PNB 3RM3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Confirmation Bias, Illusory Correlation

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour
• Course: PNB 3RM3
• Professor: Jennifer Ostovich

Document Summary

Which is more frequent: death by falling, death by fire. Personal experience and the experiences of others are compelling o. Some people are more swayed by anecdote than scientific data: anecdotal evidence is more concrete and easy to process - easy to think through and easy to be affected by. 1: you are feeling depressed so you go to a doctor and get prescribed medication. You do your research on the medication and it has good review online. However if a friend tells you that they got a bad reaction on it and you likely won"t get it because of that one anecdotal evidence. 2: superstition: if two unlikely events happen on after the other, you will likely explain one as being in relation to the other (illusory correlation) Why should we reject these sources of information? o o. Lack of comparison groups: you have no way of falsifying your claim.