1. CRITICAL THINKING- MOD 2.
Empiricism and Skepticism

2. Mod 2 – Thinking Critically with Psychological Science

3. Remove six letters to reveal a common word or phrase
S B I A X L N E T A T N E R A S

4. THINKING
You are in a room that has 3 switches. Each is wired to a light bulb contained in another room separated by a solid wall with a door. You may flip as many switches on and off as many times as you want to, but can only can go into the room with the bulbs once. How do you determine which switch controls each bulb?

5. THINKING
You turn on one switch and wait 2 full minutes, then turn on another one. Now only one switch is in the off position. Immediately walk into the room that has the light bulbs. The bulb that is off is controlled by the one switch that is off. Of the two that are on, one is hot to the touch and the other is cool, so you can determine which one was turned on 2 minutes later than the other one.

6. Limits of Intuition If I put a penny in the glass will it overflow?
How many pennies do you think I can add without having any water flow over the edge?
How is this counterintuitive?
Water has a high surface tension – a flexible skin.

7. Hindsight Bias
Hindsight Bias is the “I-knew-it-all-along” phenomenon. After learning the outcome of an event, many people believe they could have predicted that very outcome. This makes you accept conclusions that seem like they could be true without observation and experimentation. (Empiricism)
OBJECTIVE 1| Describe hindsight bias and explain how it can make research findings seem like mere common sense.
“Anything seems commonplace, once explained.” Dr. Watson to Sherlock Holmes.
Two phenomena – hindsight bias and judgmental overconfidence – illustrate why we cannot rely solely on intuition and common sense.

8. Overconfidence
Sometimes we think we know more than we actually know.
Anagram
How long do you think it would take to unscramble these anagrams?
WREAT
WATER
ETYRN
ENTRY
OBJECTIVE 2| Describe how overconfidence contaminates our everyday judgments.
People said it would take about 10 seconds, yet on average they took about 3 minutes (Goranson, 1978).
GRABE
BARGE

9. EXPOSED Critical Thinking
Critical thinking does not accept arguments and conclusions blindly.
It examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence and assesses conclusions.
Courtesy of the James Randi Education Foundation
EXPOSED
The Amazing James Randi

10. David Copperfield
How did he do it?

11. Conducting Psychology Experiments
Most psychology experiments are designed in much the same way as experiments in other scientific disciplines, such as chemistry or biology. Researchers follow the scientific method by using the processes illustrated on the following slides.

12. = Hypothesis Scientific method Hypothesis formulation
Most psychology experiments are designed in much the same way as experiments in other scientific disciplines, such as chemistry or biology. Researchers follow the scientific method by using these processes:
Hypothesis formulation: An experiment serves to test a hypothesis (a statement making a prediction about something). For example, a hypothesis might be “Children who watch scary movies are more likely to have nightmares than are children who don’t watch scary movies.” The researchers don’t yet know whether this statement is true, but they’ll test it in their experiment. In order to test a hypothesis, it must be falsifiable, which means it must be written in a way that someone could possibly prove it to be untrue.

13. Operationalization Independent variable Dependent variable
Operationalization: to put an experiment into a form that allows researchers to test the hypothesis
Independent variable: the variable that researchers control
Dependent variable: the variable that researchers are studying
What other questions should the researchers ask?
Operationalization: Researchers put the experiment into a format that allows them to actually test the hypothesis. They apply operational definitions to the concepts in the hypothesis, which means that they figure out how to measure the things the hypothesis predicts. In the example mentioned previously, researchers would have to define “scary movie” then figure out how to show the movies to the children, how often to show the movies, and how to measure whether the children have nightmares, among other things.
One step in the operationalization process involves determining the independent and dependent variables:
The independent variable is the thing that is manipulated, or changed. In the example mentioned previously, the independent variable is the movies. The researchers will manipulate the number, frequency, and type of movie they show the children.
The dependent variable is the behavior that the researchers are studying and that, if the hypothesis is correct, will change when the independent variable is manipulated. In the scary movie example, the dependent variable is the children’s nightmares.
Other questions arise in the operationalization stage of this and all other psychology experiments. Researchers must deal with these questions in order to ensure a solid experiment. Can you think of some questions researchers should ask themselves before beginning the experiment about scary movies and nightmares?
Independent variable
Dependent variable

14. Operationalization SCARY = ? Confounding variables Reliability
Validity
SCARY
= ?
The experiment testing whether children who watch scary movies have more nightmares than other children is actually more complicated than it seems. There are many possible variables that could confound (confuse) the experiment results. For example:
How can we make sure the children’s nightmares aren’t caused by factors other than scary movies?
How can we determine what makes a movie scary? Couldn’t some children find a movie very scary while other children find it neutral or even funny?
How can we know for sure whether a child has had a nightmare and how many nightmares he or she has had? And how do we define “nightmare,” anyway?
Try to think of other factors that might complicate this experiment. Experimental psychologists must do this in order to ensure that experiments are reliable (i.e., they can be performed over and over and always produce the same results) and valid (they actually measure what they set out to measure).
What makes a movie scary?
How can we tell if a child has had a nightmare?
What else might cause nightmares?

15. Experimenting, Recording Results, Conclusion
Conducting the experiment
Recording the results
After researchers have set up an experiment and considered all the potential problems with the experiment’s design, they conduct the experiment and record the results. They then analyze the results to see if their data support the hypothesis and to draw conclusions about what the data show.
Researchers may find that there is a correlation, or relationship, between the independent and the dependent variables. For example, they may find that children who watch scary movies indeed have more nightmares than children who don’t watch scary movies. In this case, the results would support the hypothesis.
Think about this conclusion. Does this mean that the scary movies cause the children to have nightmares?
Drawing conclusions
does cause

16. Correlation vs. Causation
Correlation versus causation: just because two things are related doesn’t mean one thing caused the other
Just because
happened and then
happened
A correlation, or relationship, between the independent and the dependent variables (scary movies and children’s nightmares) does not necessarily mean that the independent variable (scary movie) causes the dependent variable (nightmares) to happen. What if children who tend to have nightmares also tend to be more scared in general, not only by movies but also by other things? Or what if their nightmares make them more interested in watching scary movies? You can see how it can be very difficult to determine what causes something to happen; this is especially true in psychology experiments.
(Note to teacher: Since “correlation” has a formal meaning in statistics, you may want to take some time here to discuss the importance of statistics in psychological research and to explain some basic terms like median/mean/mode, variability and standard deviation, etc).
doesn’t necessarily mean that
caused

17. Replication and Theory Development=
Replication
Theory development
Experiment 1 results =
Experiment 2 results =
Experiment 3 results
If the experiment results support the hypothesis, the experimenters or other psychologists may try to conduct the experiment again to see if it can be replicated (that is, to see if the results are the same the next time). After many successful replications of an experiment, and many other experiments that support similar hypotheses, psychologists may develop a theory that describes their best idea about how something works. =
THEORY:

18. Research Process

19. Theory
A Theory is an explanation that integrates principles and organizes and predicts behavior or events. For example, low self-esteem contributes to depression.
If we were to observe that depressed people talk about their past, present, and future in a gloomy manner, we may theorize that low-self-esteem contributes to depression.

20. Conducting Psychology Experiments
Most psychology experiments are designed in much the same way as experiments in other scientific disciplines, such as chemistry or biology. Researchers follow the scientific method by using the processes illustrated on the following slides.

21. = Hypothesis Scientific method Hypothesis formulation
Most psychology experiments are designed in much the same way as experiments in other scientific disciplines, such as chemistry or biology. Researchers follow the scientific method by using these processes:
Hypothesis formulation: An experiment serves to test a hypothesis (a statement making a prediction about something). For example, a hypothesis might be “Children who watch scary movies are more likely to have nightmares than are children who don’t watch scary movies.” The researchers don’t yet know whether this statement is true, but they’ll test it in their experiment. In order to test a hypothesis, it must be falsifiable, which means it must be written in a way that someone could possibly prove it to be untrue.

22. Operationalization
Operationalization: to put an experiment into a form that allows researchers to test the hypothesis
Independent variable: the variable that researchers control
Dependent variable: the variable that researchers are studying
What other questions should the researchers ask?
Operationalization: Researchers put the experiment into a format that allows them to actually test the hypothesis. They apply operational definitions to the concepts in the hypothesis, which means that they figure out how to measure the things the hypothesis predicts. In the example mentioned previously, researchers would have to define “scary movie” then figure out how to show the movies to the children, how often to show the movies, and how to measure whether the children have nightmares, among other things.
One step in the operationalization process involves determining the independent and dependent variables:
The independent variable is the thing that is manipulated, or changed. In the example mentioned previously, the independent variable is the movies. The researchers will manipulate the number, frequency, and type of movie they show the children.
The dependent variable is the behavior that the researchers are studying and that, if the hypothesis is correct, will change when the independent variable is manipulated. In the scary movie example, the dependent variable is the children’s nightmares.
Other questions arise in the operationalization stage of this and all other psychology experiments. Researchers must deal with these questions in order to ensure a solid experiment. Can you think of some questions researchers should ask themselves before beginning the experiment about scary movies and nightmares?
Independent variable
Dependent variable

23. Operationalization SCARY = ? Confounding variables Reliability
Validity
SCARY
= ?
The experiment testing whether children who watch scary movies have more nightmares than other children is actually more complicated than it seems. There are many possible variables that could confound (confuse) the experiment results. For example:
How can we make sure the children’s nightmares aren’t caused by factors other than scary movies?
How can we determine what makes a movie scary? Couldn’t some children find a movie very scary while other children find it neutral or even funny?
How can we know for sure whether a child has had a nightmare and how many nightmares he or she has had? And how do we define “nightmare,” anyway?
Try to think of other factors that might complicate this experiment. Experimental psychologists must do this in order to ensure that experiments are reliable (i.e., they can be performed over and over and always produce the same results) and valid (they actually measure what they set out to measure).
What makes a movie scary?
How can we tell if a child has had a nightmare?
What else might cause nightmares?

24. Experimenting, Recording Results, Conclusion
Conducting the experiment
Recording the results
After researchers have set up an experiment and considered all the potential problems with the experiment’s design, they conduct the experiment and record the results. They then analyze the results to see if their data support the hypothesis and to draw conclusions about what the data show.
Researchers may find that there is a correlation, or relationship, between the independent and the dependent variables. For example, they may find that children who watch scary movies indeed have more nightmares than children who don’t watch scary movies. In this case, the results would support the hypothesis.
Think about this conclusion. Does this mean that the scary movies cause the children to have nightmares?
Drawing conclusions
does cause

25. Correlation vs. Causation
Correlation versus causation: just because two things are related doesn’t mean one thing caused the other
Just because
happened and then
happened
A correlation, or relationship, between the independent and the dependent variables (scary movies and children’s nightmares) does not necessarily mean that the independent variable (scary movie) causes the dependent variable (nightmares) to happen. What if children who tend to have nightmares also tend to be more scared in general, not only by movies but also by other things? Or what if their nightmares make them more interested in watching scary movies? You can see how it can be very difficult to determine what causes something to happen; this is especially true in psychology experiments.
(Note to teacher: Since “correlation” has a formal meaning in statistics, you may want to take some time here to discuss the importance of statistics in psychological research and to explain some basic terms like median/mean/mode, variability and standard deviation, etc).
doesn’t necessarily mean that
caused

26. Replication and Theory Development=
Replication
Theory development
Experiment 1 results =
Experiment 2 results =
Experiment 3 results
If the experiment results support the hypothesis, the experimenters or other psychologists may try to conduct the experiment again to see if it can be replicated (that is, to see if the results are the same the next time). After many successful replications of an experiment, and many other experiments that support similar hypotheses, psychologists may develop a theory that describes their best idea about how something works. =
THEORY:

27. Research Process

28. Theory
A Theory is an explanation that integrates principles and organizes and predicts behavior or events. For example, low self-esteem contributes to depression.
If we were to observe that depressed people talk about their past, present, and future in a gloomy manner, we may theorize that low-self-esteem contributes to depression.