1. UNIT TWO: Research Methods: Thinking Critically with Psychological Science

2. Module 4 “The Need for Psych Science”
Module Learning Objectives:
(4-1)Describe how hindsight bias, overconfidence, and the tendency to perceive order in random events illustrate why science-based answers are more valid than those based on intuition and common sense
(4-2)Identify how the 3 main components of the scientific attitude relate to critical thinking

3. 4-1 Brief Overview
Today’s psychological science documents a vast intuitive mind.
Our thinking, memory, and attitudes operate on two levels
Conscious
Unconscious
(Like a Jumbo Jet, we “fly” mostly on autopilot.)

4. What is hindsight bias?
(also called the “I-knew-it-all- along phenomenon”)
The tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that we would have foreseen it

5. Hindsight bias: The easier version
The tendency of people to overestimate their ability to have predicted an outcome that could not possible have been predicted.

6. One more example…
When drilling the Deepwater Horizon oil well in 2010,BP Employees took shortcuts, and ignored some warning signs. They were not doing this to harm the environment or their company’s reputation.
After the resulting Gulf oil spill, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, the foolishness of those judgements became obvious.

7. Did we know it all along?
Stock market drops? “It was due for a correction…”
At a football game? We credit the coach when a “gutsy play” wins the game, and fault the coach for that same play if it doesn’t.
After a war or an election: the outcome as to who was going to win seems obvious!

8. Did we know it all along? Cont.
Although history may therefore seem like a series of inevitable events, the actual future is seldom foreseen.
EX:
No one’s diary ever found, stated “Today, the Hundred Years War began…”

9. Let’s read a brief demonstration.

10. Brief True or False Questionnaire
If you want to teach a habit that persists, reward the desired behavior every time, not just intermittently. ( T or F?)
Patients whose brains are surgically split down the middle survive and function much as they did before the surgery.
Traumatic experiences, such as sexual abuse or surviving the Holocaust, are typically “repressed” from memory.
Most abused children do not become abusive adults.
Most infants recognize their own reflection in a mirror by the end of their first year
Adopted siblings usually do not develop similar personalities, even though they are reared by the same parents.

11. Continued T or F
Fears of harmless objects, such as flowers, are just as easy to acquire as fears of potentially dangerous objects, such as snakes
Lie detection tests often lie
The brain remains active during sleep

12. Overconfidence! Experiment
How many seconds can it take you to unscramble a word?

13. READY? GO!
WREAT
ETRYN
GRABE

14. Some “overconfidence” Quotes
“We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on their way out.”- Decca Records, in turning down a recording contract with the Beatles in 1962.

15. Day 2 Lecture-Unit 2
Perceiving Order in Random Events: In our natural eagerness to make sense of the world we are prone to perceive patterns.
“Face on the moon” “Strange messages are in my music” “I just saw Jesus in my grilled cheese!” etc.
EVEN IN RANDOM DATA, we often find order. Random sequences often don’t look random.
Page 33

16. “The really unusual day would be one where nothing unusual happens.”
--Statistician Persi Diaconis [2002]

17. Unit 2-mod 4.1
Some happenings seem so extraordinary that we struggle to conceive an ordinary, chance-related explanation.
*Think coin toss example*
EX: Evelyn Marie Adams won the NJ Lotto twice. Odds? 1 in 17 TRILLION!
1/17 trillion=(Odds that a given person who buys a single ticket for two NJ lotteries will win both times.)
POINT TO REMEMBER HERE: Hindsight bias, overconfidnce, and our tendency to perceive patterns in random events is what often leads us to overestimate our intuition.
BUT, scientific inquiry can help us sift reality from illusion 

18. Question we want to answer in this mod:
Unit 2-mod 4.2 The scientific Attitude: “Curious, Skeptical, and Humble”
Question we want to answer in this mod:
 How do the scientific attitude’s three main components relate to critical thinking?

19. Unit 2-mod 4.2 From Meyers book:
“Underlying all science is, first, a hard-headed curiosity, a passion to explore and understand without misleading or being misled. Some questions (Is there life after death?) are beyond science.
Answering them in any way requires a leap of faith. With many other ideas (Can some people demonstrate ESP?), the proof is in the pudding. Let the facts speak for themselves.”

20. Unit 2-mod 4.2 Empirical approach to “debunking”
 Magician James Randi uses this method to debunk supposed “psychic phenomena”
EX: Randi: “Do you see the aura around my head?” Aura-Seer: “Yes, I do.” Randi: “ Can you still see the aura if I put this magazine in front of my face? Aura-seer: Of course. Randi: Then if I were to step behind a wall barely taller than I am, you could determine my location from the aura visible above my head, right?
(No aura-seer has ever agreed to take this simply test.) (pg 34)

21. --Michael Shermer, “I Want to Believe,” Scientific American, 2009
I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe but because I want to know. I believe that the trust is out there. But how can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually true? The answer is science.”
--Michael Shermer, “I Want to Believe,” Scientific American, 2009

22. Unit 2-4.2
Psychologists approach the world of behavior with a curious skepticism, persistently asking two questions: What do you mean? How do you know?
When ideas compete, skeptical testing can reveal which ones best match the facts. (Do parental behaviors determine children’s sexual orientation? Can astrologers predicts your future based on the position of the planet’s at your birth? Is electroconvulsive therapy (brain shock) an effective treatment for severe depression?)
(Yes or no to the above questions? Pg 35)

23. Unit 2-4.2
Putting a scientific attitude into practice requires not only curiosity and skepticism but also humility. (an awareness of our own vulnerability to error and an openness to surprises and new perspectives)
Three attitudes of science [per historians]: curiosity, skepticism, and humility. (and this helped make modern science possible!) (page 35)

24. Unit 2-4.2
Critical thinking (thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions, Rather, it examines assumptions, assesses the source, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions.)

25. Unit 2-4.2 Scientific attitude prepares us to think smarter.
Critical thinking (CT): whether reading a news report or listening to a conversation, critical thinkers ASK QUESTIONS!
 How do they know that? What is this person’s agenda? Is the conclusion based on anecdote? Gut feeling? Evidence? Does the evidence justify the conclusion?
Informed CT helps clear the “colored lenses of our biases.”

26. Unit 2-4.2
Discuss: Does climate change threaten our future, and, if so, is it human-caused?

27. Unit 2-4.2
2009: Climate-action advocates interpreted and Australian heat wave and dust storms as evidence of climate change.
2010: climate-change skeptics perceived North American bitter cold and East Coast blizzards as discounting global warming.
Rather then being swayed by politics, or today’s weather a critical thinker asks “Show me the evidence!” (Over time has the Earth warmed? Are the polar ice caps melting? Are vegetation patterns changing? Is human activity spewing harmful gases that would lead us to expect such changes?)

28. Unit 2-4.2
When contemplating such issues, critical thinkers will consider the credibility of sources.
Look at evidence: “Do the facts support them, or are they just making stuff up?”
Recognize multiple perspectives
View news sources that challenge their preconceived ideas.

29. Unit 2-4.2
Has psychology’s critical inquiry been open to some surprising findings?
Well……….yes
What have we learned?
Massive losses of brain tissue early in life may have minimal long- term effects.
Within days, newborns can recognize their mother’s odor and voice.
After brain damage, a person may be able to learn new skills yet be unaware of such learning.
Diverse groups (men/women, old/rich, young/old, rich/middle class, those with disabilities/whose without,
--all report roughly comparable levels of personal happiness

30. Unit 2-4.2
Has critical inquiry convincingly debunked popular presumptions?
Again….YES! 
Evidence indicates that sleepwalkers are not acting out their dreams.
Our past experiences are not all recorded verbatim in our brains with brain stimulation or hypnosis, one cannot simply “hit the replay button” and relive long-buried or repressed memories.
Most people do not suffer from unrealistically low self-esteem, and high self-esteem is not all good.
Opposites do not generally attract.
In each of these instances and more, what has been learned is not what is widely believed.

31. Unit 2-4.2 Discussion Time:
Q1: How might critical thinking help us assess someone’s interpretations of people’s dreams or their claims to communicate with the dead?
Q2: How does the scientific attitude contribute to critical thinking?

32. Unit 2-4.2 Discussion time:
Answer to Q2: The scientific attitude combines (1) curiosity about the world around us, (2) skepticism toward various claims and ideas, and (3) humility about one’s own understanding. Evaluating evidence, assessing conclusions, and examining our own assumptions are essential parts of critical thinking.