AP PsychologyChapter One The Limits of Intuition and Common Sense y hindsight bias and judgmental overconfidence explain why

we cant rely solely on intuition and common sense y advocates of intuitive management urge people to ignore statistical predictions Did We Know It All Along? Hindsight Bias y finding something has happened makes it seem inevitable y hindsight bias: the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it (aka the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon) named by Paul Slovic and Baruch Fischoff Overconfidence y we think we know more than we do y Phillip Tetlock (1998) collected expert predictions on political, economic and military situations... experts who were 80%+ confident were right less than 40% of the time; even those who were wrong felt their original answer was almost right y hindsight bias and overconfidence lead us to overestimate our intuition but scientific inquiry help us see that intuition is not always right

The Scientific Attitude y psychologists have a curious, humble, skeptical approach y critical thinking: thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions, but rather examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence and assesses conclusions The Scientific Method y theory: an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events y hypothesis: a testable prediction often implied by a theory y operational definition: a statement of the procedure (operations) used to define research variables. For example, human intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures y replication: repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situations, to see whether the basic finding extends to other participants and circumstances y scientific method: self-correcting process for asking questions and observing natures answer y theory is deemed useful if: o it effectively organizes a range of self-reports and observations o it implies clear predictions that anyone can use to check the theory or derive practical applications y theories can be refined with descriptive, correlational and experimental methods

AP PsychologyChapter One

The Case Study y case study: an observation technique in which one person is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles y often lead to hypotheses for further study y downside - individual cases can be misleading because the results may be atypical y case studies can suggests possible ideas but to find general truths, more testing, using other methods, is needed y clinical study: form of case study where the therapist investigates the problems associated with one individual in hope of revealing more general findings The Survey y survey: a technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of people, usually by questioning a representative, random sample of them y looks at many cases in less depth y answers depend on factors such as the way the question is worded and the people that answer y wording effect: manipulating the way a question is worded can change the results of a survey ex. not allowed vs. forbidden vs. censored y (harsher) word choice has a huge impact on the outcome y false consensus effect: the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors y the best basis for generalizing is from a representative sample of cases y population: all the cases in a group, from which samples may be drawn for a study (note: except for national studies, this does not refer to a countrys whole population) y random sample: a sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion y without random sampling, survey results are misleading Naturalistic Observation y naturalistic observation: observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation y does not explain behavior but describes it Correlation y correlation: a measure of the extent to which 2 factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other. The correlation coefficient is the mathematical expression ranging from -1 to +1 y a positive or negative sign indicates direction and the number indicates strength of relationship y a straight line would have the highest correlation (1) and a random scatterplot would have the lowest (0) y scatterplot: a graphed cluster of dots, each which represents the values of 2 variables. The slope of the points suggests the direction of the relationship between the 2 variables. The amount of scatter suggests the strength of the correlation (also called a scattergram or scatter diagram) y correlation coefficients help us see more clearly by revealing graphically the extent two which 2 things relate

AP PsychologyChapter One Correlation and Causation y correlation does not prove causation, it only indicates the possibility of a causeeffect relationship Illusory Correlations y illusory correlation: the perception of a relationship where none exists y due to a sensitivity to dramatic events, people tend to remember the occurrence of more unusual events rather than the more-often-occurring usual events Perceiving Order in Random Events y humans look for meaningful patterns y in actual random sequences, patterns occur more often then people expect Experimentation y experiment: a research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process (the dependent variable). By random assignment of participants, the experimenter aims to control other relevant factors Exploring Cause and Effect y clearest way to isolate cause and effect is to experiment y experiments allow a researcher to o manipulate the factors of interest o hold constant (control ) other factors

Evaluating Therapies y because often it is difficult to establish whether or not a remedy is effective, in testing participants are often blind/uninformed y experiments are used to find out if a remedy is actually effective y double-blind procedure: an experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are ignorant (blind) about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo - commonly used in drug-evaluation studies y placebo effect: (Latin for I shall please) experimental results caused by expectations alone; any effect on behavior caused by the administration of an inert substance or condition, which is assumed to be an active agent y experimental condition: condition of an experiment that contrasts with the experimental condition and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment y control condition: the condition of an experiment that contrasts with the experimental condition and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment y random assignment: assigning participants to experimental and control conditions by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between those assigned to the different groups

AP PsychologyChapter One

Independent and Dependent Variables y independent variable: the experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied y dependent variable: the outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable y confounding variables: undesirable variables Comparing Research Methods Research Method Basic Purpose Descriptive to observe and record behavior How Conducted What is manipulated do case studies, nothing surveys or naturalistic observations Compute nothing statistical association, sometimes among survey responses the independent variables Weakness no control of variables, single cases may be misleading does not specify cause and effect

Correlational

Experimental

to detect naturally occurring relationships; to assess how well one variable predicts another to explore cause manipulate one and effect or more factors; use random assignment

sometimes not feasible; results may not generalize to other contexts; not ethical to manipulate certain variables

Describing Data y bar graphs can be manipulated based on what the designer wants to emphasize y read the scale and note the range Measures of Central Tendency y mode: the most frequently occurring score(s) in a distribution y mean: the arithmetic average of a distribution, obtained by adding the scores and then dividing by the number of scores y median: the middle score in a distribution; half of the scores are above it and half are below it y when distribution is skewed the measures of central tendency arent always very accurate y the mean can be influenced by outliers (non-resistant) Measures of Variation y range: the difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution y standard deviation: a computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score (= to the sum of the deviations squared over the number of scores)

AP PsychologyChapter One When is an Observed Difference Reliable? y representative samples are better than biased samples y less-variable observations are more reliable than those that are more variable y more cases are better than fewer o doubt big, round, undocumented numbers

When is a Difference Significant? y when the sample averages are reliable and the difference between them is large, the difference has statistical significance y statistical significance: a statistical statement of how likely it is than an obtained result occurred by chance y statistical significance does not indicate the importance of a result