Psychology 111 Chapter 1 What is psychology Why is it tricky There are many levels of analysis and all actions are multiply determined meaning they are produced by many factors making simple explanations very rare Na ve Realism The belief that we see the world precisely as it is Empiricism The premise that knowledge should be acquired through observation Things to watch out for a Confirmation Bias The tendency to seek out evidence that supports a given belief and to deny dismiss or distort evidence that refutes it b Belief Perseverance The tendency to stick to our initial beliefs even when evidence contradicts them c Metaphysical Claims Assertions about the world that cannot be tested scientifically Pseudoscience Claims beliefs or practices which are presented as scientific but do not adhere to the scientific method lack supporting evidence or plausibility and often times are not reliably tested Patternicity perceiving meaningful connections among unrelated and even random phenomena Avoid logical fallacies a Emotional reasoning Using emotions as a guide for evaluating claims b Bandwagon Fallacy Assuming a claim is right because many people believe it c Not me Fallacy Believing you are immune to common errors d Appeal to authority Accepting claims because authority priest coach celebrity endorses it 6 Principles of Scientific Thinking o Ruling out Rival Hypotheses Ask yourself whether you ve excluded other plausible explanations for a finding Large part of this is peer review and follow up experiments o Occam s Razor Should always ask if the explanation offered is the simplest explanation that can account for the data crop circles aliens o Falsifiability Should ask yourself whether it is possible to disprove a given claim and whether its consistent with any conceivable body of evidence Carl Sagan s Dragon in my Garage o Replicability Ask if independent investigators have replicated the findings that support the claim could have been a one time fluke or made up beware of media o Evaluating Extraordinary Claims The more a claim contradicts what we already know the more persuasive evidence there must be before it is accepted o Correlation vs Causation Just because they are related doesn t mean that they caused one another to occur Chapter 2 Research Methods Heuristics Are mental shortcuts that are necessary because of resource limitations brain power they are generally adaptive and serve us well but sometimes lead us to errors in judgment Availability Heuristic Estimating the likelihood of an occurrence based on the ease with which it comes to mind how available it is to our memory External Validity extent to which the findings of a study can be generalized to the real Internal Validity Extent to which cause and effect inferences can be drawn from a given Random Selection Selection of individuals such that every person in the population has an equal chance of being chosen to participate aims to wash out confounding variables Reliability The consistency of a measurement similar measurements in different a Test Retest Reliability Ability of a given method or instrument to produce similar measurements at different times Inter Rater Reliability Ability for a given method or instrument to produce similar measurements for different individuals b Validity The degree to which a method measures what it claims to measure ex a scale world study situations that measures in degrees Fahrenheit Types of Studies o Naturalistic Observation Watching behavior in a real world setting without attempting to manipulate behavior o Case Study The examination of one person or small number of people often over an extended period of time In this researchers can utilize several methods observation experimentation etc or can look at essentially any measure of interest Most famous case studies are Genie and Phineas Gage 2 o Surveys and Self Report Use of questionnaires to assess characteristics such as personality traits mental illness and attitudes Correlational Designs Examining the extent to which variables are associated Correlation can be positive negative or zero Correlation coefficients can range from 1 to 1 Absolute value less than 1 implies non perfect correlation The positive or negative indicates the direction of correlation If r 0 this indicates no correlation I II First Rule of Correlation Correlation DOES NOT imply causation Second Rule A correlates with B therefore either A causes B or B causes A NO C could be a third factor causing or influencing both A and B o Positive Correlations Correlations that are greater than 0 imply a positive relationship ex r 7 As the value of a variable increases the value of the second variable also increases ex The more you study the higher the test grade o Negative Correlations Correlations that are less than 0 imply a negative relationship ex r 7 As the value of one variable increases the value of the other decreases ex the more you drink the night before the test the worse the test grade o Correlation of Zero Implies that there is no relationship between the two variables ex r 0 The value of one variable has no impact on the value of the second variable Don t assume causation always look for outside variables that may influence both variables Correlations The perception of a correlational relationship when none exists ex full moon effect Experimental designs Research design characterized by 1 random assignment of participants to conditions and 2 manipulation of an independent variable this allows for cause and effect inferences Random Assignment randomly sorting participants into groups which cancels out differences between the groups ex age gender etc o Illusory 3 Experimental Group The group of participants who receive the treatment or manipulation Control Group The group that does not receive the treatment Provides a baseline to which experimental group can be compared Blind Participants or participants are unaware of which group experimental or control they are in This eliminates expectations motivations as well as the risk of demand characteristics Double Blind Participants as well as researchers themselves are unaware of which group participants are in Provides the benefits of a blind study in addition to eliminating chance of experimenter bias Experimenter Expectancy Effect Unintentional biasing of outcome of a study as a result of knowing condition assignment Operationalization The process of strictly defining variables into measurable factors The process
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