PSY 101 CH:1
Confirmation Bias: the tendency to seek out evidence hat supports our beliefs
and deny, dismiss, or distort evidence that contradicts them.
Biases like these make it hard for us to rely on intuition and common
sense to understand the world around us
6 PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC THINKING
(are designed to minimize the effects of biases)
1. RULING OUT RIVAL HYPOTHESES
It asks: Is this the best explanation for the finding?
EX: “study shows that depressed people who receive a new medication improve
more that equally-depressed people who receive nothing”
A rival hypothesis would be placebo effect
2. CORRELATION VS. CAUSATION
Just because two things are associated with each other, doesn’t mean
that one must cause the other
CORRELATION ≠ CAUSATION
EX: “when ice cream sales increase crime rates also increase”
There might be a third variable in this case maybe temperature. Usually summer
when the weather is hot people tend to buy ice cream and even travel leaving
their homes behind.
3. FALSIFIABILITY
For a claim to be scientific it must be falsifiable
Meaning: the aspect of it having to be tested in order to claim it as
correct.
EX: KARMA because we can’t test it scientifically we can not consider it a
scientific claim
4. REPLICABILITY
If a study’s findings can’t be consistently replicated, it increases the
odds that the original findings were simply due to chance
This is why we do our studies multiple times, we’ll be more confident that
we’re looking at a real effect.
, PSY 101 CH:1
5. EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
EX: some scientist claims that pizza and burgers are the healthiest foods. Do
we believe that straight away? Probably not since we know from a lot of
previous studies.
So you have to look at the evidence and you have to Look at the evidence and
you have to see :
is the evidence As extraordinary as the claim. if not, we have to reject the
claim.
6. OCCAM’S RAZOR (PRINCIPLE OF PARSIMONY)
States that if two explanations account equally well for our phenomenon,
The simpler or more parsimonious explanation should be chosen.
In science simplicity is valued so if there is two explanations one being
overly complicated and the other being much more simple we would prefer to
explain the world in a much simpler way.
Confirmation Bias: the tendency to seek out evidence hat supports our beliefs
and deny, dismiss, or distort evidence that contradicts them.
Biases like these make it hard for us to rely on intuition and common
sense to understand the world around us
6 PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC THINKING
(are designed to minimize the effects of biases)
1. RULING OUT RIVAL HYPOTHESES
It asks: Is this the best explanation for the finding?
EX: “study shows that depressed people who receive a new medication improve
more that equally-depressed people who receive nothing”
A rival hypothesis would be placebo effect
2. CORRELATION VS. CAUSATION
Just because two things are associated with each other, doesn’t mean
that one must cause the other
CORRELATION ≠ CAUSATION
EX: “when ice cream sales increase crime rates also increase”
There might be a third variable in this case maybe temperature. Usually summer
when the weather is hot people tend to buy ice cream and even travel leaving
their homes behind.
3. FALSIFIABILITY
For a claim to be scientific it must be falsifiable
Meaning: the aspect of it having to be tested in order to claim it as
correct.
EX: KARMA because we can’t test it scientifically we can not consider it a
scientific claim
4. REPLICABILITY
If a study’s findings can’t be consistently replicated, it increases the
odds that the original findings were simply due to chance
This is why we do our studies multiple times, we’ll be more confident that
we’re looking at a real effect.
, PSY 101 CH:1
5. EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
EX: some scientist claims that pizza and burgers are the healthiest foods. Do
we believe that straight away? Probably not since we know from a lot of
previous studies.
So you have to look at the evidence and you have to Look at the evidence and
you have to see :
is the evidence As extraordinary as the claim. if not, we have to reject the
claim.
6. OCCAM’S RAZOR (PRINCIPLE OF PARSIMONY)
States that if two explanations account equally well for our phenomenon,
The simpler or more parsimonious explanation should be chosen.
In science simplicity is valued so if there is two explanations one being
overly complicated and the other being much more simple we would prefer to
explain the world in a much simpler way.
