PSYC 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Hindsight Bias, Availability Heuristic, Internal Validity
The availability heuristic: “Off the Top of my head”:
- Availability heuristic: heuristic that involves estimating the likelihood of an
occurrence based on the ease with which it comes to our minds
- “off the top of my head”
Cognitive Biases:
- Cognitive bias: systematic errors in thinking that can lead to confidence in
false conclusions
- Hindsight biases:
- Also known as “I knew it all along” effect
- Hindsight bias: tendency to overestimate how well we could have
successfully forecasted known outcomes
- Overconfidence:
- Related to hindsight bias
- Overconfidence: our tendency to overestimate our ability to make
correct predictions
How do we avoid biases and heuristics?:
- Test specific hypotheses derived from broader theories
- Theories are never “proven,” but hypotheses can be confirmed or
disconfirmed
The Scientific Method: Toolbox of Skills:
Naturalistic Observation: Studying Humans “In the Wild”:
- Natural observation: watching behaviour in real-world settings without trying to
manipulate the situation
- The major advantage of naturalistic designs is that they’re often high in
external validity: extent to which we can generalize findings to real-world
settings
- A disadvantage of naturalistic designs is they tend to be low in internal
validity: extent to which we can draw cause-and-effect inferences from a study
Case Study Designs: Getting to Know You
- Case study: research design that examines one person or a small number of
people in depth, often over an extended time period
- Case studies can be helpful in providing existence proofs: demonstration that
a given psychological phenomenon can occur
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Document Summary
The availability heuristic: off the top of my head : Availability heuristic: heuristic that involves estimating the likelihood of an occurrence based on the ease with which it comes to our minds. Cognitive bias: systematic errors in thinking that can lead to confidence in false conclusions. Also known as i knew it all along effect. Hindsight bias: tendency to overestimate how well we could have successfully forecasted known outcomes. Overconfidence: our tendency to overestimate our ability to make correct predictions. Test specific hypotheses derived from broader theories. Theories are never proven, but hypotheses can be confirmed or disconfirmed. Natural observation: watching behaviour in real-world settings without trying to manipulate the situation. The major advantage of naturalistic designs is that they"re often high in external validity: extent to which we can generalize findings to real-world settings. A disadvantage of naturalistic designs is they tend to be low in internal validity: extent to which we can draw cause-and-effect inferences from a study.
