Topic List for Quiz What is scientific and critical thinking o Science is a method that uses observation to uncover truth o Scientific thinking the form of thinking that allows us to evaluate scientific claims not only in the lab but also in everyday life o Critical thinking set of skills for evaluating all claims in an open minded and careful fashion The six principles of scientific thinking o Ruling out rival hypothesis need to rule out the alternative to similar hypothesis Is this the only good explanation for this finding Have we ruled out other important competing explanations Bottom line whenever we evaluate a psychological claim we should ask ourselves whether we ve excluded other plausible explanations for it Have important alternative explanations for the findings been excluded When You re reading the newspaper and come across the headline Study shows depressed people who receive a new medication improve more than equally depressed people who receive nothing How The results of the study could be due to the fact that people who received the medication expected to improve o Correlation vs causation important to remember that correlation does not equal causation because it does not take into account 3rd variables Correlation ISN T causation Bottom line we should remember that a correlation between two things doesn t demonstrate a causal connection between them Can we be sure that A causes B When A researcher finds that people eat more ice cream on days when crimes are committed than when they aren t and concludes that eating ice cream causes crime How Eating ice cream A might not cause crime B both could be due to a third factor C such as higher temperatures o Falsifiability a good scientific theory must be falsifiable It has to be capable of being disproved If a theory isn t falsifiable we can t test it There is no way to prove a theory wrong then that theory is not good Bottom line whenever we evaluate a psychological claim we should ask ourselves where one could in principle disprove it or whether it s consistent with any conceivable body of evidence Can the claim be disproved When A self help book claims that all human beings have an invisible energy field surrounding them that influences their moods and well being How We can t design a study to disprove this claim o Replicability study s findings can be duplicated consistently If you find an effect you should be able to find that effect in other populations Effects should be replicable Bottom line whenever we evaluate a psychological claim we should ask ourselves whether independent investigators have replicated the findings that support this claim otherwise the findings might be a one time only fluke Can the results be duplicated in other studies Very strong relationship between vaccines rates and autism that effect should be able to be found somewhere else and by someone else as well When A magazine article highlights a study that shows people who practice meditation score 50 points higher on an intelligence test than those who don t o Extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence Need matching evidence for any claim Bottom line whenever we evaluate a psychological claim we should as ourselves whether this claim runs counter to many things we know already and if it does whether the evidence is as extraordinary as the claim Is the evidence as strong as the claim When You come across a website that claims that a monster like Bigfoot has been living in the American Northwest for decades without being discovered by researchers How We should be skeptical if no other scientific studies have reported the same findings Bigger probability that the results were just by chance if they aren t replicable o Occam raiser If everything else is equal the simplest solution is the best Simplicity is key Bottom line whenever we evaluate a psychological claim we should ask ourselves whether the explanation offered is the simplest explanation that accounts for the data or whether simpler explanations can account for the data equally well Does a simpler explanation fit the data just as well When Your friend who has poor vision claims that he spotted a UFO while attending a Frisbee tournament How It is more likely that your friend s report is due to a simpler explanation his mistaking a Frisbee for a UFO than to alien visitation Correlation vs causation as well as replicability o Correlation is NOT causation it cannot eliminate 3rd variables Fallacy error of assuming that because one thing is associated with another it must cause the other Psychological measures Importance of describing and evaluating them Reliability and validity as important criteria determine variables o Measures something that u derives variables from The outcomes of the measures o Reliability consistency you can expect the same thing every time Need to get the same thing every time You can do things like test and retest reliabilities where you do the test multiple times and expect to get the same result each time With different types of these procedures you can see how precise they really are o Validity established whether the results obtained meet all of the requirements of the scientific research method accuracy o Generalizability does the results of the study apply to people outside of the study o Third variables C causes both A and B can lead us to conclude mistakenly that A and B is casually related to each other when they re not o How do you know if a measure is valid o Operational definition a working definition of what a researcher is measuring Ex an investigator who wants to measure the effects of a novel psychotherapy on chronic worrying could operationally define her dependent measure as Worrying more than 2 hours per day for 4 consecutive weeks What predicts whether or not a kid is a bully Need to define what a bully is maybe ones who take advantage of others emotional component lack empathy Correlation How do you interpret a correlation coefficient including direction and strength Alternative causal explanations for a correlation o Correlation design psychologists examine the extent to which two variables are associated o Correlations can be positive zero or negative o Positive increasing in both directions as x increases y increases or a decrease in x causes a decrease in y As weight increases height increases As studying increases grades increases o Negative decreasing in one direction and increasing in the other as x increases y decreases or
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