psych genny Flashcards
core areas in psych
- social
- personality and individual differences
- developmental psych
- cognitive
- perception
- learning
- biopsychology
challenges that make the study of mind, brain, and behaviour complex
- behaviour is almost always caused by multiple factors
- psychological causes are rarely independent from each other
- people vary a lot (individual difference)
- people influence each other
social loafing – group work and ppl not working together - culture shapes behaviour
independent and dependent cultures
The scientific method?
- psychology has diverse subdisciplines, but the common element is the scientific method:
- thorough and careful framework for gathering and evaluating information
- promotes objectivity
- falsifiable and self-correcting
it is the only approach that offers and objective, testable pathway to knowledge
scientific theory
- based on evidence
- some theories will be revised and others rejected based on evidence
however, the most well-established theories have reliable converging empirical evidence from many sources
- eg theory of natural selection
commonsense in lay
- developed from personal experience
- these are intuitions, sometimes right and sometimes wrong
- although our intuitions might sometimes be accurate, reliable errors and biases affect how we process information about the world
confirmation bias?
we have a reliable tendency to seek out information that supports our beliefs while dismissing contradictory information
enhanced by the often incomplete way we are presented w information in everyday life
belief perseverence
once a belief is formed and a rationale has been developed, it is very difficult to demolish
- it is not a simple matter of discrediting the belief w new information
- commonsense views are fraught with?
2. what do they affect
- reliable errors and biases
2. they affect how we process information about the world
psychology vs pseudoscience
- psych uses the scientific method to derive its knowledge
- pseudoscience refers to claims that seem at first glance, scientific, but they are not derived using the scientirfic method
characteristics of pseudoscience
- reliance on anecdotes
- lack of self-correction
- ad hoc immunising hypotheses
discipline of psychology
focuses on mind, brain, and behaviour
patterniticy
- can lead to errors
- stems from evolutionarily adaptive tendency
- our brains tend to seek out patterns and connections between events bcs of a basic evolutionary principle: better safe than sorry
- coincidental things
- we tend to link the two as cause and effect -> seeing it as a causal relationship in our minds when its not
eg eating bacon then getting sick then associating the two
scientific thinking is designed to…
- counteract confirmation bias
: to do this, we must seek out evidence that contradicts our ideas
terror management theory
- our awareness of our own inevitable death leaves many of us with an underlying sense of fear
bias blind spot
most people are unaware of their biases but are keenly aware of them in others
