Chapter 2: Sources Of Information: Evaluating, Finding, and Reading Information Flashcards
What are the three sources if evidence for ppls beliefs??
experience, intuition and authority
One should not base beliefs solely on ____?
personal experiences
What the heck is a comparison group?
L> why is it important?
- allows you to compare what would happen both with and without the thing you are interested in.
L> important for when you base on personal exp…you need a systematic comparison
Does personal experience have a comparison group?
NO
Basing conclusions on personal experience is problematic because life doesn’t offer a ____. Basing conclusions on systematic data collection does offer a ___.
- comparison group x 2
Confounds??
- they occur when you think one thing causes an outcome but intact other things changed too so it is not clear what the cause really was..
How does research tackle confounds vs Real life?
- they use careful controls to be sure they are changing only one factor at a time.
L>in real life it is hard to isolate variable to solve cofounds issues.
___ Research is better than experience!
controlled
Confederate??
- an actor playing a role for the researchers experiment
How exactly would a controlled experiment be set up to avoid confounds?(2)
L> what do subjects offer/what do researchers do with this?
- conditions are set up such that at least ONE comparison group can avoid confounds
- subjects can only offer their subjective view and the researcher compares these to their larger view.
- confounds can also be controlled by everyone starting out equally but the various groups being separate in testing type.
Sometimes our personal experience does not line up with ____
research
Personal experiences are very powerful and can ____ us to the lessons of more rigorous research.
BLIND
At times someones personal experience can be an ____ to the research findings.
- exception
L> which should not undermine the general research
Probabilistic???
- inferences are not expected to explain all cases all of the time. Instead conclusions from the research are meant to explain a certain proportion of the possible cases. (hopefully a high one)
ex: behavioural research
In practice what does probabilistic research mean?
- scientific conclusions of research are based on patterns that emerge only when comparison groups are setup and many ppl are tested.
Does a persons personal experience invalidate a general trend?
NO its just one point in the overall pattern
What do research results suggest?
- that there is a strong PROBABILITY …..the prediction is not perfect.
Intuition?
- people believe their intuition leads them to good conclusions and as a good source of info but it can lead us to make less effective decisions bc we are bias!
Intuition:
- we tend to believe what about others and ourselves?
- others are biased but we are right
Intuition:
- are we aware of it?
- no..
biases can sneak up on us and we can be unaware that we could be potentially become bias but are too busy or not motivated enough to correct and control for it .
What are the two categories of intuition based biases?
- Thinking the easy way
2. Thinking what we want to think
What is the solution to intuition biases?
- practice applying scientific principles to guard you against the pull of these biases.
Intuition:
1. Thinking the easy way? Explain!
L> It’s easier to believe an______ story than a ____story.
L> It’s more easy to pay attention to ___ and harder to attend to ____.
- intuition can lead to biases because some ideas are simply easier to believe than others and some info comes to mind more readily than others.
- easy, complex
- memorable
- everyday events
Can a good story be accurate?
- yes sometimes but be aware of the limitations of common sense…also when empirical research contradicts your common sense be ready to check yourself.
Intuition:
1. Thinking the Easy Way
L> The Present/Present Bias?
- it is hard for most people to notice what is absent; in contrast, it is easy to notice what is present.
Intuition: 1. Thinking the Easy Way L> The Pop-up Principle - aka? -what tends to guide our thinking? -memories?
- aka availability heuristic
- things that easily come to mind tend to guide our thinking
- when events or memories are vivid, recent or memorable they seem more correct and cause biases in our thinking.
- often we are too busy or too lazy to think beyond the easy answer….we decide the answer that came to mind easily must be correct.
Intuition:
1. Thinking the Easy Way
L> The Pop-up Principle
- ex?
ex: Dan Gilbert (2005)
L> stuck in a slow line at the grocery store….seems like I am always in this line…
** negative events pop into mind more easily than times when things go smoothly….
Thinking the easy way can mean taking what as the most correct thoughts?
our first thoughts
Intuition:
2. Thinking What We Want?
- when we do not want to challenge our preconceived ideas…we simply think what we want to think.
Intuition:
2. Thinking What We Want
L> Cherry Picking the Evidence?
- we can be biased information gatherers bc we simply do not want to let go of our beliefs;therefore, we tend to take in info that suppers what we already think and what we want to think.
Intuition:
2. Thinking What We Want
L> Asking Biases Questions?
- when we ask questions that are likely to give the desired or expected answers.
L> confirmatory hypothesis
L> formal term
L> not a scientific process unlike the process conducting in the theory data cycle.
Intuition: 2. Thinking What We Want L> Asking Biased Q's - left to our own devices we are not very \_\_\_\_ in gathering evidence to test our ideas - people seek out \_\_\_\_?
- rigorous
- confirmation - the info they want or expect and fail to seek out the info that would disconfirm their ideas…therefore they only gather certain info and conclude their h is correct.
Intuition:
2. Thinking What We Want
L>Being Overconfident ?
- once our thinking is set in stone…we tend to be over confident in our ideas, we want to think we are right.
- might be confident in our reasoning but confidence does not equal being correct.
Intuition:
- Thinking What We Want
- makes us trust (or __) all the more reason
- this bias makes it difficult to initiate what?
- faulty
- theory data cycle
Intuitive thinker??
- seeking info that confirms our judgments/ideas
Scientific thinker??
- base their beliefs on info from the senses
- one must strive to interpret the data you call in one study.
Researchers?
- create comparison at all data…….they dig deeper and generate more data via rigours sampling.
-test their hunches with systematic, empirical observations.
L> ask q’s objectively and collect potentially disconfirming data. - accept data provisionally and change their theory when the data doesn’t support their H
- data leads to marks but not an up total marks.
Trusting authorities on the subject?
- in general it is best to take evidence of authorities with a grain of salt.
Trusting authorities on the subject?
researchers can fall fait to same biases as ampule else can so if one is not certain their advice is enhanced/back up with empirical response
Psychological Scientists publish into what?
- journal articles, full chapters or novels.
Journal Articles?
- these are written for an audience of another psychological scientists…they can be empirical or review articles.
Empirical Articles
- report results of an empirical research method
L> includes the study methods , statistically test video, the first Oren apart of men.
Review Journal Articles :
-
- summary of all research done in a certain area.
- Meta -analysis: qualitatively technique sometimes used that combines of the and gives # that summarize and the magnitude of the teacher.
Chapters in an edited book:
- what is it?
- collection of chapters on a common topic, each chapter is written by different
A chapter is generally the what?
scientists summarizing their research and not in the first place it has been reported…
- not peer reviewed….
- editor only invited environment…….the editor only invites ppl experts to write the chapter.
Books:
- describing research in a full length book.
L> common chock not very familiar …
L>common in scholars/professors
trade book?
- full length book for the gen pub
PSYC Info??
- best and most comprehensive search engine for psychological research.
- maintained by the APA
- searches related to disciplines in other areas.
- need a college or uni library to access it
Alts to Psyc INFO:
- Researchers homepage
- Google Scholar
- summary of research interests and a list of pub and sometimes PDFs of the articles
L> Disadvantages: need to know the scientists name….only have a list of the articles, difficult to find older research especially if they are dead, not actively researching or do not have own site.
L> advantages: fast way of getting us specific info
L> only access= in press aka accepted for pub but hasn’t been yet.
Alts to Psyc INFO:
2. Google Scholar
L> Acceptable ? Not? Disadvantages?
- Google scholar
- search engine that only induces empirical journal articles or scholarly books.
- does not provide abstracts
- disadvantage: cannot search articles via specific words in an abstract for a specific field. Does not categorize articles it finds (peer-r or not) It indexes articles across all areas (PsycINFO = only psych) May not be free to read…..
What are the sections of an article?
L> what info do they contain? (format type?)
- Abstract, Intro, Methods, Results and Discussion
- report results of a study for the first time via APA format
Abstract??
L> what is it
L> word count?
L> specifically what does it tell us
- summary of the article
- 120 words or so
- tells you the studies H’s, methods and major results
- can quickly judge an article is what you are looking for by looking at this
Introductions?
- first para?
- middle para?
- last para?
- first part of reg text
- first para= explains the topic
- middle para= theoretical and empirical background for the research (theories..past research, importance)
- final para= research goals, hypotheses, questions
Methods??
-explains how the research was conducted
L> can have subsections: participants, materials, procedure, apparatus
** should provide enough info that you could recreate it
Results??
- describes quantitative and relevant qualitative results of the study
- statistical tests to analyze data
- tables and figures to sum data
Discussion?
- 1st para?
- secoond?
- 1st para: generally sums up the research q’s and methods and indicates how well the study’s data supports the H’s
- 2nd para: promotes study’s contributions, discuss the study’s significance
- may discuss alt explanations and pose new questions
Reference list?
- full bibliographic listing of all the articles the author cited, acknowledging previous work in the field and allowing others to locate them
- guidelines via Publication Manual of APA
- if you find one good article you can find others by looking here.
What two questions should one ask themselves while reading research articles?
- what is the argument
2. what is the evidence to support the argument
What are the three steps to figuring out what the argument of the paper is?
- read the abstract
- skip to the end of the intro
L> you will find primary goals and H’s of the study…after that you can read the rest of the intro for the theory
3.first para of the discussion
L> summary of the key results and whether they supported the H
Where does one look to find the evidence for the argument of a paper?
- Methods and Results
Chapters and Review Articles often do not have four things?
- intro, methods, results or discussion section
Chapters and Review Articles:
- headings??
- argument?
- evidence?
- they have them but they are not predetermined like in empirical papers….they are made as the author sees fit.
-Argument: Purpose of the chapter or review article (authors position on the topic)
L>often presenting the entire theory vs only testing a part of it like in empirical - Evidence: the research the author reviews
What are some other ways you can find research ?(4)
- tradebooks, websites and popular newspapers and magazines.
Research on the retail shelf:
- explain trade books
- written for the general public to help them, inform them, entertain them and to make money for the author.
- much easier to read vs sci.lit.
The how to with trade books!
- look at the back of the book to find footnotes or references that tell you the research the argument is based on
L> if it has no references take it at best as entertainment
Research on Wiki??
- provides quick easy to read facts
- democratic encyclopedia!!! anyone can contribute…
- its not used by many psychologists
- its hit miss…you can search something and get something completely unrelated
What is an alt to wiki for psychologists?
- psychwiki
Downsides to wiki?
- they do not do a comprehensive coverage…its only whats on the page
- may not have references…if they do they may be only recent ones
- details could be wrong and stay that way until “someone corrects them”
What have journalists done in the past to wiki entries?
- added mistakes purposely to see how long it takes for them to be corrected
Research in popular press?
- meant to inform us on new research
- if interested look it up on psych info
- some reporters are trained to get it right..others not so much
- read them critically
