psychology

using sample size information

- larger sample sizes always more accuretly estimate a true population -the babys born in the hosptial. -people will say that the larger hospital is the correct one or equal but it is actually the smaller one. a smaller number is always more likely to deviate from the population value. a bigger one stays within range.

illusion of control

- tendency to believe that personal skill can effect outcomes determined by chance -tendency to try to explain chance probably derives from a deep desire to believe we can control such events

illusionary correleation

-Controlled studies have demonstrated that when people have a prior belief that two variables are connected, they tend to see that connection even in data where the two variables are not connected -unfortunatlety this finding generalizes to some real world situations that adversly affect the lives of people

main difference between personal psychology and science psychology

-Much of our personal psychological knowledge is recipe knowledge we do certain things because we think they will lead to others to behavior in a certain way HOWEVER It is not the presence of recipe knowledge that distinguished personal psychology from scientific psychology.The main difference is that the science of psychology seeks to validate its recipe knowledge empirically

scientific psychology

-Scientific evaluation is systematic and controlled in ways that individual validation procedures can never been -personal psychology is bias -The scientific method has evolved to avoid the biases of any single human observer -Theories in psychology can be proven wrong, which means they contain a mechanism for growth and advancement that is missing from many personal theories

accepting error to reduce error

-The reluctance to acknowledge the role of chance when trying to explain outcomes in the world can actually decrease our ability o predict real-world events -Acknowledging that our predictions will be less than 100 percent accurate can help us to increase our overall predictive accuracy

probablistic research

-Virtually all the facts and relationships that have been uncovered by the science of psychology are stated in terms of probabilities. -Probabilistic trends uncovered in psychology are typically weak, but are interpreted in the same way as other sciences.

example of chance and randomness

-coin toss is a chance event, but not because it is impossible to determine the outcome. youd have to measure the angle the toss, the composition and alot of variables -called chance event because there is no way to measure all of these variables in the event

chance and randomness

-integral parts to our environement -when we say something is due to chance we are saying that the outcome is indeterminable

what is wrong with just world hypothesis?

-people tend to criticize the victims of chance misfortune - they seek explanations for chance events that will explain the phenomina - people find it hard to believe that a perfectly innocent person can suffer misfortune

aggregate or actuarial prediction

-people understand that medicine is still useful even though it is probablistic but the same does not apply for psychology -even though with psychology it is hard to find an outcome for every single person this predicts the outcomes based on group characterstics -Can only provide information about the larger statistical patterns of events, not the exact time and location of an event happening.

how does illusionary correlation effect peoples lives?

-practioners will still use the inklobt Rosche test on patients -clinicians see relationships in response to patterns because they believe they are there not because they are actually present in the pattern of responses obvserved

why is this happening to psychology?

-psychology has become ambigous -many researchers use so many names for what they are doing and just are being clumped into one. also some of the important sciences dont even use the name in their title -media does not consider is a science.

coincidence

-tendency to seek explanation for essentially chance occurrences that leads to much misunderstanding regarding the nature of coincidental -people think these occurences need special explanation and do not understand that these coincedences are bound to happen even if nothing but chance is operating

just world hypothesis

-the fact that people tend to believe that they live in a world in which people get what they deserve - tendency to seek explanation

person-who statistic

-thinking that a single example can invalidate a law. -Situations in which well-established statistical trends are questioned because someone knows a "person who" went against a trend. -Under the assumption that the relationship should hold in every case. Results as a failure to understand the probabilistic nature of trends. -Usually used when people are confronted with hard statistical evidence that contradicts a previously held belief. A technique to invalidate facts that go against peoples' opinions.

psychology and other disciplines

-when there is a problem that must be solved with psychology and another discipline the other discipline always gets the credit -example: psycholigists have done most of the research regarding tv and behavior and all of the credit has pretty much gone to medical associations instead

is chance biased of unbiased?

chance is unbiased; it does not operate in favor of good people

example of illusion of control

people believe they an find ways to beat the lottery because they do not understand the implicattions of randomness. this started happening when scratch offs became popular and picking ones own number. -exploits illusion of control. mistakes belief that their behavior determines random events

do people trust medicine, geologists or psychologists studies the least?

people have a harder time understanding that psychologists findings are probabilistic just like a doctors. they state things based off of the group and cannot answer specefic ridiculous questions

understanding probablistic reasoning

people let cognitive illusions trick them. HIV occurs in ever 1 in 1,000 people and there isa 5% chance of their being a false positive. if a person recieves a positive test what is the probability that he has HIV. most people will say HIV but it is actually 2%. the person could very well be in that 5% that has the false positive

work is attributed to others

physiological psychology is given to biologists cognitive psychology goes to computer science

psychological research is grounded in probablistic trends

psychology and medicine is grounded in probablistic trends. example of man who had the heart attack. the doctor will not be able to tell you that the man for sure cannot or for sure will. but they believe that he will not because the probablistic TREND is that he shouldnt

coincedence definition

refers to an accidental remarkable occurence of related events. simply an occurence of related events that is due to chance

fact (trend)

something that holds true in every single case. relationships when stated should be stated in terms of likelihoods and not certainties

probability

the likelihood of an event occuring

the gamblers fallacy

the tendency for people to see links between the events in the past and events in the future when the two are really independent. example: toss coin 5 times and it lands on heads. people will normally say it will land on heads again but that is not true. it could or it couldnt

how some people see coinidence

the tendency to seek patterns and meaning in events, combined with coincidence lead people to overlook chance as a explanation

implicit theories of psychology. individual vs. science

we all have theories about human behavior but we need to distinguish between this type and the one produced by actual science. they get meshed together alot

probabilistic trend

when an event is more likely to occur than not but does not hold true in all cases likely that men are taller than women but not true for all cases