Psychology Exam #1

Question 1

Confirmation Bias

Answer 1

Our propensity to favor evidence that confirms our ideas while disregarding evidence that doesn’t confirm them. (Ex. Anti-vaxxers)

Question 2

Availability Heuristics

Answer 2

A mental shortcut relies on an immediate example that comes to a given person’s mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method, or decision. (Ex. overestimating getting eaten by a shark after watching Jaws)

Question 3

Dunning-Kruger Effect

Answer 3

A relationship between the knowledge or experience that you have and how confident you are with that knowledge. Helps us understand people and how are they so vocal on subjects they know so little about

Question 4

CARP/ CRAP Test

Answer 4

A way to evaluate information sources based on the following criteria: currency, authority, relevance/reliability, and purpose/POV

Question 5

Currency (CARP)

Answer 5

When was this information published or posted? Has the information been revised or updated? When? Does your topic require current information, or will older sources work as well? Websites, are the links still functional?

Question 6

Relevance/Reliability (CARP)

Answer 6

Does the information relate to your topic to help answer your question? (doesn’t have to agree with your argument) Is that information at the same level of appropriateness as your research? Who is the intended audience? Where is the info from? Does the author provide references or sources? Has the info been reviewed? By whom? Do you feel comfortable using this source in your research? Would you feel comfortable showing this to your professor?

Question 7

Authority (CARP)

Answer 7

Who is the author/creator? What are their credentials? Are they qualified to write about this topic? Can they be contacted? Are they affiliated with any groups or organizations? Who is the publisher/sponsors?

Question 8

Purpose/POV(CARP)

Answer 8

What does the information meant to do to the reader? - (inform, teach, sell, entertain, persuade?) Is the author clear on their purpose? Is the info fact or opinion/propaganda? Is the POV objective or impartial? What biases might the author have? Are there ads? Are they related to the topic? Websites- what does the URL tell you of its purpose? (.com is commercial, .gov is government, org. is organization)

Question 9

Scientific Reasoning

Answer 9

Core components of “good science”, should pass each of those “tests”, falsifiability, logic, comprehensiveness, honesty, replicability, sufficiency.

Question 10

Falsifiability

Answer 10

Any good scientific claim must be able to be proven false.

Question 11

Unfalsifiable

Answer 11

Bad science and bad logic will often use unfalsifiable claims and then challenge the opponent to “prove me wrong.” (Ex. I’m the shortest person in school) because it can be tested and refuted or proven.

Question 12

Logic

Answer 12

Scientific claims must be logically sound, meaning that the conclusion should only be made based on valid and true premises.

Question 13

Comprehesiveness

Answer 13

Claims need to account for all data, not just some of it.

Question 14

Honesty

Answer 14

Claims should be made and evaluated with as little as bias as possible.

Question 15

Replicability

Answer 15

Good experiment needs consistent results

Question 16

Sufficiency

Answer 16

Is the claimant providing sufficient and quality evidence? The burden of proof is always on the clamant.

Question 17

Pseudoscience

Answer 17

An outward appearance of science, absence of skeptical peer review, reliance on personal experiences, evasion of risky tests, retreats to the supernatural, mantra of Holism, tolerance of inconsistencies, appeals to authority, promising the impossible, stagnation.

Question 18

The Scientific Method

Answer 18

Ask a question, do background research, construct a hypothesis, and test your hypothesis by doing an experiment, analyze your data and draw a conclusion, and report your results (was your hypothesis correct?)

Question 19

Independent Variable

Answer 19

The variable you manipulate in your experiment.

Question 20

Dependent Variable

Answer 20

The variable you measure

Question 21

Controlled Variables

Answer 21

Variable you keep constant

Question 22

Dry Mix

Answer 22

Dependent variable/ Responding variable goes to the Y axis, Manipulated/ Independent variable goes on the X axis.

Question 23

Confounding Variable

Answer 23

A variable that affects the variables in a way that causes a spurious association, so it wasn’t even accounted for.

Question 24

Correlations (positive, negative and zero)

Answer 24

A measure of the direction and strength of the relationship between two variables. Positive is when the 2 variables grow or decrease together, and negative is when they are different and go opposite ways in the graph, zero correlation is random non-significant, with no line in the graph).

Question 25

The Barnum Effect

Answer 25

A person’s natural tendency to think that a generic or vague personality description applies specifically to themselves. (Ex. personality tests, horoscopes)

Question 26

Primary sources

Answer 26

Firsthand evidence was gathered by the authors. Scholarly, research articles, diaries, photographs, conference proceedings, and newspaper reports.

Question 27

Secondary Sources

Answer 27

Describe, interpret or analyze information obtained from other sources (often primary sources). Books, textbooks, and scholarly review articles.

Question 28

Tertiary Sources

Answer 28

Compile and summarize mostly secondary sources. Reference publications (often primary sources). Books, textbooks, and scholarly review articles.

Question 29

Quantitative data

Answer 29

Are the result of counting or measuring attributes of a population. (Ex. height, weight, amount of money, number of people)

Question 30

Qualitative data

Answer 30

Are the result of categorizing or describing attributes of a population. (Ex. described in words or data, the car a person drives, blood type)

Question 31

Cognitive Bias

Answer 31

Believing something you don’t know about, protects us from reality, subjective social reality. (Ex. people believing they are the best at everything)

Question 32

Psychophysics

Answer 32

The scientific study of the relationship between sensation and perception.

Question 33

P-Values

Answer 33

Probability of the results occurring randomly, by chance.

Question 34

Unreliable sources

Answer 34

sources like Wikipedia are unreliable because authors may not have thorough knowledge of the topic. (Ex. Reddit, twitter, blogs, newspapers, magazines, internet websites on some occasions)

Question 35

The Media Paradox

Answer 35

Reflects the notion of the bizarre, unusual, and rare vents are newsworthy.

Question 36

Media Filters

Answer 36

People watch what is tailored for them, the info is filtered through a bubble. The info needs to be balanced, important, uncomfortable and relevant and irrelevant.

Question 37

Fair interpretation of Data

Answer 37

Correlation, Casualty and you have to have Inductive and Deductive Reasoning.

Question 38

Deductive Reasoning

Answer 38

General info we know and use for specific instances. (Ex. All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, so our conclusion is that Socrates is mortal. Or if all students eat pizza, Claire is a student, therefore Claire eats pizza.)

Question 39

Inductive Reasoning

Answer 39

Revolves around observing specific trends and then generalizing. The conclusion in an inductive argument is never guaranteed, and there can be more than one correct answer. (Ex. 1, 2, 3, 4…, or Last Wednesday we had a quiz, we had a quiz this Wednesday, my conclusion is that we should expect quizzes every Wednesday). The past helps predict the future, but it’s not certain.

Question 40

False Premise

Answer 40

The incorrect proposition forms the basis of an argument or syllogism. Since the premise is not correct, the conclusion is also incorrect. However, the argument itself is still logically valid. (Ex. All Psych teachers are 7ft tall).

Question 41

reliable sources of information

Answer 41

peer reviewed journals, scholarly articles, books (authored, edited, and published), PhD or MBA dissertations and research, public library, isolated studies or academic research, educational institutions or their websites.

Question 42

unreliable sources of information

Answer 42

some newspapers, most magazines, and most internet websites.

Question 43

media filtering

Answer 43

when your digital life/presence is determining what you want to see, vs. what else there actually is. Puts you in a bubble. Your search results may be entirely different than someone else’s.

Question 44

deductive reasoning

Answer 44

information we have learned in general to something specific.

Question 45

Review the facts below:
- bob has a red couch
- cupboards are yellow
- there is no furniture that is not also lightweight
- yellow furniture is big, unless it has shelves.

based on the information above, which of the following must be true?:
a) bobs couch weighs lass than cupboards do
b) all cupboards are big
c) bobs couch is small, as are cupboards
d) red cupboards are heavy
e) bob has a light couch

Answer 45

deductive reasoning

Question 46

inductive reasoning

Answer 46

involves observing specific trends or patterns, and then generalizing.

Question 47

what comes next in this sequence?

Answer 47

inductive reasoning

Question 48

syllogism

Answer 48

this is an example of a syllogism:
- all men are mortal (major premise)
- Socrates is a man (minor premise)
- therefore, Socrates is mortal (conclusion)

Question 49

false premise

Answer 49

incorrect proposition that forms the basis of an argument or syllogism

Question 50

misleading statistics baseline

Answer 50

baseline for a graph is 0 (zero) in most cases, writers can skew how data is perceived.

Question 51

misleading statistics Y-axis

Answer 51

expanding or compressing the scale can change the data to seem more or less significant.

Question 52

misleading statistics cherry picking

Answer 52

writers may only include data points on their graphs to reinforce their narratives. Can create a false premise of the data.

Question 53

correct chart or graph

Answer 53

using the wrong type of graph can skew the data. Writers will sometimes use the wrong graph on purpose.

Question 54

going against conventions

Answer 54

over time we have developed standards of how data is visualized. flipping these conventions can make a graph confusing or misleading to the readers.

Question 55

nature

Answer 55

refers to all of the genes and hereditary factors that influence who we are - from our physical appearance to our personality characteristics.

Question 56

nurture

Answer 56

refers to all the environmental variables that impact who we are, including our early childhood experiences, how we were raised, our social relationships, and surrounding culture.

Question 57

framing effects

Answer 57

the manner in which our decisions are influenced by the way information is presented.
-example) contains 20% fat vs. 80% fat free

Question 58

AD hominem

Answer 58

speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than the argument itself.
-example) Trump

Question 59

Dichotomies

Answer 59

division into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups.
- example) court either finds you guilty or not guilty.

Question 60

false dichotomy

Answer 60

a situation in which two alternative points of view are presented as the only options, when others are available.
- example) pro-life vs pro-choice
- example) Democrat vs Republican

Question 61

general problems with pseudoscience

Answer 61

deception, self deception, psychological tricks, decision making and ethics

Question 62

false cause fallacy

Answer 62

the incorrect assumption that one event causes another. This is often due to mis-constructing correlation as causation.
- example) people who own horses tend to live longer.
- ex. con) false cause you could extrapolate: owning a horse somehow makes you healthier or otherwise live longer.
- ex. con) truth: if you can afford horses you can probably afford really good healthcare.