CRITICAL THINKING. Hindsight Bias Also known as “I- Knew-It-All-Along” Phenomenon Tendency to believe, after learning the outcome, that we knew.

CRITICAL THINKING

Hindsight BiasAlso known as “I-

Knew-It-All-Along” PhenomenonTendency to believe, after learning the outcome, that we knew it all along

PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE

Overconfidence contaminates our everyday judgmentsLimited by the tendency to think we know more than we do Usually more

confident than correct

Political Elections?

OVERCONFIDENCE

Scientific AttitudeHard-headed curiosity to explore and understand the world w/out being fooled by it

Critical ThinkingTest assumptionsDiscern hidden valuesEvaluate EvidenceAssess Conclusions

SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDE

Theory: effectively organizes a wide range of observations in implies testable predictions or hypotheses What results confirm or

disconfirm our theoryPsychologists report

results with CLEAR operational definitions Thus allows others to

test the theory

PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

Case StudyThe analysis of one or more individuals in great depth

Hope: Revelation of things true in all of us

Problem: Any given subject may be atypical

Result: Case becomes misleading

CASE STUDIES VS. SURVEYS VS. NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION

Survey Looks at many cases

less in depth Hope: Results will

show a consensus Problem: Biased

sample of people who share our attitudes and habits (Polls)

Result: Vulnerable to false consensus effect (we overestimate agreement with us

CON’T

Naturalistic Observation Observing and recording

behavior of organism in their natural habitat

Hope: description of behavior will lead to reasononing

Problem: describes behavior but does not explain it

Result: No cause of behavior can be determined

CON’T

Correlation Coeffi cientA statistical measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus how well either factor predicts the other

CORRELATIONS

CORRELATION CON’T

Correlation coefficient

Indicates directionof relationship

(positive or negative)

r = +.37

Indicates strengthof relationship(0.00 to 1.00)

Scatterplots a graphed cluster of dots,

each of which represents the values of two variables

the slope of the points suggests the direction of the relationship

the amount of scatter suggests the strength of the correlation little scatter indicates high

correlation also called a scattergram

or scatter diagram

CORRELATION CON’T

SHOWING PATTERNS OF CORRELATIONS

Perfect positivecorrelation (+1.00)

No relationship (0.00) Perfect negativecorrelation (-1.00)

CORRELATION CON’T

Height and Temperament of 20 Men

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11121314151617181920

80636179746962757760

64767166737063716870

75666090604242608139

48697257637530578439

SubjectHeight in

Inches Temperament SubjectHeight in

Inches Temperament

CORRELATION

959085807570656055504540353025

Temperamentscores

Height in inches

Illusory Correlation the perception of a relationship where none exists

ILLUSORY CORRELATION

ExperimentResearch method in which the investigator manipulates one or more variables Observe their effect

on some behavior or mental process

EXPERIMENTATION

Experimental Condition the condition of an

experiment that exposes participants to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable

Control Condition the condition of an

experiment that contrasts with the experimental treatment

serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment

EXPERIMENTATION CON’T

Placebo an inert substance or

condition that may be administered instead of a presumed active agent, such as a drug, to see if it triggers the effects believed to characterize the active agent

Double-blind Procedure Research participants and

staff are ignorant (blind) about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo

commonly used in drug-evaluation studies

EXPERIMENTATION CON’T

Random Assignmentassigning participants to experimental and control conditions by chance

minimizes pre-existing differences between those assigned to the different groups

EXPERIMENTATION CON’T

Independent Variable the experimental factor

that is manipulated the variable whose effect

is being studied Dependent Variable

the experimental factor that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable

in psychology it is usually a behavior or mental process

EXPERIMENTATION CON’T

Mode the most frequently occurring

score in a distribution Mean

the arithmetic average of a distribution

obtained by adding the scores and then dividing by the number of scores

Median the middle score in a

distribution half the scores are above it

and half are below it Range

The diff erence between highest and lowest scores in a distribution

STATISTICAL REASONING

Standard Deviationa computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean

Statistical Significancea statistical statement of how likely it is that an obtained result occurred by chance

STATISTICAL REASONING CON’T

Can laboratory experiments illuminate

everyday life?

QUESTION #1

Does behavior vary with gender?

QUESTION #2

Is psychology free of value judgments?

QUESTION #3

Is it Ethical to experiment on animals?

Is it Ethical to experiment on Humans?

QUESTION 4 & 5

Is psychology potentially dangerous?

QUESTION #6