Chapter 1 Thinking Critically with Psychological Science:Need for Psychological Science--the “grandmother” testwe have sayings of advice from grandma—catch phrases about how behavior and how you should behavedon’t count your chickens before they hatch- don’t assume things before they happendon’t judge a book by its cover- don’t make assumptions about someone based on physical appearance without knowing themtwo wrong don’t make a right- if someone does bad, you shouldn’t do something in retaliation***absence makes the heart grow fonder- if you miss someone, that you’ll miss them even more***out of sight, out of mind-contradicts that^^^***opposites attract versus birds of a feather flock togethercontradictory!!-potential problems relying on intuition and common sensegut 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 eventsHindsight 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 winWe should be predicting rather than explainingSometimes intuition is wrongExample: higher amounts of sleep lead to greater academic achievementWhy this happens?More relaxed so you can focusYou’re rested and can concentrateImproves your memory-remembers information betterREM sleepMore energy and can focus in class- results: lower amounts of sleep lead to greater academic achievementWhy??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 freshmanOverconfidence:We think we know more than we doDanger 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 know it really well?When shown that they aren’t accurate, participants explain away the resultsSo 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 noneRandom 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 thereThe Scientific Attitude3 main components1. 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 round2. Skepticism- have your doubts about something- don’t just accept things- demand evidence for something- memories are created during sleep=demand evidence3. Humility- awareness of vulnerability to error and openness to new perspectivesyour findings might not relate to everyoneyour prone to errors just like everyone else***Let the data /information guide youcollect 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 thingCritical Thinking- thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusionsExamine assumptionsDiscern hidden values-people presenting info, what are they getting out of this? What reason are they presenting the info to you?If there’s an advertisement, there is a value for doing itEvaluate evidenceThey might present facts and numbers and data- asking, is this good info? Who collected the data and how did they do it?Assess conclusionsDo 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 criticallyThey are trying to regain their company’s image= hidden valueGreat and responsible company- they are trying to convince you because they want profits by saving their imageGulf’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.Evolution= a theory- its an idea about how diversity has come about and how we evolved through timeDarwin- 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 isMore global!!Hypotheses- testable predictions-about expectations about what’s going to happen under certain circumstancesMore individual, just one 1 observation, 1 prediction, 1 experiment**Allow us to show support for, revise, or reject a theoryNEVER proves a theory, just lends support for itBe carful of confirmation bias-tendency to look for evidence that supports what we already believeAll 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 variablesHow did you come up with research variables/ defining themPotential 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 variableWhat is