Exam 1 The science Game 3 non scientific modes of understanding their limits Experience Intuition Tradition Authority Experience what seems to have been true for me in the past Problem confounded doesn t allow systematic comparison Too many things happen once Hard to isolate true cause Intuition what feels like the true answer Problem we are prone to making a of cognitive biases in judgment reasoning We are motivated to find patterns noise Availability Heuristic we tend to think that more memorable phenomena are more likely or more true People seek out info that confirms their original positions People then interpret that info in a belief consistent way People are more critical of evidence that disconfirms their beliefs Tradition Authority what does my culture trusted ppl believe to be true Problem Once our beliefs are formed confirmation biases We are unaware at how extensively our culturally learned assumptions influence our worldview and its facts arranged marriages 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 Any situation or procedure that creates empirical evidence which allows a claim on truth to be verified or falsified Empirical tests must be replicable and verifiable Golden Rule Golden Assumption Rule Scientific claims i e answers must be subject to empirical tests that produce empirical evidence If an object of study exists in nature it is Knowable In other words its 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 Golden Caveat 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 The role of If Then reasoning in Two of the most important words in science are If and Then If Then reasoning enables us to test and refine theories Book calls this the Theory Data cycle If Then reasoning also enables us to take basic findings and apply them to more realistic scenarios Book calls this the Basic Applied cycle If Social Learning Theory is true then what else should be true Theory Testing Multiple levels of analysis Which theory is right Can they both be right My Answer Yes they can We need multiple Levels of Analysis to explain human behavior From the biological up to the socio cultural Its not Nature vs Nurture its both External Validity generalizability degree to which the results of the study generalize to some larger population Do the results from this sample of children apply to all U S children Do the results based on this type of music apply to other types of music W E I R D samples 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 Of the top journals in six sub disciplines of psychology 68 of subjects were from the US and fully 96 from Western industrialized nations Arnett 2008 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 Psychological Construct Any explanatory variable that is not directly observable or tangible Ex Intelligence happiness addiction To study constructs we need to operationalize them Turning abstract constructs into specific measurable instances that are both reliable and valid In other words fluctuations in scores are produced by fluctuations in the construct and not simply by mistake Multiple ways to Operationalize 1 Self Report Verbal responses to Interview or Questionnaire items Subjective well being Pros 1 Easy low cost 2 Large anonymous samples can be quickly studied 3 May be the most appropriate format i e the study of attitudes Cons 1 Open to fabrication social desirability biases memory distortions 2 Lazy or inattentive responding 3 May not be useful for non conscious or non declarative constructs 2 Observational behavioral measures Recording observable behaviors or physical traces of behavior Ex Measuring Happiness via of smiles Ex Counting the number of problems attempted to measure motivation Pros 1 More shielded from respondent bias 2 Can be recorded w less interference less obvious e g chair distance 3 Sometimes most appropriate operationalization e g helping Cons 1 Can be more complicated to collect 2 Maybe experimenters see what they want to see interpretation issues 3 Ethics 3 Physiological Recording biological data believed to be associated with a construct Ex Dopamine Endorphin levels in the brain to measure happiness Ex Blood flow to the reward center nucleus acumbens in an fMRI Pros 1 Hard to consciously control or fake 2 Can be very precise 3 Perceived as more credible Cons 1 Can be expensive time consuming to collect 2 May require technical expertise w machinery procedures 3 May be most sensitive to uncontrollable sources of error 4 Ethics Pragmatism vs Validity trade offs Validity the operationalized measure is actually capturing what it claims to be measuring capturing the whole construct as best and completely and precisely as possible Content Validity Operationalized measure must capture all parts of a defined construct Ex measuring intelligence using SAT Math does not fully capture the construct A measure must capture the whole conceptual definition The ability to reason plan think abstractly comprehend complex ideas learn quickly recognize patterns and retain information Predictive aka Criterion Validity This same new operationalization should predict future outcomes related to happiness like reports of life satisfaction over time Especially important for entrance tests or pre tests Ex The Bar Exam for lawyers Life Insurance Exams SAT Reliability the operationalized measure produces consistent scores when constructs are stable and captures changes when constructs change Test Retest
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