Intuition   Intuition – the immediate knowing of something without the

conscious use of reasoning   Without considering wind and the earths curvature, which bullet

would hit the ground first one you shot out of a gun or one dropped out of your hand at the same level?

  1000,40,1000,30,1000,20,1000,10 =   4100   You are in a race and overtake the second person. What position are

you in? •  second

  If you overtake the last person what position are you in? •  Can’t overtake last person

  Mary’s father has five daughters, 1. NANA, 2. NENE, 3. NINI, 4. NONO, AND ?

•  Mary

  Researchers have found that people with low self-confidence are more susceptible to flattery than those of high self-confidence.

  Does the finding strike you as surprising or not surprising?

  Researchers have found that people with high self-confidence are more susceptible to flattery than those of low self-confidence.

  Does the finding strike you as surprising or not surprising?

How many squares?

Limits of Intuition & Common Sense (Obj. 1)

 Hindsight Bias “I-knew-it-all-along” phenomenon - tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it

  the saying: “Hindsight is 20/20”   Ex. Big plays in Football

Limits of Intuition / Common Sense

 Overconfidence - we tend to think we know more than we do

  “Reagan doesn’t have the presidential look” (United Artists Executive when asked whether Ronald Reagan should be offered the starring role in the movie The Best Man, 1964)

  “Man will never reach the moon, regardless of all future scientific advances.” (Lee DeForest, inventor of the vacuum tube, 1957)

  “Nuclear powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality within 10 yrs.” (Alex Lewyt, manufactures of vacuum cleaners.1955)

  “A severe depression like that of 1920-21 is outside the range of probability.” (Harvard Economic Society. Weekly Letter, Nov. 16, 1929)

Scientific Attitude (Obj.2)

  A curiosity to explore and understand the world without being fooled by it

  Requires:   Humility: we have to reject our own ideas   Critical thinking: helps shift reality from illusion

  Examine assumptions   Discern hidden values   Evaluate evidence   Assess conclusions

Scientific Research (Obj.3)   Theory – Explains, organizes and predicts a wide range of

observations and implies a hypothesis   Caffeine impacts Anxiety

  Hypothesis - a testable prediction, educated guess   Drinking caffeinated coffee increases anxiety.

  Scientific Method - Refining theories & hypothesis through research that better organizes and predicts observable behaviors

Operational Definitions

  Operational Definitions - Clearly defined methods of research that allow others to replicate, or repeat research

  What is your definition of anxiety?   Heart rate?   Perpetration?

  How much caffeine? At what time? In what form?   Pop   Coffee   Pill   1 pill of 600m or 3 pills of 200m   Morning or Night   With food or without

Descriptive (Obj. 4)   Descriptive: describes behavior but doesn’t explain it

  Case study: analyze one or more individuals in great depth in hopes of revealing things true of all of us   Pros: provides much information / only need to study one person   Cons: an individual may be atypical / may not apply to all people

•  Ex. Phineas Gage

  Survey: looks at many cases in less depth   Pros: obtain much information from a large # of people   Cons:

•  people may not answer truthfully (bias / error) •  wording effect (“not allowing” “forbidding”) •  false consensus (overestimate others agreement w/ us) •  requires excellent random sampling of population •  I pad vs. phone vs. letter vs. in-person

  Naturalistic Observation: observing and recording the behavior of organisms in their natural environment   Pros: natural setting   Cons: time consuming, good for only limited behaviors

•  Estimate the distance that individuals stand apart when they are talking. Noting differences between same sex and opposite sex & different social situations (party, hallway, locker room)

•  High school PDA: Public Displays of Affection

•  Naturalistic Observation: Jane Goodall

Correlation (Obj.5)   Correlation (prediction): statistical measurement of

a relationship (-1 to +1)   Positive correlation: direct relationship where two things

increase or decrease together, same direction   (0 to +1 correlation coefficient)

•  Temperature / Students wearing flip-flops •  AP Reading / AP Test scores

  Negative correlation: an inverse relationship where as one thing increases the other decreases, inverse   (0 to –1 correlation coefficient)

•  More you brush / Less cavities you have •  Being held / Crying baby

  Correlation Coefficient   statistical measure (#) of the extent to which two

factors vary together and how well either factor predicts the other

Correlation coefficient

Indicates direction of relationship

(positive or negative)

Indicates strength of relationship (0.00 to 1.00)

r = +.37

  Scatter plot - a graphed cluster of dots, each of which represents the values of two variables   also called a scatter gram or scatter diagram   amount of scatter suggests, strength of the correlation

•  little scatter indicates high correlation

Perfect positive correlation (+1.00)

No relationship (0.00) Perfect negative correlation (-1.00)

  Three possible cause-effect relations

*PREDICTING NATURAL RELATIONSHIPS *CORRELATION DOES NOT PROVE CAUSATION

Does Correlation Cause Anything?

  Height and Shoe size   Speculate on the relationship between height and

shoe size.   We cannot show cause and effect relationship

with correlation   Ex. ACT test scores / College Grades   Ex. Partying / Grades   Ex. Smoking Cigarettes / Lung Cancer

  Illusory correlation: the perception of a relationship where none exists   recall confirming instances of that belief   make sense of the world/create patterns

• Ex. Catch a cold from the cold weather • Ex. Senioritis • Ex. Hot table at the casino

Illusory correlation (Obj. 6)

  Experimentation: only method to state cause and effect

Like other sciences, experimentation is the backbone of psychology research. Experiments isolate causes and their effects.

Theory: The consumption of orange juice can be very beneficial for learning material.

  Hypothesis: a testable prediction “IF you drink orange juice before you take a psychology test, then you will receive a better score on the test.”

Experimentation (Obj. 7)

  Random sampling: the procedure for obtaining a sample population for the experiment   equal chance of being selected

  Population: all the people in a group being studied, from which samples can be drawn

  Random assignment: assigning subjects to experimental and control conditions by equal chance; minimizes bias

  Operational Definitions: precise explanations on how each variable will be used in the experiment.   Others should be able to repeat experiment exactly as it

was done the original time.   1. Students will drink 12 ounces of concentrated, pulp-free, freshly

squeezed 100% orange juice 30 seconds before taking an examination.

  2. Students will take a minimum 50 questions psychology test according to content percentages of the AP exam.

Variable: factor being manipulated or measured   Independent variable: the factor that is manipulated

•  Follows the “IF” statement in a hypothesis •  “If you drink orange juice” consumption of Orange juice

  Dependent variable: the factor that is measured •  Shows the proof; follows the “THEN” statement •  “the student’s test score”

You (researcher): “I told you orange juice (independent variable) will improve test scores!”

Friends: “Yeah, right!”

You (researcher): “Look, several students after drinking orange juice, scored 20% higher on the test (dependent variable).”

  Control group: not exposed to the treatment or IV   May receive a placebo: a pseudo-treatment

  Experimental group: exposed to the treatment or IV   Drank OJ before test

You (researcher): “I told you orange juice will improve test scores!”

Friends: “Yeah, right!” You (researcher): “Look, several students after drinking

orange juice, scored 20% higher on the test AND averaged 30% higher on the test compared to students who did not drink the orange juicce.”

Friends: “Maybe orange juice will improve your test scores.”

Confounding Variables: factors which can potentially influence/contaminate the results of the experiment

  Experimenter bias: experimenter knows who is in what group and what treatment they are getting

  “Good subject” phenomenon: participants knows or tries to anticipate what the experimenter wants

  Solution to experimenter and “good subject” bias: double-blind procedure where neither the subject or experimenter the experiment know who is in what group

  Placebo effect: just thinking you received treatment can lead to relief, pseudo-treatment or drug (sugar pill)   compare and decide on the, statistical significance

Experimental Method

Experimental Examples   An organizational psychologist wants to know

whether job satisfaction among assembly line workers will be influenced by pressure to perform.   What is the independent variable?   What is the dependent variable?   What is the experimental (group) condition?   What is the control (group) condition?

Experimental Examples   A team of educational psychologists investigate whether

cognitive therapy (versus no therapy) has an effect on college students’ test anxiety.   What is the independent variable?   What is the dependent variable?   What is the experimental (group) condition?   What is the control (group) condition?

  An investigator uses a simple perceptual task to see whether reaction time is affected by alcohol consumption (three cocktails versus none) in a middle-aged population.   What is the independent variable?   What is the dependent variable?   What is the experimental (group) condition?   What is the control (group) condition?

Statistical Reasoning (Obj. 8-9) • Central Tendency

•  Mean = Average (most affected by outliers/extreme scores) •  Median = Middle •  Mode = Most often

• Descriptive Statistics: central tendencies that summarize the interpret some of the properties of a set of data

•  Describe the sample studied • Inferential Statistics: probability theory for deducing (inferring) the properties of a population form the analysis of the properties of a data sample drawn from it.

•  Generalized to the larger population

Variation (Obj. 10) – how similar or diverse the scores are  Range – gap between low and high score (crude variation)  Standard deviation – how much scores vary around the mean score.

  Normal Curve / Normal distribution - bell-shaped pattern of scores that come from the normal distribution of test scores (average, mean)

  Z score – how many standard deviations a score is from the mean   z = (x - µ) / σ (or) z = (x – m) / sd   Raw score – Mean / Standard Deviation

95% of all people fall within 30 points

of 100

55 70 85 100 115 130 145 Wechsler intelligence score

68% of people score within 15 points

above or below 100

Generalizations & Significance (Obj. 11-14)

  Generalizations 1.  Representative sample better than bias or extremes

  What population was sampled?

2.  Less-variable are more reliable than more-variable

3.  More cases are better than fewer   Replicating a study with a different population

  Statistical significance: likelihood, result happen by chance   Laboratory: looks to illuminate everyday life   Culture and Gender: differences need to be considered

when generalizing, but so to does our shared human biology   Replication of experiments can help

Ethics in Research (Obj. 15-16)

  Should animals be involved in experiments/research?   Which ones? When? Why? How? How often?   Animal and Human shared psychology and physiology

  Whale Wars!

  What about people?   Obtain the informed consent of potential participants   Protect them (participants) from harm and discomfort   Treat information and individual participants confidentially   Fully debrief people: explain the research afterward

Testing Proverbs   Identify the theory that underlies the proverb or rule of thumb   Generate a testable hypothesis   Suggest a possible design (Descriptive, Correlation, or

Experimental) to test the hypothesis   If the design is Experimental what would be the DV, IV, and

operational definitions   “A letter takes three times as long to write as it does to say.”   “The more languages you know, the easier it is for you to learn a new

one”   “It takes four hours to come down from your last cup of coffee”   “As family income rises, the ratio of woman’s shoes to men’s shoes

increase accordingly.”   “Don’t change your first guess on a multiple-choice test when checking

over your answers.”

Designing an Experiment

  Select a cliché or old wives’ tale   Ex “an apple a day…,” “you can’t teach a old

dog…,)   Construct a correctly worded hypothesis specify

the variables (IV / DV), identify the population, and differentiate the subject groups.

  Any ethical problems in the experiment.   Any dependent variables that are not

operationally defined?