PSYO 1011 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Pseudoscience, Hindsight Bias

• School: Dalhousie University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYO 1011
• Professor: Jennifer Stamp

Document Summary

Science entails collecting information, or data from the real world and evaluating those data as to whether they support ideas or not. Common sense- the intuitive ability to understand the world. Logic- tells us how the world should work; should be combined with research and experimentation. Hindsight bias- the tendency to overestimate our ability to predict the event, after the event outcome is unknown; (can make common sense unreliable) The way in which the brain organizes and interprets sensory experiences varies from person to person. People tend to generalize from their observations and assume that what they witnessed in one situation applies to all similar situations. Psychology relies on systematic empirical methods of observation. Science conducts research consisting of 5 basic properties: observation, prediction, testing. Theories- set of related assumptions from which testable predictions can be made. Hypothesis- specific, informed and testable predictions of the outcome of a particular set of conditions in a research design.