PSYC 217: Midterm 1 Study Guide Chapter 1: Scientific Understanding of Behaviour Compare and Contrast Different Ways of Acquiring Knowledge · Describe the benefits (if any) and the drawbacks of each 1. Intuition -> Unquestioning acceptance of: own judgement, anecdotal evidence, a gut feeling, someone else's experience, etc. -> People have a "feeling" that they know what is right or wrong about the world -> Involves finding an explanation for our own or others' behaviours, or used to explain intriguing events that you observe in the world -> Based on anecdotal evidence to draw conclusions * PROS - Quick and easy to access knowledge; allows understanding of values that are important to us * CONS - Involves a self-made explanation, which often contains many cognitive and motivational biases that affect our perceptions - Often involves illusory correlation (when one focuses on two events that stand out and correlates them together) - Hard to analyze and critique; subject to prejudices and misconceptions - Not supported by evidence 2. Authority -> Placing our trust in someone else who we think knows more than we do -> Belief in a "credible other," who exhibits prestige, trust, respect, status, etc. -> Advertisers know this is common and use authority figures to sell products * PROS - Minimises need to acquire knowledge on own; many authorities have legitimate credentials to be considered "authority" * CONS - Authorities may be wrong, using experience, folk wisdom, or intuition; authority may be due to perceived cues of credibility like attractiveness or popularity 3. Folk Wisdom / Common Sense -> Appealing to an expectation that everyone knows * PROS - There will be an explanation for every situation; acts as a short, mutually understood way of communicating a complex idea * CONS
- Often contradictory, becoming meaningless; unfalsifiable Describe the Scientific Approach · What are it's (3) keys from the lecture? 1. Systematic Empiricism -> Gathering information with structured observations -> Empiricism: Gaining knowledge based on structured, systematic observations of the world -> Reply on observation that is structured so it will reveal important information -> Relationships between observations can tell us about how the world works (but only if it's systematically organized) -> There might be things that we can't observe at all - but then we cannot use the scientific method 2. Production of Public Knowledge -> Good scientific research needs to be transparently reported to the scientific public - full disclosure of methods and results so that people can try the experiment and see if they get the same results -> Must have other independent researchers attempt the same / similar studies - Peer-review (the process of judging the scientific merit of research through review by peers of the researcher - other scientists with the expertise to evaluate the research) -> Replication is a key concept - Replication (repeating a research study to determine whether the results can be duplicated) a) Exact / Direct Replication: An attempted replication of a study following the same procedures that