PSY-2012 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Confirmation Bias, Belief Perseverance, Pseudoscience
6 Oct 2016
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Psychology Notes Sept 7,9, and 12
Critical Thinking and Research Methods
• Science is an approach to evidence
• Communalism – willingness to share our findings with others (a
community of scholars)
• Disinterestedness – attempt to be objective when evaluating the
evidence
• Science helps us to overcome the confirmation bias
o Tendency to see out evidence that supports our
hypotheses and neglect or distort evidence that contradicts
them
o "Seek and ye shall find"
• Confirmation bias can predispose us to belief perseverance
o Tendency to stock to our initial beliefs even when evidence
contradicts them
Scientific Theory
• An explanation for a large number of findings in the natural world
• Hypothesis – testable prediction derived from a theory
Critical Thinking and Scientific Skepticism
• "Show me"
• As scientists, we should use scientific skepticism
• 1. Evaluate all claims with an open mind
• 2. Insist on persuasive evidence before accepting these claims
Basic Principles of Critical Thinking
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2
• Critical Thinking – set of skills for evaluating all claims in an open-
minded and careful fashion
• Ruling out Rival Hypothesis – need to consider alternative
hypotheses
• Falsifiability - for a claim to be meaningful, it must be
falsifiable.......capable of being disprove
• Risky Prediction – forecast that stands a good chance of being
wrong
• Replicability – findings must be duplicated, ideally by independent
investigators
• Extraordinary claims – require extraordinary evidence
• The bigger the claim, the more evidence is required
• Occam's Razor (parsimony) - simplest explanation for a given set
of data for the best one
CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION
• Correlation causation fallacy – error of assuming that because
one thing is associated with another, it must cause the other
• Third- variable problem - If A and B are correlated: they may only
be correlated when something else is present
Why conduct research?
• Common sense is contradictory (birds of a feather flock together
yet opposites attract)
Research gives us answers that are objective, verifiable, and
repeatable
• Answers are independent of investigators' thoughts or feelings
• Answers can be confirmed by others
• Answers are the same when reexamined in subsequent studies
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3
Gives us a means to critically evaluate messages in the media
• We can separate fact from fiction, and pseudoscience from real
science
Why are we often fooled by pseudoscience (made up science)?
• Some of our thinking is done on autopilot
• Intuitive Thinking vs System 1 Thinking
• Works well most of the time, but sometimes leads us to the wrong
answer
Heuristics and Biases: How We Can Be Fooled
• Heuristics – mental shortcuts or rules of thumb that help us to
simplify reality
• PRO: We are cognitive misers, so heuristics reduce the cognitive
energy required to solve problems
• CON: We tend to oversimplify reality
How do we conduct research? *CHART IN BOOK*
• The Scientific Method
• 1. Make an Observation
• 2. Form a hypothesis
• 3. Collect data using an appropriate research method/design
• 4. Analyze data
• 5. Draw conclusion
Naturalistic Observation
• A technique for gathering scientific information by observing
• Strengths: Not dependent on participants self reported
behaviors
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