Experimental Psychology Chapter 1 PDF

Chapter 1: Experimental Psychology and the In overconfidence bias, we feel more Scientific Method confident about our conclusions than is warranted by available data. This Science connot...

Chapter 1: Experimental Psychology and the In overconfidence bias, we feel more Scientific Method confident about our conclusions than is warranted by available data. This Science connotes content and process. form of nonscientific inference can Methodology consists of the scientific result in erroneous conclusions when techniques we use to collect and we don’t recognize the limitations of evaluate data. supporting data. Data are the facts we gather using Alfred North Whitehead’s scientific scientific methods mentality assumes that behavior Heider called nonscientific data gathering follows a natural order and can be commonsense psychology. This approach uses predicted. This assumption is essential nonscientific sources of data and nonscientific to science. There is no point to using inference. An everyday example is believing the scientific method to gather and that “opposites attract.” analyze data if there is no implicit order. Nonscientific inference is the Data are empirical when observed or nonscientific use of information to experienced. Galileo’s empirical explain or predict behavior. The approach was superior to Aristotle’s gambler’s fallacy, overuse of trait commonsense method. Galileo explanations, stereotyping, and correctly concluded that light objects overconfidence bias illustrate this fall as rapidly as heavy ones in a problem. vacuum. In the gambler’s fallacy, people misuse A law consists of statements generally data to estimate the probability of an expressed as equations with few event, like when a slot machine will pay variables that have overwhelming off. empirical support. Laws, like the Laws When we overuse trait explanations of Thermodynamics, are useful in the to explain others' behavior, we often physical sciences. make unwarranted dispositional A theory is an interim explanation; a attributions and underuse situational set of related statements used explain information. This bias can reduce the and predict phenomena. Theories accuracy of our explanations and integrate diverse data, explain predictions. behavior, and predict new instances of In stereotyping, we falsely assume that behavior. specific behaviors cluster together. For Good thinking is critical to the example, since Imei is a Chinese scientific method. We engage in good American student, she must study 10 thinking when data collection and hours a day and excel at math. In interpretation are sets of systematic, reality, she failed calculus. Stereotypes objective, and rational. ignore individual differences.  The principle of parsimony is that we Applied research addresses real-world prefer the simplest useful explanation. problems like how to improve student For example, Crandall (1988) showed graduation rates. that a social contagion model of Basic research tests theories and bulimia was more parsimonious than explains psychological phenomena like competing explanations. helping behavior. Sir Karl Popper proposed that science The main tools of psychological science advances by revising theories based on are: observation, measurement, and the “weight of evidence.” Science is experimentation. self-correcting as these scientific Observation is the systematic noting explanations and theories are and recording of events. challenged, and revised or replaced. Systematic means that the procedures The principle of modus tollens allows are consistently applied. us to disprove statements using a The events or their signs must be single, contrary observation. We can observable. never prove a statement because a Observations must be objective so that contradictory observation might be there can be strong agreement among found later. raters. Replication is an exact or systematic Measurement assigns numbers to repetition of a study. Replication objects, events, or their characteristics. increases our confidence in This is an inherent feature of experimental results by adding to the quantitative research. Baron and weight of supporting evidence. colleagues (1985) measured anger and The four main objectives of science depression using numerical scales. are: (1) description, (2) prediction, (3) Experimentation is the process we use explanation, (4) control to test the predictions we call Description is a systematic and hypotheses and establish cause-and- unbiased account of observed effect relationships. characteristics of behaviors. Experimentation is not always possible Prediction is the capability of knowing because our predictions must be in advance when certain behaviors testable. should occur. We must be able to manipulate the Explanation is knowledge of the independent variable and measure its conditions that reliably produce a effect on the dependent variable. behavior. Ethical concerns or technological Control is the use of scientific limitations may also prevent knowledge to influence behavior. experimentation.  An experiment requires that we create at least two treatment conditions and randomly assign subjects to these conditions. In psychology experiments, we control extraneous variables so we that we can measure “what we intend to measure.” An experiment attempts to establish a cause- and-effect relationship between the antecedent conditions (IV) and subject behavior (DV). Experiments establish a temporal relationship, because causes must precede effects. However, not all prior events are causes. A pseudoscience is any field of study that gives the appearance of being scientific but has no true scientific basis and has not been confirmed using the scientific method. Modern pseudo sciences include past life regression, reparenting, and rebirthing.