Critical and Scientific Thinking in Psychology chapter 1

Critical Thinking Define What are Critical Thinkers able to do? What is it not? Why is Critical Thinking fundamental to science?

8 Essential Guidelines to Critical Thinking

Ask Questions; Be Willing to Wonder Explain

Define Your Terms Explain For scientists? Hypothesis-Define Operational Definition- Define

Examine the Evidence Explain What must a claim be backed with? Give and Explain Autism Example

Analyze Assumptions and Biases Explain What do researchers do with their own assumptions? Principle of Falsifiability- Define –How else would you say it?

Avoid Emotional Reasoning Explain

Don’t Oversimplify Explain Argument of Anecdote- Define –Ex What do Critical Thinkers want?

Consider other Interpretations Explain Theory- Define What do Critical Thinkers do before settling on an explanation?

Tolerate Uncertainty Explain Sometimes-1) 2) What happens in science? What does this not mean?

What is true Critical Thinking according to Richard W. Paul?

Descriptive Studies: Establishing the Facts

Descriptive Methods- Def

Case Studies Define- May include? Used by? Illustrates? Drawbacks?

Observational Studies Define Naturalistic- Define –Pros –Cons Laboratory- Define –Pros –Cons

Psychological Tests Define –Objective Tests- Define AKA –Projective Tests- Define Used For?

Standardized- Define Norms- Define –How to develop norms?

Reliable- Define Valid- Define –How is it measured? Criticism of Tests

Surveys Define Representative Sample- Define –What’s the problem? –People don’t realize? –Volunteer Bias- Define –Another Problem? –What might questions reflect?

Correlational Studies: Looking for Relationships

Correlational Study- Define

Measuring Correlations Correlation- Def Variables- Def

Positive Correlations- Define –Examples Negative Correlations- Define –Example Uncorrelated- Define –Examples

Coefficient of Correlation- Define –Perfect Positive –Perfect Negative –No Association

Cautions about Correlations Important to Remember? –Stork Example –Children and TV example? Moral of the story?

The Experiment: Hunting For Causes

Experiment- Define –Informed Consent- Define –APA treatment of Animals?

Experimental Variables Explain the Smoking Experiment? Independent Variable- Define Dependent Variable- Define Ideally? Ensures?

Experimental and Control Conditions Control Conditions- Define Control in smoking experiment? Experimental in smoking experiment? Random Assignment- Define Placebo- Define –In smoking experiment? Explain Divorced Parents Study –Findings –Flaws

Experimenter Effects Single-Blind Study- Define Experimenter Effect- Define Double-Blind Study- Define –How would this be done in smoking experiment?

Advantages and Limitations of Experiments Limitations? Field Research- Define –Example

Evaluating the Findings

What needs to be done once you have the results –1) –2) –3)

Why Psychologists Use Statistics First step? Descriptive Statistics- Define Arithmetic Mean- Define –Be careful? Standard Deviation- Define Inferential Statistics- Define Significance Tests- Define –Smoking Experiment

From Laboratory to Real Life Choosing the Best Explanation-Explain –Sometimes the best interpretation emerges? –Cross-Sectional Study- Define –Longitudinal Study- Define

From Laboratory to Real Life Con’t Judging the Result’s Importance- Explain –Meta-Analysis- Define What does it tell researchers?