Chapters 1-4 Flashcards
Human behaviour is difficult to predict because most actions are ______
Multiply determinded
The belief that we see the world as it “really is” is also known as ___________
Naive Realism
Belief perseverance is _______________
The tendency to stick to our initial beliefs even when evidence contradicts them.
The perception of a relationship where none exists is known as an _____________
Illusory Correlation
Conformation bias is ______________
The tendency for people to search for information that confirms their perception
An excuse to protect a theory or claim from falsifiability is known as an ___________
Ad hoc Immunizing Hypothesis
What is patternicity
Perceiving meaningful images in meaningless visual stimuli
What does reciprocal determinism mean?
people can often be influenced by each other
What is pseudoscience?
Claims that seem scientific but are not
What are the six principles of critical thinking?
- Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
- Falsifiability
- Occam’s Razor- If two explanations account equally well for an observation, we should generally select the simpler one.
- Replicability
- Ruling out rival hypotheses
- Correlation is not causation
What are the seven sins of pseudoscience?
- Ad hoc immunizing hypothesis
- Lack of self-correction E.g., Facilitated communication?
- Exaggerated claims
- Anecdotes
- Evasion of peer review
6.No connectivity - Psychobabble - Language that sounds highly scientific?
In the homeopathy video, why did Benveniste’s team find positive homeopathic findings under initial testing?
Benveniste’s team found positive results under initial testing because it was not a blind test. During initial testing, Benveniste’s team knew which samples should be positively charged and which were just water.
The homeopathy video indicated that the experimenters knew which tubes contained the homeopathic water and which contained ordinary water. What is the issue here?
The issue with this is that the experimenters may be experimenting with confirmation bias
In the homeopathy video, when the study was replicated by Randi’s crew using codes so nobody knew which tubes were which- what happened?
The homeopathic testing result came back negative.
Why do so many people then find homeopathic testing useful as a treatment?
So many people find homeopathic testing useful because of the placebo effect.
Homeopathy appears to work even when a placebo should not. Like when a patient does not even know that they are taking medicine. Like animals. What might be the explanation here?
The veterinarian/ experimenter has a confirmation bias. The veterinarian may be looking for the animal to act better. The other question that is raised is how do veterinarians know that the animal is better.
What is intuitive thinking?
quick and reflexive, “gut hunches”, minimal mental effort . (ex. The first impression of people, getting out of the way of a moving car)
What is analytical thinking?
slow and reflective takes mental effort (ex. reasoning through a problem)
What are heuristics?
Quick and efficient “Mental shortcuts” which can be systematically and predictably wrong
What is the availability heuristic?
judging the likelihood of things by how readily available they come to mind
What is the representative heuristic?
judging the likelihood of an event by its superficial similarity to a prototype. This may lead one to ignore other relevant information
What are base rates?
how common a behaviour or characteristic is in the general population
Observing people in a real-world setting and carefully observing their behaviours without intervening is known as
Naturalistic Observation
What is a correlation design
a research design that examines the extent to which two variables are associated
What is an example of positive correlation
As height increases so does weight
What is an example of a negative correlation
As tooth brushing increases, tooth decay decreases
What is an independent variable
What the experimenter manipulates
What is a dependant variable
what the experimenter measures to see whether the manipulation had an effect. It is usually measured by a score
What is the placebo effect?
improvement resulting from the mere expectation of improvement
What is the nocebo effect?
harm resulting from the mere expectation of harm
What is the experimenter expectancy effect
a phenomenon in which researchers hypothesize leads them to unintentionally bias a study
What is a double-blind design?
When neither researchers nor subjects know who is in the experimental or control group
What is the halo effect
The tendency of rating one positive characteristic to “spill over” to influence the ratings of other positive characteristics
What is the horn effect?
The tendency of rating one negative characteristic to “spill over” to influence the ratings of other negative characteristics
What are demand characteristics?
cues that participants pick up from a study that allows them to generate a guess regarding the researcher’s hypothesis
What are self-report measures?
questionnaires assessing a variety of characteristics
What are surveys?
A self-report measure, that measures opinions and attitudes
What is reliability
consistency or repeatability of the measurement
What is validity?
Does it measure what it is supposed to measure?
What is the mean
The average of all scores
What is the central tendency?
where the group tends to cluster
What is the median?
The middle score in the data set
What is the mode?
most frequent score in the data set
What is the range?
the difference between the highest and lowest scores; a measure of variability
What is a standard deviation?
a measure of variability that takes into account how far each data point is from the mean
What are inferential statistics?
allows us to determine how much we can generalize findings from our sample to the full population. If we find a difference between groups
What is statistical significance?
To be statistically significant, the finding would have occurred by less than 5%
What is practical significance?
real-world importance
What are neurons?
Specialized cells that carry messages throughout the CNS (Central Nervous System- brain and spinal cord)