PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Belief Perseverance, Confirmation Bias, Pseudoscience

• School: University of Illinois
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: lisatravis

Document Summary

Scientific thinking: what is psychology, psychological pseudoscience, scientific thinking, theoretical frameworks of psychology, types of psychologists. Psychology is the scientific study of the mind, brain, and behavior. Error of believing that we see the world precisely as it is. Can lead to false beliefs about ourselves and the world. Scientific theory - explanation for a large number of findings in the natural world. Hypothesis - testable prediction derived from a scientific theory. Tendency to seek out evidence that supports our hypotheses and deny, dismiss, or distort evidence that contradicts them. Tendency to stick to our initial beliefs even when evidence contradicts them. Assertion about the world that is not testable. Pseudoscience lacks the safeguards against confirmation bias and belief perseverance that characterize science. Our brains are predisposed to make order out of disorder and find sense in nonsense. Patternicity: lead us to see patterns when they don"t exist. We believe what we want to believe.