Unit 02 - Overview
• The Need for Psychological Science
• The Scientific Method and Description
• Correlation and Experimentation
• Statistical Reasoning in Everyday Life
• Frequently Asked Questions About Psychology
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Did We Know It All Along? Hindsight Bias
• Hindsight Bias–“I knew it all along”
Overconfidence
• Overconfidence
Richard Goranson Study
Perceiving Order in Random Events
• Comes from our need to make sense out of the world–Coin flip
–Poker hand
The Scientific Attitude: Curious, Skeptical and Humble
• Three main components
• Hindsight bias, overconfidence and our tendency to perceive patters in random events often lead us to overestimate our intuition.
Critical Thinking
• Critical Thinking–“Smart thinking”
–Elements
The Scientific Method• Theory
• Hypothesis
• Operational Definition
• Replication
The Scientific Method
• A good theory is useful if it:
Description
The Case Study• Case Study
Description
Naturalistic Observation
• Naturalistic Observation
Description
The Survey
• Survey
• Word effects
• Random sampling
Description
The Survey
• Sampling
Module 06:Correlation and Experimentation
Correlation• Correlation (correlation coefficient)
Scatterplot
Correlation
Correlation and Causation
• Correlation helps __________
–Does not __________________
Correlation
Illusory Correlations
Experimentation
• Experiment
Experimentation
• Groups–Experimental Group
–Control Group
Experimentation• Randomly assigned
–random sample
Experimentation• Blind (uninformed)
–Single-Blind Procedure
–Double-Blind Procedure
• Placebo Effect
Experimentation
Independent and Dependent Variables
• Independent Variable–Confounding variable
• Dependent Variable
• Validity
Module 07:Statistical Reasoning in
Everyday Life
The Need for Statistics
• Understanding basic statistics is beneficial for everyone
Descriptive Statistics
• Descriptive Statistics
• Histogram –Scale labels
Descriptive Statistics
Measures of Central Tendency• Mean
• Median
• Mode
• Skewed distribution
Descriptive Statistics
Measures of Variability
• Range
• Standard Deviation
Descriptive Statistics
Measures of Variability
• Normal Curve
Inferential Statistics
Inferential Statistics
When Is an Observed Difference Reliable?
• Inferential statistics
Inferential Statistics
When Is a Difference Significant?• Statistical significance
Module 08:Frequently Asked Questions
About Psychology
Psychology Applied• Can laboratory experiments
illuminate everyday life?
• Does behavior depend on one’s culture and gender?–Culture
–Gender
Ethics in Research
• Ethics in animal research
Ethics in Research
• Ethics in human research–Informed consent
–Debriefing