PSYC 201 Study Guide - Final Guide: Internal Validity, Drive Slow, Nylon
10 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Psych 201
Chapter 1. Intro
• What is psychology:
o the science of mind and behavior
• What distinguishes psychology from other sciences?
o the attempt to understand human behaviour through systematic study and
scientific method
• Empiricism
o systematic observation and test
• Scientific approach to knowledge
o Objective measurement
o Ability for results to be confirmed by other scientists
o Self-correction of errors and faulty reasoning
o Exercising controls to eliminate unwanted factors
• Consumer of research
o Reads and uses knowledge of studies
• Producer of researcher
o does studies and publishes papers
Chapter 2. Non-Scientific approaches
• Non-scientific approaches
o 1) Authority
2) Tenacity
3) Intuition
4) Personal observation
• Authority
o someone's expertise, higher status, or rank said it's true (Professor, parent, coach)
ex: Bieber with Proactive. Likeable, popular, trustworthy. Identifiable with target
market "demographic".
ex: celebrities with emotional associations to products- Swift & puppies (US),
coke(CS)
• Tenacity
o heard for a long time or by a lot of people seem true; difficult to change
ex: Trump- Obama born in Kenya
• Intuition
o “GUT FEELING”
• Personal Observation
o own experience; is limited. More powerful if it goes beyond personal experiences
ex: restaurant was good, however you didn't try everything on the menu or waited
on by other servers
• Epistemology
o ways of knowing (knowledge)- nonscientific & scientific methods
• Fake news
o -Non-scientific ways to acquire knowledge.
-Type of propaganda, deliberate misinformation transmitted via print, media,
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online.
-Has eye-catching headlines, fabricated news stories to increase readership for
financial or political gain
• Satire or Parody
o humour not mislead like fake news
• Advantages of authority
o efficient way of acquiring knowledge ex: "expert" friend recommend good/bad
restaurant
• Pitfalls of authority
o -can be wrong
- disagree
- might not be an expert
- our beliefs influenced by emotional reaction to person
• Urban legends
o 'tenacity'- accepted as true because hear over again for long period of time
ex: 5 second rule
• Rational thinking
o ability to consider relevant variables- access, organize, analyze relevant info to
arrive at conclusion without emotion. Can change with new evidence or new data
• Testing 5 seconds on Urban legend
o slices of bologna& bread on wood, tile, and nylon carpet for 5 sec.
Found:
- 150-8000 bacteria. 1 min- 10x amount
- 10 can cause disease (salmonellas), fewer than 100 deadly strain or e.coli
Conclusion: amount of pathogens 1) what you drop
2) where you drop it (carpet had less, but kept bacteria in it longer)
• Truthiness
o satirical term (Stephen colbert), claim to know something intuitively,
instinctively or 'from the gut' with no regard to evidence, logic, intellectual
examination, or actual facts
• Truth or Truthiness?
o people more like to believe a statement if with a picture. Affect intuitions
• Limitations of personal observation/experience
o 1) limited, no comparison group
2) people diff. experiences
3) perceptions of same experience differ
4) experience * preference is confounded (we seek positive experiences). we
cannot attribute cause-and-effect relationships
• Ex’s of Observation & Experience
o Full moons cause craziness and crimes. Truth to claim?
1986, 2 psychologist found no evidence to link lunar effect.
Persist? Confirmation Bias
• Confirmation of Bias
o form hypothesis about cause-and-effect relationship, look for instances to
support it. ignore or reinterpret disconfirming evidence LESS LIKELY TO
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LOOK FOR DISCONFIRMING EVIDENCE
ex/ remember craziness during full moon. When nothing- don't count it.
Nurses added more to events to confirm hunches during full moon.
ex/ everyday life
-behaviors of significant others(leaving cupboards open all the time)
- stereotypes(elderly drive slow)
-positive or neg. opinions of friends
• Disconfirming evidence
o evidence doesn't support of falsifies our hypothesis
Chapter 3. Confirmation Bias
• Strategies for detecting fake news
o reputation of website?
-cite respected authorities?
-who wrote story & background
-other stories that appear on website
-do headlines seem sensational? pass 'smell test'?
-use fact checking sites (ex/snopes.com)
• Intuition-thin slicing experiment
o 13 profs, 10-sec clips of each, students rated on "accepting, active, competent, and
confident".
Correlated thin slice rating with end-semester evaluations from actual students,
(0.75) even when clips cut to 6 seconds
• Scientific basis of Thin slicing- interpersonal judgements in blink of an eye
o make judgements based on observations (eye contact, fidgeting, openhanded
gestures, stiff posture, smiling).
Based on confidence, warmth, optimism
frowning, fidgeting, gazing down- poor ratings
smiled, walk around, touch upper torso- positive ratings
• Dress illusion-
o not everyone sees the world in the same way
• Flaw in personal observation
o clouded by our first-hand experiences of the world and these experiences are
remembered best( Availability Bias)
• Availability bias
o Household chores study- for married couples estimate % their responsibility.
Found couples overestimate their own contribution
Why?
-selective encoding (we know ourselves better than others)
-information disparities (always there when we do stuff, not when others do it)
-motivation factor(want to put ourselves in "good-light"
• Problems with non-scientific approaches
o 1) there is no way to verify the truthfulness of these statements
2) Difficult to disconfirm knowledge based on tenacity, intuition or authority bc
people less like change view in face of empirical evidence
• How do we study confirmation bias in the lab?
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Intro: what is psychology: the science of mind and behavior, what distinguishes psychology from other sciences? the attempt to understand human behaviour through systematic study and scientific method, empiricism, systematic observation and test, scientific approach to knowledge. Non-scientific approaches: 1) authority, tenacity, intuition, personal observation, authority, someone"s expertise, higher status, or rank said it"s true (professor, parent, coach) ex: bieber with proactive. Intuition: gut feeling , personal observation, own experience; is limited. Type of propaganda, deliberate misinformation transmitted via print, media, online. Our beliefs influenced by emotional reaction to person: urban legends. "tenacity"- accepted as true because hear over again for long period of time ex: 5 second rule: rational thinking, ability to consider relevant variables- access, organize, analyze relevant info to arrive at conclusion without emotion. Can change with new evidence or new data: testing 5 seconds on urban legend, slices of bologna& bread on wood, tile, and nylon carpet for 5 sec.
