PSY 1101 Study Guide - Final Guide: Naturalistic Observation, Thomas Edison, Fetlock
2 Nov 2016
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Chapter 1: Thinking Critically with Psychological Science
1. Intro:
• What is psych?
o The scientific study of mind and behaviors
o How we think, feel, and behave.
• Scope
o Huge, broad, and diverse field
o Therapy and counseling is a small portion of psychology
• Psych is linked to every aspect of life
o The link between mind and body is huge
• Personality puts you at risk for certain diseases
2. Need for Psychological Science
• Why?
o Limits of Intuition
• Can't use intuition to understand the natural world
• Give you misleading or wrong info
o Limits of Common Sense
• Describes what has happened better than what will happen
• Does not generate new knowledge
• Result of learning, acquired knowledge and experience
o Hindsight Bias
• I knew it all along phenomenon
• The tendency to believe that after learning an outcome, it could have been
foreseen/predicted.
o Overconfidence
• Humans tend to overestimate their own knowledge
▪ More sure of our knowledge and its accuracy than we should be
• Overestimate and over-exaggerate the accuracy of our answers and
knowledge.
▪ Fetlock: scientifically studies opinion s and predictions of experts.
• Follows up to see if predictions were correct
• Based o eseah, pefoae is disal…less tha hae accuracy!
▪ On average: 80% confidence with less than 40% correct predictions
▪ Say they are "almost right"
o Illusory Correlation
• Relationship between 2 variables when there is none
▪ Ex. #13 is bad luck
• They do have effects; influence and effect emotions + thinking
• Effects: pay attention to info that supports their belief and disregard info
the does not support it
o Perceiving Order in Random Events
• Look for patterns where there are none
• People are uncomfortable with uncertainties and randomness
• They come up with rules that do not exist
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• BUT random sequences often don't look random
▪ “tees … "age fo ode"
• *Overconfidence, hindsight bias, and perception of order of random events
demonstrate how science based results are more reliable than the results of intuition
or common sense.
The Scientific Attitude
• Curiosity : there is no science without curiosity
o A hunger/ passion to learn without being mislead
• Raise questions to answer them
• Thomas Edison made 1000+ inventions
• Open mindedness:
o To examine problems from multiple perspectives
o Not gullible / be open to ideas opposite to what you think
• Skepticism, not cynicism
o Balance with an open mind
o Do ot aept stateets at fae alue … ask uestios
o Look and evaluate evidence for validity
• Randi tested & debunked psychic phenomena
• Awareness
o Of bias and expectations
• Humility - no ego
o Acknowledge the smarts of others
o Humans can make mistakes
o Be able to change your position if science shows you otherwise
o "Rat is always right; science is the truth so be objective.
**Critical thinking: thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions. Rather,
it examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence and assesses
conclusions. **
The Scientific Method
• Psychology is a science
o Any field that follows the scientific method is a science
o Scientific method: a self-correcting process for asking questions and observing
nature's answers.
• Been developed for hundreds of years
o Observation:
• Casual observation must become systematic
o Theory - an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes
observations and predicts behaviours or events
• Help organize and integrate info
• Hypothetical explanation (tentative prediction between two variables;
does not have to be true)
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o Hypothesis Testing
• Hypothesis: a testable prediction, often implied by a theory.
• Extract idea from theory and test it
o Provide operational definition
• Operational def: a statement of procedures used to define research
variables
▪ Ex. Human intelligence = what an intelligence test measures
▪ Researcher makes a precise and clear statement explaining how
he will measure his variables
o Replication
• Replication: repeating the essence of research study, usually with
different participants in different situations, to see whether the basic
finding extends to other participants and circumstances.
• If the results are similar, the theory is confident.
o Generate/ Refine
Types of Research Studies
• Descriptive Research
• Purpose: observe and then describe what is observed.
• Case Study: an observation technique in which one person (or small group of people) is
studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles
o Advantages:
• Most in depth research possible
• Allow us to document real studies
• Learn about humanity
o Disadvantages:
• Sample is so small, cannot generalize
• Researcher bias: audio/video record exact observations
• Survey:
o Survey: a technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviours of a
particular group, usually by questioning a representative, random sample of the
group.
• Questionnaire or interview to get the info they need
• Can be descriptive or correlational
• Population:
▪ All the cases in a group being studied, from which samples may be
drawn.
• Random sample:
▪ A sample that fairly represents a population because each member
has an equal chance of inclusion
• Use info from sample to generalize to a population
• For a survey to be scientific, the sample must be representative of the
population
▪ Sample must reflect the characteristics of the population.
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find more resources at oneclass.com
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