Chapter 1 Psychology Scientific Thinking What is Psychology William James described it as a nasty little subject because it is difficult to study and simple explanations of behavior are few and far between The scientific study of mind brain and behavior Why is it tricky Levels of analysis 1 Social 2 Behavioral 3 Mental 4 Neurological physiological 5 Neurochemical 6 Molecular The lower levels represent the brain and the higher levels represent the mind Two different ways of describing the same material stuff on different levels so the mind is really the brain in action To fully understand psychology one must consider multiple levels of analysis You can start at either the top or bottom level to analyze All actions are multiply determined produced by many factors So be skeptical of single variable explanations of behavior Psychological influences are rarely independent of each other who knows which cause is operating at certain times This makes it hard to pin down a specific cause for behavior Individual differences complicate things Everybody differs in thinking emotions personality culture and behavior Psychological explanations cannot apply for everyone People influence each other Reciprocal Determinism we mutually influence each other s behavior making it difficult to isolate the causes of human behavior Why can t we trust our common sense Basing your entire life on that gut feeling without Na ve Realism the belief that we see the world precisely as is observing analyzing Seeing is believing Psychology as a Science The real definition of science a systematic approach to evidence Science begins with empiricism the premise that knowledge should initially be acquired through observation Scientific Theory an explanation for a large number of findings in the natural world A good theory has a hypothesis Premise a previous statement or proposition from which another is inferred or follows as a conclusion Things to watch out for Confirmation Bias tendency to seek out evidence that supports our beliefs and deny dismiss or distort evidence that contradicts them Belief Perseverance tendency to stick to our original beliefs even when evidence contradicts them 2 Metaphysical Claims assertions about the world that we can t test using the scientific method Ex God magic souls the afterlife Pseudoscience A set of claims that seems scientific but isn t Warning signs of Pseudoscience So why are we drawn to pseudoscience if it isn t correct Our brains are predisposed to make order out of disorder and find sense in nonsense Patternicity perceiving meaningless connections among unrelated phenomena trying to find patterns that may or may not be there seeing meaningful images in meaningless visuals 3 We believe in part because we want to believe or because it gives us comfort Thinking Clearly the antidote to pseudoscience 1 Avoid logical fallacies Emotional reasoning using emotions to evaluate claims Bandwagon assuming because others believe Not me believing you re immune to errors that afflict other Appeal to authority accepting simply because an authority people figure endorses it The 4 Dangers of Pseudoscience 1 Opportunity cost losing out on opportunities to obtain treatment 2 Direct harm trying something out that is inhumane and that works dangerous 3 An inability to think scientifically 4 Preys on people s ignorance and hope The scientific skeptic evaluates all claims with an open mind but insists on persuasive evidence before accepting them The 6 Principles of Scientific Thinking 1 Ruling out rival hypotheses whenever you evaluate a psychological claim ask yourself whether you ve excluded other plausible explanations for it get your results multiple times to solidify your claim 2 Correlation vs Causation correlation is NOT causation Just because two variables are correlated does not necessarily mean one caused the other 4 3 Falsifiability whether or not it is possible to disprove a claim and or whether it is consistent with any conceivable body of evidence For a theory to be meaningful it could be proven wrong if there were certain types of evidence against it Falsifiable capable of being disproved By predicting every possible outcome you haven t really predicted anything 4 Replicability means that a study s findings can be duplicated consistently If they can t be duplicated it increases the odds that the original findings were due to chance 5 Evaluating extraordinary claims the more a claim contradicts what we already know the more evidence this claim needs before it is accepted 6 Occam s Razor if two explanations account equally well for a phenomenon we should generally select the more parsimonious one Used to shave off ridiculously complicated explanations and use the simplest explanation that does a good job Also known as the principle of parsimony Parsimony logical simplicity Types of Psychologists Clinical Psychologist preform assessments conduct research on and teat people with mental disorders Counseling Psychologist works with people experiencing temporary life problems School Psychologist works with teachers students and parents to help students behavioral emotional and learning difficulties Developmental Psychologist study how and why people change overtime Usually conducts research on young children and the elderly 5 Experimental Psychologist uses research methods to study memory language thinking and social behaviors Biological Psychologist examines the physiological bases of behavior in animals and humans Forensic Psychologist works in prisons or jails conducts research on eyewitness testimonies or jury decisions Industrial Organizational Psychologist works in companies and businesses to help select productive employees and examine the different working and living conditions on people s behavior 6
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