Modules 4-5: Psychological Science
Why We Cannot Rely Solely in Intuition and Common Sense
● Hindsight bias: the tendency to think we could have predicted an outcome after it already happened
○ “I knew it all along” phenomenon
○ E.g. checking answer key
● Overconfidence bias: the tendency to overestimate how correct our predictions/beliefs are
○ E.g. thinking that you did well on a test
● Confirmation bias: the tendency to look for evidence that confirms your belief while ignoring evidence
that opposes it
○ E.g. politics
● Social desirability bias: the tendency to answer personal questions falsely or in a manner that would be
viewed unfavorably
○ Overreport good behavior; underreport bad behavior
○ E.g. meeting new people, college applications
● Pseudoscience
○ Seeks confirmation; science seeks falsifications
○ Claims fit with any imaginable set of observable outcomes; scientific claims are falsifiable
○ Untestable; science is testable
● Clever Hans
○ “Mathematical horse”
○ Horse was accurate only when the owner knew the answer to the math question
○ Horse read the owner’s body language
The Scientific Attitude
● How to overcome the pitfalls of bias, pseudoscience, etc
● Allow modern science to be possible
● Curiosity: a passion to explore/understand without misleadings
● Skepticism: doubting, questioning
○ “To believe with certainty we must begin by doubting”
○ What do you mean? How do you know?
● Humility: an awareness of our own vulnerability to error and openness to surprises
● Critical thinking: process of assessing claims and making judgements on the basis of well-supported
evidence
The Scientific Method
● Theory: a testable explanation for sets of facts/observations
● Hypothesis: a testable prediction usually implied by a theory
○ If-then statement
● Operational definition: a carefully worded statement of the exact procedures used in a research study
○ Theories can bias observations
○ Psychologists use it to check their biases
○ Allows for replication (repeating an experiment/study with different participants/situations to see
whether the findings extends to other people/circumstances)
● Qualities of a good theory
○ Effectively organizes a range of self-reports and observations
○ Leads to clear hypotheses/predictions that anyone can use to check the theory
○ Often stimulates research that leads to better predictions or is replicated and supported by
similar findings
● Ways to refine a theory
○ Descriptive methods describe behaviors by using case studies, surveys, naturalistic
observations
○ Correlational methods associate different factors/variables
○ Experimental methods manipulate variables to discover their effects
Description
● 3 types of research
○ Description/observational - simply describing a behavior
○ Correlation - finding a relationship between 2 variables
○ Experiment - controlled setting, manipulated variables
● Case study: intensive examination of the behavior + mental processes of a specific person/situation
○ Especially useful when something is new, complex, or rare
○ Show what can happen and suggest directions for further study
○ Problems:
■ Unlikely to be representative of the population
■ May be abnormal behavior
● Naturalistic observation: observation of human/animal behavior in the environment in which it typically
occurs
○ No manipulation or controlling the situation
○ Problems:
■ Observations can be disordered if observers expect to see certain behaviors
■ People tend to act different if they know they’re being observed
● Survey: discovering self-reported attitudes/behaviors of a particular group through questionnaires
○ Gathers lots of info quickly
○ Problems:
■ Wording/framing of a question can have major impacts
■ Sampling errors
■ Social desirability bias/effect
■ Sampling bias
● Longitudinal study: description
● Cross-sectional study: description
● Quasi-experiment: studies that have the same control as experiments but don’t randomly assign
participants
● Sampling bias: a flawed sampling processes that produces an unrepresentative sample
○ Some members are systematically more likely to be chosen than others
● Population: all those in a group being studied
○ Samples come from it
● Random sample: a sample that fairly represents a population because everyone has an equal chance
of inclusion
