Transcript Mod 2: Thinking critically with psychological science

Unit 2 Lecture 1
Mod 2: Thinking critically with
psychological science
AKA: David Myers and the rest of the APA spelling out why
psychologists should be taken seriously by skeptics of the
world!!!
Presented in the form of a mock debate between the “real”
scientists of the world and psychologists
Skeptics argument #1:Most of the theories of psychology are just a bunch of common
sense that my grandma coulda figured out!
Psychologists’ response:
Hindsight bias: the ability to look at the past with 20/20 vision as in , “I
knew it all along, I just didn’t think of saying it!”
• If psych is so common sense, tell me if each of the following is true
or false, Mr. and Mrs. skeptical genius:
• When people talk in their sleep, they are acting out their dreams
FALSE in intimate relationships
• Opposites attract
• Hypnosis is best usedFALSE
for unlocking repressed memories of childhood
abuse
FALSE
• Electric shock
treatment is effective for relieving the symptoms of
depression
TRUE
Skeptics argument #2 for why psychology is not a real science: All you psychologists do
is make up theories to explain human behavior. Well we could do that ourselves, after
all, we are the humans doing the behaving!!
Psychologists’ response:
• We call that overconfidence!
• Intuition is NOT as accurate as people perceive
• People are stubborn: we give ourselves credit for
almost being right with intuition and ignore our
mistakes
Skeptics argument #3: Psychology isn’t very scientific like
chemistry and biology and physics
Psychologists’ response:
• Psychology uses critical thinking (AKA the scientific method):
a) examine assumptions (is our assumption based on fact or
hunch?)
b) discern hidden values (dig out reality instead of accepting things
at face value)
c) evaluating evidence (what does this data or observation tell us?)
d) assessing conclusions (is that conclusion accurate or is it
overlooking some hidden variables or bias?)
e) keeping a skeptical attitude (always seek “Why?” something is
happening, ask for proof!)
Skeptics argument #4: Sure, you may say you are critical
thinkers, but REAL scientists employ the scientific method!
Psychologist responds: SO DO WE!
Skeptics argument #5: Fine, that all looks scientific, but you don’t
get to do lab experiments because that would defeat your
purpose of understanding human behavior; I mean how can you
study what makes “people tick” in an artificial or rigged setting?
• Sure we can! How else can we control our variables and rule out
extenuating factors that appear in “real life”?
• Besides, it isn’t the results of a lab experiment that are critical but
rather the theoretical principles that can be derived from them,
principles that have been proven by other studies to be quite
accurate at predicting “real life” behaviors!
Skeptics argument #6: FINE, you got me again, but you have to admit that 6
billion strong, you can’t possibly predict the behaviors of so many different
individuals, especially since we are all guided by distinct cultures and men
and women are of course almost like 2 different species!
• There are many underlying processes, rooted in the biology of the
human species, that govern behavior. Even across gender and
culture, the underlying physiological principles that lead to
psychological phenomena do apply to people the world over!
• Sociocultural and biopsychological and evolutionary perspectives
examine roles of culture and gender
Skeptic argument #7: Well, I guess you got me again. BUT you cannot deny
that you folks do some pretty crazy stuff with animals and we have to say,
“what’s that all about?” I mean, its not like you can learn anything about
humans by looking at lower life forms!
• Actually, because we too are animals governed by many of the
same biological/physiological processes as many other animals,
animals often make excellent subjects for research that would
otherwise be impossible or impractical to try with humans.
• ethical guidelines ensure:
– minimum physical harm comes to our subjects
– they are well cared for in terms of comfort, food, and health (unless of course
our experiment is about the effects of starvation, having one’s sight taken
away, becoming brain damaged, or living under constant stress or pain...but
let’s not get picky, eh?)
Skeptic final arguments! Psychology experiments on people mess with
people’s minds and bodies and the whole field is pretty darned
dangerous...
• Okay, there have been some experiments that may have
crossed a certain line (see Zimbardo’s prison experiment,
Milgram’s conformity experiment), but we do have a set of
ethical principles that guide our experiments including:
– getting informed consent of participants
– protect humans from harm or discomfort
– treat information gained as confidential
– debrief participants afterward
• As for being dangerous, that’s only if people choose to use
our findings for malicious purposes. We only seek to enlighten
and help people!
Now that we’ve settled that
debate, let’s look at how
psychologists conduct studies...
#1 FRQ topic!!
Applied vs Basic Research
•
Applied—conclusions can be used in real world to make a difference
in people’s lives and behaviors
–
–
•
Solve everyday problems in institutions, businesses, interpersonal relationships
Cure or find effective treatment for psychological illnesses and disorders
Basic—psychologists have a question to which they want the answer
but the answer may not lead to any changes in the ways people
behave; does not seek for ways to treat or solve problems
General research methods
•
•
•
•
Cause-effect controlled variables experiment
Correlational method—surveys, personality tests, IQ tests
Naturalistic observation
Case studies
What you need to know:
•Purpose of each method
•Pros and cons of each method
•Special lingo associated with each method
•How to look at data generated by a method and
draw conclusions
Lab experiment
e.g. Will children’s performance on a memory test be affected by the
consumption of caffeine?
Pros:
•establishing cause-effect relationships
•confounding variables easy to control
•isolation of independent variable allows cause-effect conclusions
Weaknesses:
•Hawthorne effect –just the mere act of being chosen for a study
can alter people’s behaviors
•must be replicated multiple times on different participants to test
validity (does the experiment really measure what it sets out to
measure?) and reliability (will the same results occur again and
again over time and with different populations?) of results
•can be expensive
Field experiment
e.g. How will people react if they see a blind man being bullied by
a group of teens?
Pros:
•establishing cause-effect relationships
•More realistic setting for studying human reaction to an
independent variable
Weaknesses:
•Not as easy to control confounding variables as a lab
experiment due to external factors
Correlational survey/study
e.g. Is there a relationship between the # of hours an AP psych student studies
before a test and his/her score on the test?
Used for:
•finding correlation between factors
•predicting future performance of a person based on current traits (e.g. IQ
tests, aptitude tests to predict future careers)
•+ correlation = presence of 1 thing predicts presence of the other
•- correlation = presence of 1 thing predicts absence of the other
Pros:
•relatively inexpensive and easy to study large group of people
•can be used when impossible to isolate a cause-effect relationship
Weaknesses:
•Cannot control confounding variables and user bias, people lie due to
social desirability rule
•low response rate
•responders are not always a representative sample
Naturalistic observation
e.g. How do the types of play in which children engage on a playground
differ between ages 2-6 years?
Used for:
•studying how people behave in natural, uncontrolled, nonmanipulated settings
Pros:
•relatively inexpensive
Weaknesses:
•not able to draw cause-effect conclusions
•how natural is the setting if people know they are being watched?
Case study
e.g. Study of Phineas Gage (man in 1800s who had a railroad spike driven
through his frontal brain) and how his brain injury affected his personality,
memory, abilities, etc.
Used for:
•Studying symptoms, possible causes, and possible treatments for
disorders
•learning about human behavior due to what happens to someone who
has an accident or gets physically impaired by disease
Pros:
•Rich, detailed picture of how a disorder manifests and impacts a person
•Can lead to future studies of an experimental nature to find out cause of
behaviors seen in case study
Weaknesses:
•not able to generalize conclusions to entire population of people who
suffer from the same disorder