Thinking Critically With Psychological Science outline study guide

The following texts are the property of their respective authors and we thank them for giving us the opportunity to share for free to students, teachers and users of the Web their texts will used only for illustrative educational and scientific purposes only.

All the information in our site are given for nonprofit educational purposes

The information of medicine and health contained in the site are of a general nature and purpose which is purely informative and for this reason may not replace in any case, the council of a doctor or a qualified entity legally to the profession.

Thinking Critically With Psychological Science outline study guide

Chapter 1: Thinking Critically With Psychological Science

Directions: As you read over the chapter, add information to the basic outline provided below. Use both your textbook and the class lecture to answer the questions highlighted in yellow.

CHAPTER PREVIEW

The scientific attitude reflects an eagerness to sceptically scrutinize competing ideas with an open-minded humility before nature. This attitude, coupled with scientific principles for sifting reality from illusion, prepares us to think critically. Two reliable phenomena – hindsight bias and judgmental overconfidence – illustrate the limits of everyday intuition and our need for scientific inquiry and critical thinking.
Psychologists construct theories that organize observations and imply testable hypotheses. In their research, they use case studies, surveys and naturalistic observation to describe behavior; correlation to assess the relationship between variables; and experimentation to uncover cause-effect relationships. Researchers use statistics to describe their data, to assess relationships between variables, and to determine whether differences are significant.
This chapter concludes by briefly answering several questions that students commonly ask about psychology. These include concern over the simplification of reality in laboratory experiments, the generalizability of research in terms of culture and gender, the purpose of animal studies, the adequacy of research ethics, and the potential misuse of psychology’s knowledge.

CHAPTER GUIDE

The Need for Psychological Science (Pg. 19 – 26)

Define ‘hindsight bias’, and explain how it can make research findings seem like mere common sense.

Describe how overconfidence contaminates our everyday judgments.

Our everyday thinking is limited by our tendency to think we know more than we do. Asked how sure we are of our answers to factual questions, we tend to be more confident than correct. College students’ predictions of their future behaviors and experts’ predictions of political, economic and military outcomes are similarly overconfident. Despite lacklustre predictions, the overconfidence of experts is hard to dislodge.

Define ‘critical thinking’ and explain how a scientific attitude helps us do this.

Outline the steps in the scientific method.

Describe how psychological theories guide scientific research.

A useful theory effectively organizes a wide range of observations and implies testable predictions, called hypotheses. By enabling us to test and reject or revise a particular theory, such predictions give direction to research. They specify in advance what results would support the theory and what results would disconfirm it. As an additional check on their own biases, psychologists report their results precisely with clear operational definitions of concepts. Such statements of the procedures used to define research variables allow others to replicate, or repeat, their observations. Often, research leads to a revised theory that better organizes and predicts observable behaviors or events.

What two criteria must be met in order for a theory to be useful?

Description (pg. 26 – 30)

Explain the difference between descriptive and experimental research.

Identify the advantages and disadvantages of using surveys to study behavior and mental processes, and explain the importance of wording effects and random sampling.

The survey looks at many cases in less depth and asks people to report their behavior or opinions. Asking questions is tricky because even subtle changes in the order or wording of questions can dramatically affect responses. In everyday experience, we are exposed to a biased sample of people who mostly share our attitudes and habits. As a result, we are vulnerable to the false consensus effect, whereby we overestimate others’ agreement with us. The survey ascertains the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a population by questioning a representative, random sample.

Define ‘ population’ and ‘random sample’ and indicate the importance of choosing a random sample in any research.

Identify an advantage and a disadvantage of using naturalistic observation to study behavior and mental processes.

Naturalistic observation consists of observing and recording the behavior of organisms in their natural environment. Like the case study and survey methods, this research strategy describes behavior but does not explain it.

Correlation (pg. 30 – 36)

Define correlation and describe how it is measured.

Describe positive and negative correlations, and explain how correlational measures can aid the process of prediction.

When surveys and naturalistic observations reveal that one trait or behavior accompanies another, we say the two correlate. A correlation coefficient is a statistical measure of a relationship. A positive correlation indicates a direct relationship, meaning that two things increase together or decrease together. A negative correlation indicates an inverse relationship: as one thing increases, the other decreases. Researchers depict scores on graphs called scatterplots; each point plots the value of two variables. The correlation coefficient helps us to see the world more clearly by revealing the extent to which two things relate.

Explain why correlations do not imply causation.

Describe how people form illusory correlations.

Illusory correlation, the perception of a relationship where none exists, often occurs because our belief that a relationship exists leads us to notice and recall confirming instances of that belief. Because we are sensitive to unusual events, we are especially likely to notice and remember the occurrence of two such events in sequence, for example, a premonition of an unlikely phone call followed by the call.

Explain the human tendency to perceive order in random sequences.

Illusory correlation is also a result of our natural eagerness to make sense of our world. Given even random data, we look for meaningful patterns. We usually find order because random sequences often don’t look random. Apparent patterns and streaks (such as repeating digits) occur more often than people expect. Failing to see random occurrences for what they are can lead us to seek extraordinary explanations for ordinary events.

Experimentation (pg. 36 – 39)

Explain how experiments help researchers isolate cause and effect.

The experiment is a research method in which the investigator manipulates one or more variables to observer their effect on some behavior or mental process while controlling other relevant factors. If a behavior changes when we vary an experimental factor, then we know the factor is having a causal effect.

Describe how ‘experimenter bias’ and ‘ethnocentrism’ can effect results of experiments (cite Clever Hans experiment).

Explain how ‘sample bias’ and ‘participant bias’ (social desirability response) impact the results of experiments.

Define the following terms, indicating what impact they have on research findings: a) double-blind procedure; b) placebo effect; c) experimental condition; d) control condition; e) random assignment

Differentiate between an independent and a dependent variable in research.

The independent variable is the experimental factor that is being manipulated. It is the variable whose effect is being studied. The dependent variable is the variable that may change in response to the manipulations of the independent variable. It is the outcome factor.

What is the ‘Hawthorne Effect’?

What does it mean to have a variable ‘operationally defined’?

Statistical Reasoning (pg. 39 – 44)

Explain the importance of statistical principles and give an example of their use in everyday life.

Statistics help us to organize, summarize and make inferences from data. They enable us to evaluate big, round, undocumented numbers that often misread reality and mislead the public.

Explain how bar graphs can misrepresent data.

Bar graphs provide one way to organize and present distributions of data. The visual display permits comparisons between different groups on the same quantitative dimension. Reducing or expanding the range of that measure can make differences between groups appear smaller or larger. It is always important to read the scale labels and note the range.

Describe the three measures of central tendency and tell which is most affected by extreme scores.

Describe two measures of variation outlined in your text.

Identify three principles for making generalizations from samples.

Important principles to remember in making generalizations include the following:

Representative samples are better than biased samples. We are particularly prone to overgeneralize from vivid cases at the extremes
Less-variable observations are better than those that are more variable.. Averages are more reliable when derived from scores with low variability.
More cases are better than fewer. Small samples provide less reliable estimates of the average than do large samples.

What is ‘statistical significance’ and what does it tell us about research results?

Frequently Asked Questions About Psychology

Explain the value of simplified laboratory conditions in discovering general principles of behavior.

The experimenter intends the laboratory experiment to be a simplified reality, one in which important features can be simulated and controlled. The experiment’s purpose is not to re-create the exact behaviors of everyday life but to test theoretical principles. It is the resulting principles – not the specific findings – that help explain everyday behavior.

How do gender and culture impact the generalizability of research results?

Explain why psychologists study animals.

Some psychologists study animals out of an interest in animal behaviors. Others do so because knowledge of the physiological and psychological processes of animals enables them to better understand the similar processes that operate in humans.

Outline the ethical principles for experimentation with a) animals and b) humans.

What ethical responsibilities do psychotherapists have and under what circumstances can they disregard such responsibilities?

Describe how personal values can influence psychologists’ research and its application, and discuss psychology’s potential to manipulate people.

Psychologists’ values can influence their choice of research topic, their theories and observations, their labels for behavior and their professional advice.

Knowledge is power that can be used for good or evil. Applications of psychology’s principles have so far been mostly for the good, and psychology addresses some of humanity’s greatest problems and deepest longings.

Describe the purpose of ‘human factors’ psychology.

Source : http://www.deltasd.bc.ca/se/ss/Chapter%201%20Research%20Methods%202009.doc

Web site link to visit: http://www.deltasd.bc.ca/

Google key word : Thinking Critically With Psychological Science outline study guide file type : doc

Author : not indicated on the source document of the above text

If you are the author of the text above and you not agree to share your knowledge for teaching, research, scholarship (for fair use as indicated in the United States copyrigh low) please send us an e-mail and we will remove your text quickly.