PSY- P 211 1st Edition Quiz # 1 Study Guide Lectures: 1 - 6Lecture 1-6Scientists are not fundamentally different than everyone else.• They are trained—they don’t start out knowing more than you do!– They learn how to ask and answer questions scientifically.• Scientists learn not to assume things (think about how terrible people are who assume things).• Essentially, scientists know when they don’t know.– They acknowledge that humans can be illogical and biased, and create methods (e.g. scientific method) to ensure objectivity.– This class will train you how to think better (big promise!)• You each have the skills to become a very good scientist.• #1: We rely on intuition, ‘common sense’, and our subjective experiences•We rely on intuition and “common sense”For example, for many centuries, humans assumed not only that the earth is flat—after all, it sure seems flat when we’re walking on it—but that the sun revolves around the earth. This latter “fact” in particular seemed obvious to virtually everyone. After all, each day the sun paints a huge arc across the sky while we remain planted firmly on the ground. But in this case, observers’ eyes fooled them. As science historian Daniel Boorstin (1983) noted:• “Nothing could be more obvious than that the earth is stable and unmoving, and that we are the center of the universe. Modern Western science takes its beginning from the denial of this commonsense axiom …Common sense, the foundation of everyday life, could no longer serve for the governance of the world.” #2: We imply causation from correlation- We tend to “pick out” correlations that confirm our worldviews (even ignoring strong correlations that do exist).- After that, we tend to attribute cause to one of the variables.Trickier issues…• Video games/music cause violence• Marijuana causes schizophrenia• Vaccines cause autism#3: We search for meaning in the wrong (e.g. superficial) places• For example: evaluating the similarity of two things based on superficial similarities• For example: evaluating the similarity of two things based on superficial similarities (e.g. the ‘teddy bear’ effect: minority group members who don’t ‘look’ threatening are perceived as less threatening to social order.#4: We are often unaware of how we affect what we see - We often think or do things that we are cognitively unaware of actually doing.#5: We latch onto ideas that we want to believe#6: We hold contradictory opinions that make it impossible to be wrong• “Birds of a feather flock together” vs. “opposites attract”.• “Out of sight, out of mind.” vs. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”.#7: Myths can become a self-fulfilling prophecy Believing something is true affects many of the previous six factors:• It causes you to pick out correlations and imply causation• It changes the way you think and act, affecting how the environment changes, as well.Independent variable (the variable that is manipulated):– Pheromone useDependent variable (the change we want to measure): – Amount of datesDid the ‘experiment’ test the dependent variable within the same subject, or between subjects? – Between-subjects (some people received pheromones, others did not)Independent variable: • Type of thoughts induced in participant(either happy or angry)Dependent variable:• Number of times that a happy or angry participant chooses the room with the angry confederate.Type of design: • The manipulated (‘independent’) variable is changed from participant-to-participant, butnot within each participant.• Therefore, it is between-subjects. Prediction(s):• Angry participants will not choose the room with the angry confederate more than happy participants.• Participants won’t choose this room more than any other room, overall.Cognitive biases often go into overdrive when the topic is something emotionally important to you.This week: we learn about how wanting something to be true can lead to harm for the self and others.Confounds Anything that “explains away” your results (i.e. provides a plausible alternative explanation) is a confound. – Faulty equipment– Emotions (e.g. anxiety on test scores)– Your sample is not representative of your population– And many more…Anything that could “explain away” your results—but has not been formally tested yet—is a ‘potential confound’.• E.g. in FC: autistic children being particularly bad at word naming (compared to other cognitive tasks) is a potential confound.You can try to measure the influence of a potential confound by either “controlling” for it experimentally,or statistically controlling for its influence (more advanced topic, for statistics class)• How to experimentally control for a potential confound– Eliminate the confound, if possible.– Manipulate the confound while holding the independent variable at a constant level.– Hold the confound at the same level. while manipulating the independent variableYour gorgeous best friend receives 13 dates requests per night. “I’m pretty sure it’s because of my personality, not my looks”, she claims.You believe that looks matter more than personality. How do you show her?– Eliminate the confound (looks)• Online dating, with no visual appearances allowed– Manipulate the confound, while holding the independent variable constant• Change her appearance (low and high attractiveness), while keeping her personality the same.– Manipulate the independent variable, while holding the confound constant• Change her personality, while keeping her appearance the same.– Placebo origin: “to please”– Definition: positive expectations can increase efficacy of treatment (and negative expectations can decrease efficacy).– Limits: placebos can’t fix everything.– Example: one study involving asthma, people using a placebo inhaler did no better on breathing tests than sitting and doing nothing. But when researchers asked for people's perception of how they felt, the placebo inhaler was reported as being as effective as medicine in providing relief.– Efficacy is dependent on patient’s awareness that the treatment is being administered.Dodo bird effect:Most psychotherapies “work”: more patients improve than get worse.• Success mainly determined by individual differences in therapists (e.g. ‘warmth’, ‘genuineness’) and patients (e.g.