PSYCH 1X03 Lecture Notes - Social Desirability Bias, Central Tendency, Blind Experiment
8 Mar 2013
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Document Summary
Natural order: as far as possible, we will attribute the same effects to the same causes, we assume that a behaviour (smiling) is a reflection of the same underlying mechanism in all people all over the world. It is the same root mechanism (happiness) that produces smiles on lottery winners and proud grandparents everywhere: this principle is only to be applied in situations comparing the same effects. Generalizability: the same causes that produce our effects in the lab also produce those effects in everyday life situations over which the scientist has no control. Conservatism: scientists are conservative in the sense that they tend to support the current theory until new facts accumulate to force the theory to be modified or abandoned. It is this bias that can allow any reasonable statement to be categorized as common sense: any explanation makes sense and seems like common sense to us, even when the information is new or not intuitive.
