Chapter One - Psychology and Scientific Thinking Flashcards
(43 cards)
William James
Founder of experimental psychology.
Functionalism.
What is psychology?
Study of mind, brain, and behaviour.
What are the levels of analysis?
Analogy: describes psychology as a complex study with many levels to it
(Like a ladder).
The lower rungs = biological influences or the brain.
Higher rungs = social or the mind.
Adds together, does not compete.
Why is human behaviour difficult to predict?
Almost all actions are produced by many factors.
Single-variable explanations of behaviour are usually unreliable.
What is reciprocal determinism?
We mutually influence each others behaviour.
Term was coined by Albert Bandura.
What is the emic approach?
Studying behaviour of a culture from the perspective of someone who grew up in the culture.
(Insider approach)
What is the etic approach
Studying the behaviour of a culture from an outsiders perspective.
What is naive realism?
The belief that we see the world precisely as it is.
What is confirmation bias?
Tendency to seek out evidence that supports our belief even when evidence contradicts it.
What is belief perseverance?
Tendency to stick to our initial belief even when evidence contradicts them.
What are metaphysical claims?
Assertions about the world that aren’t testable.
What is pseudoscience?
A set of claims that seem scientific but aren’t.
What are the warning signs of pseudosciene?
-Exaggerated claims.
-Over reliance on anecdotes.
-Absence of connectivity to other research.
-Lack of review by other scholars.
-Lack of self correction when contrary evidence is published.
-Meaningless psychobabble.
-Talk of proof instead of evidence.
What is ad hoc immunizing hypothesis?
Loophole defenders of a theory use to protect it from falsification.
What is patternicity?
Tendency to detect random patterns in meaningless stimuli.
What is terror management theory?
Theory proposing that our awareness of our death leaves us with an underlying sense of terror.
What are logical fallacies?
Traps in thinking that can lead to mistaken conclusions.
What is the emotional reasoning fallacy?
Error of using emotions as guides for evaluating the validity of a claim.
What is the bandwagon fallacy?
Error of assuming a claim is correct just because many people believe it.
What is the not me fallacy?
Error of believing we’re immune from errors in thinking that afflict other people.
What is a bias blind spot?
Demonstrates that most people are unaware of their own biases but keenly aware of others.
What is scientific skepticism?
Approach of evaluating all claims with an open mind but insisting on persuasive evidence before accepting them.
What are the six principles of scientific thinking?
-Ruling out rival hypothesis.
-Correlation isn’t causation.
-Falsifiability.
-Replicability.
-Occam’s razor.
-Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Ruling out rival hypothesis
Whenever evaluating a psychological claim, we should ask whether we’ve excluded other plausible explanations for it.
