PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Statistical Inference, Standard Deviation, Gestalt Psychology

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Allan Greer

Document Summary

What evidence is available to support the assertion. Just because two variables are correlated, even highly correlated, one variable does not cause the other. Heuristics (mental shortcuts or rules of thumb) Reduces cognitive energy required to solve problems. Observer bias (systematic errors in observation that occur because of an observer"s expectations. Hindsight bias (i knew it all along) tendency to overestimate how well we could have successfully forecasted known outcomes (e. g. i knew they were the perfect couple) Overcon dence : tendency to overestimate our ability to make correct predictions. Research methods in psychology scienti c method ( theory/ hunch - hypothesis - predictions with operational de nitions - evidence ) Organized systems of assumptions that aim to explain phenomena and their interrelationships. Attempt to produce or account for a set of phenomena : specify relationships among variables and are empirically tested. De ne terms in hypotheses by specifying the operation for observing measuring the process or phenomenon.