Psychology February 10 2014 Chapter 1 Thinking Critically with Psychological Science Need for Psychological Science the grandmother test we have sayings of advice from grandma catch phrases about how behavior and how you should behave o don t count your chickens before they hatch don t assume things before they happen o don t judge a book by its cover don t make assumptions about someone based on physical appearance without knowing them o two wrong don t make a right if someone does bad you shouldn t do something in retaliation o absence makes the heart grow fonder if you miss someone that you ll miss them even more o out of sight out of mind contradicts that o opposites attract versus birds of a feather flock together contradictory potential problems relying on intuition and common sense gut feeling might say absence makes the heart grow fonder but the research doesn t support the common sense hindsight bias overconfidence perception of patterns in random events Hindsight Bias the tendency to believe after learning an outcome that one would have foreseen it I knew it all along after the game is over I knew it all along of course they were going to win We should be predicting rather than explaining Sometimes intuition is wrong Example higher amounts of sleep lead to greater academic achievement Why this happens o More relaxed so you can focus o You re rested and can concentrate o Improves your memory remembers information better o REM sleep o More energy and can focus in class results lower amounts of sleep lead to greater academic achievement Why o Studying more problem can explain both things if you try hard enough can come up with an explanation for both results but should be looking to make a recommendation to incoming freshman Overconfidence We think we know more than we do o Danger when studying for an exam under this assumption you assume you know the info and you don t study that much so you re going through your textbook and saying I know that I know that but how well do you actually know it Do you When shown that they aren t accurate participants explain away know it really well the results o So confident that Denver was going to win Superbowl and when proved wrong you say they would have won if they weren t playing in the Meadowlands if the offensive line was worth more you have all these excuses and ifs Perceiving Order in Random Events You perceive order where there is none Random series of events burn pattern on toast that looks like Jesus you want to see the face there you impose order on it you don t want to impose order that isn t truly there The Scientific Attitude 3 main components o 1 Curiosity willingness to go against the norm you don t make discoveries if you just go with the flow Columbus went against the norm and discovered that the earth was round o 2 Skepticism have your doubts about something don t just accept things demand evidence for something memories are created during sleep demand evidence o 3 Humility awareness of vulnerability to error and openness to new perspectives your findings might not relate to everyone your prone to errors just like everyone else Let the data information guide you collect the data and let the data speak for itself The rate is always right If mouse can learn its way through a maze don t push rat around just let it run let it do its thing Critical Thinking thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions Examine assumptions Discern hidden values people presenting info what are they getting out of this What reason are they presenting the info to o If there s an advertisement there is a value for doing it o They might present facts and numbers and data asking is this good info Who collected the data and how did they do you Evaluate evidence it Assess conclusions o Do they match up with data is suggesting to you BP commercials for fixing oil spill Assumptions people are frustrated about what happened but they don t come out and say that they jump into it and starting at assumption that people are looking at their company critically They are trying to regain their company s image hidden value o Great and responsible company they are trying to convince you because they want profits by saving their image Gulf s tourism is the best its been in years evidence but where did this evidence come from and what does years mean Asking Answering Psychological Questions The Scientific Method Theory an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events o Evolution a theory its an idea about how diversity has come about and how we evolved through time Darwin survival of the fittest natural selection being able to survive to reproduce ability to adapt to environment as an organism and species as a whole polar bears are fit suited for cold weather to explain how organisms adapt and evolve over time group of guiding principles Darwin didn t need to come up with a theory how humans got to be humans dog got to be dogs plants got to be plants it was 1 set that applied to all organisms genetic mutations adaptation survival of the fittest explain how EVERY organism got to be what it is o More global Hypotheses testable predictions about expectations about what s going to happen under certain circumstances o More individual just one 1 observation 1 prediction 1 experiment o Allow us to show support for revise or reject a theory o NEVER proves a theory just lends support for it o Be carful of confirmation bias tendency to look for evidence that supports what we already believe All swans are white can t just look in Delaware immediate area you need to look all over the place white swans in Delaware so that supports the theory but it doesn t prove theory because that s only 1 small population of the entire population of swans and you can t account for all variation and you haven t looked everywhere when you find another colored swan you can immediately reject it Operational definitions a statement of the procedures used to define research variables o How did you come up with research variables defining them o Potential research questions sleep on academic achievement academic achievement is a weird construct its not measurable put on a scale you can measure it with GPA test scores exam scores dean s list SAT scores it s all different how you define your research variable o What is personality what does it mean to remember something Replicate and expand don t suspicion o Should
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