PSY 105 Lecture 2: CRITICAL THINKING

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 105
• Professor: William Huggon

Document Summary

Thinking scientifically: not all common sense is wrong, hypothesis generation, science is an approach to evidence, science is not a body of knowledge (i. e. chemistry or physics, science is asking question and setting up experiments. Misconceptions: e(cid:454)plai(cid:374)s just o(cid:374)e e(cid:448)e(cid:374)t(cid:863) (cid:374)o a theory looks for averages/ generalities not just one event (cid:862)is just a(cid:374) edu(cid:272)ated guess(cid:863) (cid:374)o backed up by lots of evidence. Heuristics: mental shortcuts or rules of thumb, they reduce the cognitive energy required to solve problems, the trouble is when they oversimplify reality, ex. Judging the probability of an event by its superficial similarity to a prototype. It"s a guess-(cid:271)ased ste(cid:396)eot(cid:455)pes (cid:894)judgi(cid:374)g a (cid:271)ook (cid:271)(cid:455) it"s (cid:272)o(cid:448)e(cid:396)(cid:895: usuall(cid:455) (cid:449)o(cid:396)ks, (cid:271)ut o(cid:374)l(cid:455) if (cid:449)e (cid:272)o(cid:374)side(cid:396) (cid:271)ase (cid:396)ates (cid:894)(cid:449)hi(cid:272)h (cid:449)e do(cid:374)"t ofte(cid:374) do(cid:895, ex. If i meet three people from a company and they are all aggressive, i will assume that the company has an aggressive culture and that most other people from that firm will also be aggressive.