PSYCO104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Terror Management Theory, Emotional Reasoning, Pseudoscience

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCO104
• Professor: Eric Legge

Document Summary

Psych 104 lecture #2 introduction to psychology pt. Discounts other occurrences eg. thinking about a person and then person contacts you almost immediately (woah!: pareidolia: seeing meaningful image(s) in meaningless visual stimuli. Drawing conclusion from visual stimuli eg. cloud shapes; the face on mars . Make people very paranoid about impending death, make them believe in anything afterwards to prolong death. Believing in something too good to be true or something that gives. Dangers of pseudoscience: opportunity cost: using methods that has no scientific evidence ie. missing out on opportunity for proper treatment, direct harm: causing actual physical harm eg. using medication that hasn"t been clinically approved, blocks scientific thinking. It needs to be rock solid with replicability: occam"s razor (kiss keep it simple stupid ): simplest explanation is the better one. Psychology"s perspectives: social: relating to others and personal relationships; cultural influences, psychological (mental or neurological): thoughts, feelings, emotions, biological (molecular and neurochemical): molecules and brain structure.