1 Thinking Critically With Psychological Science Flashcards
What three psychological phenomena illustrate why science-based answers are more valid than those based on intuition or common-sense?
Hindsight bias, judgmental overconfidence, and our tendency to perceive patterns in random events?
What is hindsight bias and what else is it sometimes called?
Hindsight bias, also known as the knew-it-all-along effect or creeping determinism, is the inclination, after an event has occurred, to see the event as having been predictable, despite there having been little or no objective basis for predicting it.
What is the overconfidence effect sometimes called judgmental overconfidence?
The overconfidence effect is a well-established bias in which a person’s subjective confidence in his or her judgments is reliably greater than the objective accuracy of those judgments, especially when confidence is relatively high.
Why are we prone to perceive order in random events?
Because we are eager to make sense of the world, and random sequences often don’t look random, and so are over-interpreted.
What three attitudes helped make modern science possible?
Curiosity, Skepticism, and Humility.
What is the function of critical thinking in (psychological) science?
To help clear the colored lenses of our biases by examining assumptions, discerning hidden values, evaluating evidence, and assessing conclusions.
What is a good Theory and what is its use?
A theory will be useful if it organizes a range of self-reports and observations, and implies predictions that anyone can use to check the theory or to derive practical applications.
As a check on their biases, how do psychologists report their research?
With precise operational definitions of procedures and concepts. Using carefully worded statements, others can replicate the original observations with different participants, materials and circumstances. if they get similar results, confidence in the finding’s reliability grows
What is a case study?
a descriptive method that examines one individual in depth in the hopes of revealing things true of us all.
intensive case studies are sometimes very revealing, showing us what can happen and often suggest directions for further study; but how can case studies sometimes be misleading?
unrepresentative information can lead to mistaken judgments and false conclusions. individual cases can mislead us if the individual is atypical.
what is naturalistic observation?
a descriptive method that records behavior in natural environments. it offers interesting snapshots of everyday life but it does so without controlling for all the factors that may influence behavior.
what do case studies and naturalistic observation have in common?
they describe behavior without explaining it.
what is a survey?
a survey asks people to report their behavior or opinions, looking t many cases in less depth.
why can the wording of survey questions be tricky?
wording is a delicate matter, even subtle changes in the order or wording of questions can have major effects. critical thinkers will reflect on how the phrasing of a question might affect people’s expressed opinions.
why is a representative sample the best basis for generalizing survey results?
because of our tendency to ignore the sampling bias and generalize from a few vivid but unrepresentative cases.
how could you choose a group that would represent the total population, the whole group you want to study and describe?
by seeking a random sample, where every person in the entire groups has an equal chance of participating. large representative samples are better than small ones but a small representative sample is better than a larger but unrepresentative sample.
when one traits and behaviors are related to each other, we say they correlate. what is a correlation coefficient?
the statistical measure which helps us figure out how closely two things vary together, and thus how well either one predicts the other.
when is a correlation positive and when is it negative?
a correlation is positive if two sets of scores tend to rise or fall together on a scatterplot, and negative if they are inversely related.
what is an irresistible thinking error in relation to correlation.
that correlation proves causation. assuming that an association, sometimes presented as a correlation coefficient, proves causation. no matter how strong the relationship, it does not.
what is an experiment?
a research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process (the dependent variable).
what do experiments enable researchers to do and how.
they enable them to isolate the effects of one or more factors by manipulating the factors of interest and holding constant (controlling) other factors.
how do experimenters control for other possible factors
by creating an experimental group which is exposed to the treatment (one version of the independent variable), and a control group which is not (but may be given a placebo).
how do experimenters minimize any preexisting differences between the experimental group and the control group?
random assignment of participants.
how can we know the treatment (or independent variable) had an effect
if there is a measurable difference between the experimental condition and the control condition.
