PSYC 1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Lake Wobegon, Hindsight Bias, Base Rate Fallacy
Document Summary
Why we need to know about research designs. Value: want to use knowledge to address social/personal ills (utility) Use design to evaluate validity and efficacy of treatments/interventions. Mental shortcuts/rules of thumb use to make judgments/solve problems. Pro: make sense of the world; simplify our thinking (cognitive misers) Con: oversimplify or use inappropriately predispose us to errors. Judge probability of an event by its superficial to a typical example ( like goes with like ) Incorrect judgments: more representative doesn"t mean more likely. Base rate fallacy: fail to consider how common a behaviour or characteristic is. Useful in making a quick decision but can lead to close-mindedness. Estimate probability of event based on how readily an example comes to mind. Example: watch jaws, think shark attacks are common (highly likely), refuse to go swimming. Media effect: overestimate occurrence of well-publicized events (e. g homicides) and underestimate occurrence of events that infrequently appear in the media (e. g. , deaths from diabetes)
