PSYC 215 Chapter 2: Chapter 2

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 215
• Professor: Julie Caouette

Document Summary

Hindsight bias: people"s tendency to become overconfident about whether they could have predicted a given outcome. Through experiment: thinking through how you would test a given idea leads to new hypothesis which is useful to initial speculation: sometimes can"t conduct study because resources are insufficient or because its not ethical. Hypothesis: prediction of what will happen under a certain circumstance. Theory: body of related propositions to describe some aspect of the world: usually supported by empirical data. Balance theory: people want their thoughts to be consistent and will do substantial mental work to achieve such cognitive consistency. At the simplest level, research can be looking at a phenomenon, trying to understand and coming up with a hypothesis: charles darwin and observations in the galapagos island led to theory of evolution by natural selection. Middle class families: read to children, included in dinner conversations, taught how to categorize, answer why questions.