1. Thinking Critically With Psychological Science
Chapter One
Thinking Critically With
Psychological Science 1

2. Intuition An effortless, immediate, unreasoned sense of truth
David Myers- author of our text said “Instinct has the power to hush reason. But when is it safe to go with your gut? Researchers may remain uncertain about the reliability of intuition, but it is a difficult force to deny.”

3. Pitfalls of in thinking that make intuition and common sense untrustworthy: Hindsight bias and overconfidence
Hindsight Bias: the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it.
Have you ever watched Jeopardy with someone, and after the answer is given that person says "I knew that one" or "That was an easy one"?
Take Ken Jennings…he won 2.5 Million on Jeopardy…but he did have this blooper…

4. Overconfidence is the tendency to think we know more about an issue than we actually do and to overestimate the accuracy of that knowledge.
For example, for certain types of questions, answers that people rate as "99% certain" turn out to be wrong 40% of the time

5. Scientific Attitude
Is being willing to accept only carefully and objectively verified facts, and to hold a single fact above the authority of the oldest theories. Nothing can be called scientific that is not based on such an attitude.
The guide to a scientific attitude is Curiosity, Skepticism, and Humility.

6. Critical Thinking
Thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions. Rather it assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions.
Such examples given by the text:
Massive losses of brain tissue early in life may have minimal long term effects.

7. Scientific Method
Theory- explains a set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events.
Hypotheses- Educated Guess- the testable predictions often implied by a theory.
Bias-Particular belief that restrains openness of the scientific method outcomes
Operational definition- statement of the procedures used to define research variables. (What is the measure of say…anger? Or what is the independent variable or dependent variable)

8. Scientific Method
Replication-repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situations, to see whether the basic finding extends to other participants and circumstances.

9. What is the importance of theories in Psychology?
Because they are trying to Explain, Organize, and Predict Behavior of the events under the study/research!

10. The Good Theory has two elements:
Organizing and linking observed facts
Implying hypotheses that offer testable predictions and sometimes practical applications.

11. Research Goals Descriptive Approach to Research-
observe, measure, describe.
An example:
An opinion poll to determine which Presidential candidate people plan to vote for in the next election.
Descriptive studies do not seek to measure the effect of a variable; they seek only to describe.

12. Research Goals Correlational Approach to Research-
two different types of behavior and evaluate the relationship between them.
Example:
a study that looked at the proportion of males and females that would purchase either a classical CD or a jazz CD would be studying the relationship between gender and music preference.

13. Research Goals
Experimental Approach to Research- investigate cause and effect relationships by manipulating one aspect of the aspect that is thought to produce a change in that particular behavior.
When using experimental research scientists usually, but not always, conducted in a laboratory. The laboratory environment allows the experimenter to make controlled observations using the steps of the scientific method.

14. Example of Experimental Research
1. Theory or research Question- The study is about whether certain environmental conditions improve or adversely affect motor performance.
2. The investigator might give operational definitions to the environmental condition of interest as “background music” and the motor performance as “typing speed.”
3. Next, the investigator proposes an answer to the research question (“What is the relationship between typing speed and background noise?), an answer called a hypothesis.
4.Define Variables: the relationship between two variables, an independent variable (that which the experimenter manipulates—in this case, the background music) and a dependent variable (that which changes as a consequence of manipulation of the independent variable—in this case, the typing speed). The experimenter hypothesizes that “an increase in loudness of background music will produce a decrease in typing speed.”

15. subjects would be taken to a laboratory for testing and would use the same typewriters to take the typing tests.
The experimenter would have to decide whether to use two groups of subjects with comparable typing skills and expose one group to a music loudness level different from that used with the other or sequentially expose the same subjects to music of two loudness levels.
Each procedure has advantages and disadvantages.

16. Descriptive Studies/Research
Methods of study that try to DESCRIBE a population

17. Case Study
Definition: an observation technique in which one person is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles
Examples:
Genie the Wild Child
Phineas Gage      
Anorexia Studies

18. Case Study Advantages and Disadvantages
What’s good about case studies?
One person can tell us a lot about humans in general
What’s bad about case studies?
One case may be misleading!!!
“My uncle smoked two packs a day for sixty years and never had health problems!”

19. Survey Definition: asks people to report their behavior or opinions
Examples:
Political polling
U.S. Census
Thomas Co. Youth
Survey

20. Survey Advantages and Disadvantages
What’s good about surveys?
Cheap to administer
Gather a lot of information about a lot of people quickly
What’s bad about surveys?
Wording Effects
“affirmative action” vs. “preferential treatment”; “welfare” vs. “aid to the needy”
Sampling Error
People Lie

21. Survey
Representative Sample- Researcher attempts to select individuals which are representative of a larger population.
Truly representative sampling is very hard to accomplish and researchers may dedicate a great deal of time and funding to get the most representative sample as possible.

22. Survey
Random Sample- fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion.

23. Experimentation- a research method in which an investigator manipulates on or more factors to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process
Randomly assigning- assigning participants to experimental and control groups by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between those assigned to different groups
Grouping
Experimental- group that is exposed to the treatment (to one version of the independent variable)
Control- group that is not exposed to the treatment. Serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment.

24. Placebo-(placebo effect) results caused by expectations alone (belief in it). Substance or condition which the recipient assumes is an active agent. Double Blind Procedure- both researcher and participants are ignorant about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo.

25. Naturalistic Observation
Definition: observing and recording behavior in NATURALLY occurring situations
We do NOT interfere in naturalistic observations…we simply watch and record!
Example: Jane Goodall observing chimpanzees

26. Naturalistic Observation Advantages and Disadvantages
What’s good about naturalistic observation?
See authentic behavior
What’s bad about naturalistic observation?
Can’t interfere at all

27. Limitations of Descriptive Studies
These methods can contribute to overall understanding, but do not show causation.
Surveys and observation can show correlation
Correlation enables prediction.
Correlation does not equal causation!
Ice Cream Mystery

28. Statistical Reasoning in Everyday Life
Statistics organize, summarize, and make inferences from data.
Three measures of Central Tendency :
1. Mode- most frequently occurring score in a distribution.
2. Mean is the arithmetic average of a distribution. (add scores then divide by number of scores)
3.Median is the middle score in a distribution; half the scores are above it and half are below it.

29. Two measures of Variation:
Range (of scores)- gap between the lowest and highest score (this shows only a rough estimate of variation)
Standard deviation – measures how scores deviate form one another. It better gauges whether scores are packed together or dispersed because it uses information from each score. Many types of scores are distributed alone a bell shaped curve or a normal curve.

30. Dark blue is less than one standard deviation from the mean
Dark blue is less than one standard deviation from the mean. For the normal
distribution, this accounts for about 68% of the set (dark blue), while two
standard deviations from the mean (medium and dark blue) account for about 95%,
and three standard deviations (light, medium, and dark blue) account for
about 99.7%

31. How do psychologists decide whether differences are meaningful?
Tests of Statistical significance determines whether difference between two groups are reliable. When the averages (mean) of the samples drawn from the groups are reliable and the difference between them is relatively large, we say the difference has statistical significance.

33. Correlation Correlation can be:
causation (but not the other way around),
influenced by 3rd variables
pure chance

34. Correlation Coefficient
Scatterplots – illustrate correlation

35. Correlation?
Positive Correlation

36. Statistically significant
inverse relationship
between pirates and
global temperature

37. Illusory Correlation

38. Psychologists studies with animals and Humans
Psychologists use animals because their physiological and psychological processes enable them to better understand the similar processes that operate in humans.
Ethical guidelines in animals in experiments: Rarely do they experience pain in psychological experiments.
Ethical treatment of humans urge investigators to obtain informed consent, protect subjects from harm and discomfort, treat information about individuals confidentially and fully explain the research afterward.