TEXTBOOK NOTES CHAPTER 1 SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING OF BEHAVIOR Why study research methods? - Understanding research methods can help you become an informed consumer of news, health care, products, and services. A background in research methods will help you to read these reports critically, evaluate the methods, and decide whether conclusions and assertions are appropriate and justifiable. - Understanding research methods can give you a competitive edge for various careers. Many occupations require the ability to interpret, appropriate apply, and conduct solid research. People who work in business frequently rely on research to make decisions about marketing strategies. - Understanding research methods can help you be an informed and engaged citizen and participate in debates regarding public policy. Research can also influence legal practices and decisions. Numerous wrongful convictions triggered the use of psychological research to inform police investigation and courtroom procedures. Another example, studies showed that people make fewer false identifications of suspects when they are presented with a set of photographs one at a time than simultaneously. - Understanding research methods can help you evaluate programs in your community that you might want to participate in or even implement. Programs to enhance parenting skills for parents of aggressive and antisocial youth. Methods of acquiring knowledge INTUITION: Relying upon anecdote, experience, or judgment to make sense of the world, without adopting a critical or questioning mindset. e.g., we know of someone who after years of actively looking for a long-term romantic partner, stops looking for love. Then, soon after, this same person happens to find the love of their life. This contributes to a common belief that love arrives when one is not looking for it. One problem with intuition is that many cognitive and motivational biases affect our perceptions, which means we can arrive at mistaken conclusions. Cognitive bias called illusory correlation: when two events occur closely in time, we conclude that one must cause the other. Illusory correlation are also likely to occur when we are highly motivated to believe that a certain causal relationship is true.
AUTHORITY: Any source of power or control (news media, books, government officials, religious figures). We often defer to authorities and accept their ideas and recommendations unthinkingly. We place our trust in someone else who we think knows more than we do. When we were young, we likely trusted our parents to know what we should do and what was true about the world. They believe that the statements of such authorities must be true. Advertisers know this and therefore use authority figures to sell products. The problem is that the statements by any particular authority may not be true. The scientific approach rejects the notion that one can accept on faith the statements of any authority. The scientific method: be skeptical, seek empirical data Being a scientist means not accepting anyone else's intuitions or conclusions without first evaluating the evidence. This includes our own intuitions and ideas as well. SCIENTIFIC SKEPTICISM: Not accepting something as true unthinkingly, but rather seeking out