Overview of Exam 1 A 35 to 45 Multiple Choice Questions B Should take roughly 45 minutes to complete but you have the full 1hr30min and I ll stay longer too time is not an issue C Roughly 65 about research design concepts 35 about statistics interpreting SPSS output Stats questions will be very similar to what was asked of you in lab except answered in multiple choice format D Questions will be based primarily on information in the lecture slides in class lecture For studying purposes the readings are probably best used as a reference when something from your notes or the slides is unclear or to buttress your understanding of the material If a topic or term is not on the outline below it will NOT be on the exam I will write the two z score formula s on the board and hand out z tables on test day E F Topic Outline for Exam 1 The Science Game The Cycle of Scientific Progress Ch 1 Ch 2 Ch 3 5 16 lecture The Science Game The Cycle of Scientific Progress The primary goal of scientific inquiry is to arrive at an understanding of reality that is true Scientific claims i e answers must be subject to empirical tests that produce empirical evidence 3 non scientific modes of understanding their limits 1 We can consult our Experience What seems to have been true for me in the past Experience is Confounded Too many things happening at once Experience does not allow systematic comparison We can t test alternatives 2 We can consult Intuition What feels like the true answer We are prone to cognitive biases in judgment and reasoning Ex Patternicity aka the present present bias We are motivated to find meaningful patterns in meaningful AND meaningless noise Ex Shermer s 2012 example The rustle in the trees Personal Example My Bulgarian fortune teller Ex The availability heuristic more likely or true Ex Rank these causes of death in terms of We tend to think that more memorable phenomena are Once our beliefs are formed they tend to be reinforced through Confirmation Biases People seek out info that confirms their original positions Ex Seeking out info on Gun Control Abortion Taber Lodge 2005 People then interpret that info in a belief consistent way What does he really believe LaMarre et al 2009 Ex Stephen Colbert Study People are more critical of evidence that disconfirms their beliefs Capital Punishment as a deterrent Lord Ross Lepper 1979frequency Homicide Suicide Flu Heart Disease The Effectiveness of 3 We can consult Tradition Authority What does my culture believe to be true What do trusted and knowledgeable people claim to be true Authorities themselves may be just as prone to these biases Normative beliefs have social consequences Sometimes we are unaware at how extensively our culturally learned assumptions influence our worldview and its facts Ex The cases of arranged marriages co sleeping Empirical evidence an observation or measurement that contributes to either verifying or falsifying a claim about what s true independent of the observer i e objective The evidence will be the same no matter who observes it Empirical testing verified or falsified Empirical tests must be replicable and verifiable Any situation or procedure that creates empirical evidence which allows a claim on truth to be Falsifiability is the trait of a statement hypothesis or theory whereby it could be shown to be false if some conceivable observation were true In this sense falsify is synonymous with nullify meaning not to commit fraud but show to be false Replication is the ability of an entire experiment or study to be reproduced either by the researcher or by someone else working independently Golden Rule Golden Assumption If an object of study exists in nature it is Knowable In other words it s possible to fully DESCRIBE and EXPLAIN even highly complex things like brains beliefs time and romantic relationships The Object of Study is Lawful If we could perfectly control all of the input variables we could perfectly PREDICT and CONTROL the outcome The findings of our science are conditional and probabilistic In other words we discover the conditions under which phenomena tend to occur for the majority of people There will always be exceptions to our findings because there are always conditions or variables we can t control for Golden Caveat The Cycle of Scientific Progress Theory Data cycles or If Then Reasoning If Then reasoning enables us to test and refine theories Basic Applied Cycle realistic scenarios If Then reasoning also enables us to take basic findings and apply them to more External Validity generalizability subjects were from the US and fully 96 from Western industrialized nations Arnett 2008 Of the top journals in six sub disciplines of psychology 68 of That works out to a 96 concentration on 12 of the world s population Henrich et al 2010 63 Moreover psychology is disproportionately American 70 of all psych citations originate from US research institutions compared with 37 in a field like chemistry The top four countries for psychology citations are all English speaking We may be the W E I R D est culture in history Henrich Heine Norenzayan 2010 W E I R D Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic Individual s from W E I R D cultures represent a historical anomaly and act like outliers in cross cultural research more often than we might expect Operationalizing Measures Ch 5 5 21 lecture Psychological construct Any explanatory variable that is not directly observable or tangible Ex Intelligence happiness addiction Operationalized definitions Turning abstract constructs into specific measurable instances that are both reliable and valid The Challenge Pragmatism vs Validity Multiple ways to Operationalize psychological constructs Self Report Measures Scale Pros Verbal responses to Interview or Questionnaire items Ex Subjective Well Being Easy low cost large anonymous samples can be quickly studied may be the most appropriate format i e the study of attitudes Open to fabrication social desirability biases memory distortions Lazy or inattentive responding may not be useful for non conscious or non declarative constructs Observational Measures behavior Ex Measuring Happiness via of smiles Ex Counting the number of problems attempted to measure motivation Recording observable behaviors or physical traces of aka Behavioral Measures More shielded from respondent bias can be recorded w less interference less obvious e g chair distance sometimes most appropriate operationalization e g helping Can be more
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