lecture 12 - scientific world views Flashcards
(27 cards)
Scientific Worldviews
- Why do people build scientific theories about experiences?
- How are scientific theories different than other kinds of explanations?
- How do scientists react to experiences that violate theories?
- How does science grow and progress?
“naive scientists” (Piaget 1934)
meaning = mental representations of expected associations
early on in life we form basic epistemic expectations about the world - knowledge based expectations eg knowledge of sizes and dimensions, knowing things dont cease to exist when they leave our perceptual field
as we get older its the same pattern we just build on top of it and get much more sophisticated layers of expectation - we have a broad meaning network that extends beyond elementary facts about the world and into more beliefs about how the world ought to work and are also violated when we encounter contradictory info
relevance of “persuasion system” lecture
Explanation
Why does X occur?
Functions of forming explanations –
Psychological: avoid uncertainty and conflict
(causal uncertainty is even depressing)
Practical: predict and control events
people who experience the feeling of uncertainty a lot are more likely to become depressed - its paralysing in terms of taking actions if you can’t predict other peoples behaviour
better to have good than bad knowledge
you want to understand other peoples emotions and psychological reactions as we want to successfully navigate the social world and be influential and popular
Weary, G., & Edwards, J. A. (1994). Individual differences in causal
uncertainty. Journal of personality and social psychology, 67(2), 308.
Weather
patterns - so crops dont fail so dont starve
Others’ emotions - you want to understand other peoples emotions and psychological reactions as we want to successfully navigate the social world and be influential and popular
Medical
knowledge
…etc., etc., etc…
Explanation
Why does X occur
our explanations may sometimes struggle to deal with more complex kinds of ideas
at first we have a feeling that we can understand weather patterns but then we have catastrophes because the world is changing eg more tidal waves, more hurricanes as the world goes on
bacteria - most of use dont have access to sophisticated medical knowledge about why we get sick so we turn to experts for those explanations. when it comes to epidemics and plagues humanity struggles to keep up
so our explanation systems often struggle to deal with forcoming problems
we also could consider a more sophisticated level of reflecting on our own thoughts - its one thing to have a series of expectations. what about reflecting on patterns in our forming expectations? when we consider how am I going to think more critically about the world? - sophisticated idea as thinking about thinking
there are complicated phenomena and we are not always well equipped to think evenly and consistently about all of these problems and when we encounter them we often get caught off guard and its very paralysing and confusing for us.
what can we do –>
Compensatory Control
Extrapolation of social reasoning.
These are “teleological” explanations. - when you are asked to consider why one of these complex things is happening one is naturally drawn to a social explanation there must be an entity that is doing this. it has an intelligence that is like our own and you end up with these archetypical figures that almost every single culture in the world generates to explain these patterns of behaviour
things happen due to mythological figures
when something happens eg destruction of your environment it may be best attributed to a divine authority who is laying some kind of justice down for something you have done
across many different culture you have a very consist pattern of attributing large scale natural events to some kind of supernatural entity.
Kay, A. C., Gaucher, D., McGregor, I., & Nash, K. (2010).
Religious belief as compensatory control. Personality
and social psychology review, 14(1), 37-48.
Teleological Explanation
Why does X occur?
Teleological: explanation by purpose, intent - there is an intelligent entity that is driving these things
Psychological perspective: avoid uncertainty and conflict
Popper, 1953 – Unfalsifiable - there is never going to be something that disproves that there is one of these entities causing these things to happen
Practical perspective: predict and control events
when it comes to catastrophes we are not going to get away with merely teleological explanations we are Likely going to need a psychological science to gain at least some of the insight we might want into understanding our own selves and how we are going to respond to things
at the practical level of predicting and controlling events we are going to need something additional and teleological explanations philosophers argue are not usually sufficient to successor product things into the future. they are ok for accounting for things that happened in the past but struggle more to predict things that are going to happen in the future
Empirical Explanation
Why does X occur from a proto scientific point of view ?
Theory – explanation that
looks to determine
underlying causes of
phenomena
Hypothesis – precise
testable predictions that
evaluates theory
Falsifiable – clear states
outcomes that wouldn’t
support theory
Scientific Method: Properties
Replication – repeatable and publicly observable? - have other people independently also get the same results and the more often this can happen the more confident you can reasonably be that the claim being made is true
replications are not always successful which from a psychological perspective is hazardous and you can deeply believe in a theory and can have an independent laboratory shut it down and say the theory is not real
- Predictions – apply to other phenomena (non-tautological) - theres an underlying process so in principle when you identify the underlying process you can use it to predict costs of other things that dont necessarily have anything to do with the first thing?
E.g., in the ELM, many variables/contexts can be explained by increased EL!
A basic division arises…
/. \
Verificationism Falsificationism
Verificationism
Verificationist – what you would expect to see if the theory
were true? Test for if this is happening / can we make it so?
We are probably Natural Verificationists – we look for what
we’re expecting, ‘confirmation bias’. (Piaget, 1954)
- Theory matching experience, and vice versa
- Representativeness heuristic – how similar is experience
to existing theory?
- Availability heuristic – how easily can I call up an existing
theory to apply to an experience?
Verificationism
Relevance of “heuristics
& biases” lecture
Theory of Evolution + Verificationism
Theory suggests we should find animals “adapted to environment”.
* Theory is “bolstered” by evidence that is consistent with it.
* Find birds with special beaks for collecting the nuts, fruits, insects of
their region: theory of evolution seems more credible
Falsificationism
Falsificationist: What specific observation would
mean that X theory cannot be sufficient to explain
observed phenomena?
* So now scientists are ‘trying to debunk’ their own
theory!
* Note this is opposite of our basic human tendency…
* AKA, opposite of verificationist hypothesis testing.
Theory of Evolution + Falsificationism
Theory suggests we should not find mammals in Devonian strata,
because mammals were not evolved yet.
* Theory is “vulnerable” to evidence that would “hurt” the theory.
* Find a rat skeleton in Devonian strata: theory of evolution is
‘damaged
Falsificationism
(As we might expect…) Broad problem in psychology: absence of
clear falsification conditions for many of our theories!
* A “good” theory for this might be elaboration likelihood model.
* ELM originally proposed ‘thought bias’ and ‘variable as
argument’ as exhaustive of how variables can persuade when
people are thinking carefully (high EL).
* More recently, metacognitive processes have been detected,
falsifying the original “multiple roles postulate”, forcing it to
change.
Petty, R. E., & Brinol, P. (2008). Persuasion: From single to multiple to
metacognitive processes. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(2), 137-147.
Scientific Method: “Revolutions”
“The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” (Kuhn, 1962)
Science goes through distinct stages – ‘immature’ to ‘mature’
* Stage 1: Identification of phenomena (i.e., descriptive data)
* Stage 2: Development of overarching paradigm - a paradigm is a theory and way of looking at data
* Stage 3: “Crisis”: experiences don’t match paradigm expectations (i.e.,
falsification is available!)
* Stage 4: Paradigm shift – return to Stage 2
Often Stage 3 is tolerated for a long time.
Stage 1: “Pre-Paradigm Science”
- A pseudo-“theory” for every observable phenomenon
- theories are descriptions of the effects, rather than explanations for why they
occur - No consensus on broader theories to explain multiple phenomena
- Progress is limited because:
- no agreement on acceptable methods
- no consolidation of resources to build instruments and labs
- no communication due to a lack of common language (jargon/terminology)
Let’s apply this to persuasion psych…
Does fear work? yes
Does speaking fast work? yes
Do experts persuade more? yes
Does recipient
thinking more
help persuade? yes
Stage 2: “Paradigm Science”
Theories are that apply to multiple observable phenomenon
- Explanations that hypothesize shared causes for ’different’ phenomena
occur
* Broad consensus on a Paradigm that sets common values and methods
* ‘Normal Science’ - its what people want to see from scientists
* Progress is facilitated because:
- agreement on acceptable methods – and what phenomena are “of note”
- consolidation of resources to build complex and expensive instruments and labs
- communication grows because of a common language (jargon/terminology)
does fear work? yes - Because it
gets attention!
Does speaking fast work? yes - Because you
sound smart!
Do experts persuade more? yes - Because they
sound smart!
Does recipient
thinking more
help persuade? yes - Because only
smart people
understand
what’s argued!
Stage 2: “Paradigm Science”
Example: ELM
Most pre-ELM persuasion theories are descriptive, self-contradictory.
* E.g., faster vocal speed helps – because fast talkers seem smart, and
such competence bolsters their credibility.
* This often contributes to a broader paradigm. Note all prior slide
examples imply that more thinking is always better.
* This is consistent with old “learning” paradigm of persuasion as you
might recall… ‘persuasion is just getting someone to understand’.
* Implication: always better to speak faster… no apparent limit on how
much faster??
Guyer, VJ, et al., 2025, Exp 1
we go from 10% elevation in voice speed to 13% and our strong message that should be most rewarded actually get less persuasion
Guyer, VJ, et al., 2025, Exp 2
from 0% to 15%. speed boost we get a persuasion boost in the weak message
but we still get a persuasion decrease in the strong messages
across 4000 subject found that fast vocal speeds destroy peoples abilities to process the message - curvelinearity
Stage 2: “Paradigm Science” – Meets contradictory evidence
Does fear work? - yes and no
Does speaking fast work? - yes and no
Do experts persuade more? - yes and no
Does recipient
thinking more
help persuade? - yes and no
Stage 2: Paradigm Science
Selective Attention
Selective Exposure & Selective
Attention (Eagly & Chaiken, 1998, Hart et al., 2009,
Sweeney and Gruber, 1984):
“Actively attend to information that
confirms attitudes and filter out
information that defies them.”
Relevance of “personal
persuasion” lecture
Stage 3: Crisis Science
Cognitive Conflict
(Bruner & Postman, 1939)
Deck of Cards: 52 cards, four
suits, two colours etc.
mental representation of
expected relations between
features (i.e., clubs are black)
i.e., ‘Paradigm’
Stage 3: Crisis Science
The Conflict
descriptions from people looking at the cards - in notes - they were only shown them briefly
after sufficient interaction without explanation,
some participants experienced “acute personal
distress”
“I can’t make the suit out whatever it is. It
didn’t even look like a card that time. I don’t
know what color it is now or whether it’s a
spade or a heart. I’m not even sure what a
spade looks like. My God!”
Motivated Cognition (Kahan, 2013)
“Want to believe”
Assimilation Bias – perceive reality is if it
confirms your worldview - the cards violate this
Stage 3: Crisis Science
Cognitive Conflict
Consistency Motivation
Does scientific experience match paradigm expectations?
Arousal &
“essential tension” - a scientist deep profound discomfort with information not congruent with their theory
(Kuhn, 1977)
|
Contradiction
