experience Product of the empirical viewpoint in philosophy which holds that all knowledge is acquired through the senses Use hearing seeing tasting and so on Horizontal Vertical Illusion Most people perceive the vertical line to be longer than the horizontal line but they are actually the same size Limitations o PPT make accurate observations but then misinterpret what you see Time consuming and sometimes dangerous Uses observation or direct sensory experience to obtain knowledge It snows in Syracuse Evidence based Hands free device does not prevent accidents Chicken soup may cure the common cold Flaws Sometimes we misinterpret what we see or have preconceptions Some phenomena cannot be observed Mythbusters video W Characteristics of Science Empirical D Objective D Public D o Answers are obtained by making observations systematic observations o Observations are structured so that the researcher s biases and beliefs do not influence the outcome of the study Recognize and avoid bias o The scientific method makes observations available for evaluation by others especially other scientists o our observations must be available for others to evaluate use replication repetition of observation The cycle of research and revision W Primary vs Secondary Sources I o Primary Experimental paper peer reviewed As close to the raw data as you can get without contacting the authors TB firsthand report in which the authors describe their own observations empirical journal articles theses and dissertations conference presentations o Secondary Interpretation of someone else s work Often more concise and comprehensible BUT sometimes incorrect TB secondhand report in which the authors discuss someone else s observations books and textbooks that summarize someone else s paper review articles or meta analyses Project ADAM Legos Lab W Structure of a scientific paper I Research Ideas Logical I o It follows from facts or observations Premise 1 Premise 2 Conclusion hypothesis o Provides a rationale or justification for your hypothesis and establishes a connection between your research and the research results that have been obtained by others Testable I o All variables can be measured o Definition Must be possible to observe and measure all of the variables involved Refutable Falsifiable I o Must involve real situations real events and real individuals o Can be proven wrong o Definition must be possible to obtain research results that are contrary to the hypothesis Casual vs Formal Sources I Generating Hypotheses Lab Defining and Measuring Variables Theory D o Statements about the mechanisms underlying a particular behavior o An idea about how the world works o Explanation of scientific and how law works Hypothesis I Construct I o A specific idea about the relation between constructs o Must be testable and refutable o Hypotheses specify the variables to be tested in the research study Testable Refutable I D DONE ABOVE o hypothetical attributes or mechanisms that help explain and predict behavior in a theory o Concepts of interest not directly observable ex stress attention concentration love o hypothetical and intangible o influenced by external stimuli and in turn can influence external behaviors Operational definitions I o procedure for measuring and defining a construct o specifies a measurement procedure a set of operations for measuring