Ch. 2 Sources of Information Why Research is Best and How to Find it

Ch. 2 Sources of Information: Why Research is Best and How to Find it          Explain why relying on personal experience is less helpful than looking to see what research says about a given topic (Ex: catharsis effects/aggression) What does it mean that experience is confounded? Be able to distinguish between various different biases we can be prone to having (good stories, present/present bias, pop-up principle – aka: availability heuristic, etc.) As researchers, how can we reduce overconfidence, cherry picking, or asking biased questions? What are some of the strengths/weaknesses of the different types of sources you can use (journals, books, etc.)? What do you use PsycINFO for? What advantages/disadvantages does it have compared to other approaches to finding resources? Know the different sections of a research article Research on eyewitnesses is an example of applied research. What steps do they recommend to reduce bias when trying to pick a guilty suspect out of a lineup? Know the characteristics of good scientific explanations vs. those of pseudoscience Three sources of evidence for people’s beliefs: 1. Experience 2. Intuition 3. Authority And compare them to a superior source of evidence: empirical research The Research vs. Your Experience Experience Has No Comparison Group  Comparison Group: o Enables us to compare what would happen both with and without the thing we are interested in  Example: o Bloodletting:  Years ago a doctor drained blood from people’s writs as a “cure” for illness  Some people died and some people survived  Believed survivors were “support” for theory o Problem:  Theory was not falsifiable  He was right if the patient died and right if the patient survived  Never set up a systematic comparison  He would’ve had to count how many died and survived then compared them to come to an empirically derived conclusion o Solution to make a comparison:  Know the number of untreated patients who also died  Negative effect:  If the number of untreated patients who died is much lower  treatment has a negative effect  Only 20% of the treated patients recovered and 91% of the untreated patients recovered  Positive effect:    If the number of patients who died that did not receive the treatment is a lot higher than the number of patients who did that did receive the treatment Recovery rate among treated patients is still 20% but the recovery rate among patients not receiving the treatment is 2% Changing one cell column can make a huge difference  Requires comparing data systematically from all four cell columns: - Untreated/improved cell - Treated/improved cell - Untreated/unimproved cell - Treated/unimproved cell “Truth” in Advertising  Good to look for products that discuss placebo trials, control groups, etc. o But sometimes isn’t enough  Example: o “Caffeine in a 5-hour energy is comparable to that in a cup of coffee” o Problem:  No evidence that all those extra vitamins lead to a more sustained caffeine high Experience is Confounded  Another problem with basing conclusions on personal experience o Is that in everyday life too much is going on o Even if a change has occurred we cannot be sure what caused it o Example:  “I feel so much better… I started drinking a lot of water, getting more sleep, drinking no alcohol, exercising more, and I became vegan”  “You really need to go vegan… It makes all the difference in the world”  In real-world situations there are several possible explanations for an outcome  Confounds: o Def. Alternative explanations o Also mean confused o Confounds or confounding variables:  Are the things that might have caused a change and you didn’t control for  Hard to isolate variables in the real world Research is Better Than Experience  Example: o By using controlled, systematic comparisons, several groups of researchers have tested the hypothesis that venting anger is beneficial o To examine the effect of venting, or catharsis:  Bushman systematically compared what happened if angry people were allowed to vent their anger with what happened if angry people did not vent their anger o Confederate:  An actor playing a specific role for the experimenter  (Empirically) Better Ways to Reduce Anger o Counting to ten o Reframing what made you mad o Doing something positive Research is Probabilistic  Sometimes our own stories contradict research results o Is your experience wrong?  Behavioral research is probabilistic o Which means that its findings are not expected to explain all cases all the time  Conclusions are meant to explain a certain proportion (very high proportion) of the cases The Research vs. Your Intuition Biases of intuition fall into two categories: 1. Cognitive biases 2. Motivational biases Intuition is Biased by Faulty Thinking  Sometimes intuition is biased solely because the human mind thinks imperfectly o We can be too easily swayed by something that “Makes sense” o In addition, some kinds of information come to mind more readily than others  Being Swayed by a good story: o We sometimes believe a story just because it is “common sense” or a “good story” when evidence goes against it o Something just makes sense  Example: Catharsis effect has “face validity”  Being Persuaded by What Comes Easily to Mind o Conserving mental effort – “Mental short cuts” o Availability heuristic:  States that things that pop up easily in our mind tend to guide our thinking  When events or memories are vivid, recent, or memorable – they come easily – and that can bias our thinking  These are often uncommon events but more emotional ones or sensational, so come to mind more readily o The availability heuristic can lead us to overestimate any frequency  Example: Father complains that you only talk to him when you need money – when in reality you talk to him a lot but asking for money is annoying so sticks out in mind o Present vs. not present bias  We notice what is present more than we notice what is absent Intuition is Biased by Motivation  Sometimes we do not want to challenge our preconceived ideas: o We are motivated to think what we want to think  Focusing on the evidence we like best: o Seeing and excepting only the evidence that supports our belief  Asking Biased Questions to Get Expected Answers: o Bias Questions:  “What would you do if you were at a party and you wanted to liven it up?  “If you found out your partner was cheating on you, wouldn’t that make you furious? o You already know how people will answer the questions  And it may even change their memories of the event o False Memory Research  Elizabeth Loftus o Confirmatory Hypothesis testing  Not scientific  If a therapist suspects her client has an anxiety disorder—would ask her client questions that would confirm her belief o Conformation Bias:  Cherry-picking evidence  Biased About Being Biased: o Bias blind spot:  The belief that we are unlikely to fall prey to the cognitive biases previously described Think like a scientist  Our implicit theory is not easily changed but o Science doesn’t care what we think  To be a good scientist: o Create comparison groups and look at all the data o Generate data through studies o Don’t go with what everyone believes o Ask questions and collect even disconfirming evidence o Accept data provisionally and change theories Characteristics of Scientific Explanations  Empirical o They are based on objective, systematic observations  Rational o They follow the rules of logic and are consistent with known facts  Testable o They are verifiable through observation and can be disproven  Contrast with pseudoscience explanations  Parsimonious o They provide the simplest explanation using the fewest possible assumptions  Occam’s Razor  General o They apply beyond the original observations on which they are based  Tentative o They are never accepted as absolutely correct  Rigorously evaluated o They are constantly evaluated for consistence with evidence and parsimony Finding and Reading the Research Consulting Scientific Sources  Psychological scientists usually publish their research in three kinds of sources: 1. Articles in scholarly journals 2. Stand-alone chapters in edited books 3. Authors of full-length scholarly books  Journal Articles: Psychology’s Most Important Source o Peer-reviewed o Where will you find:  Most likely to find scientific articles in colleges or university libraries or online academic databases o Audience:  Scientists and psychology students o Types:  Empirical Journal articles  Report, for the first time, the results of an (empirical research) study  Contain details about the study’s method, the statically tests used, and the numeral results of the study  Review journal articles  Provide a summary of all published studies that have been done in one research area  Meta-analysis: - Quantitative technique which combines the results of many studies and gives a number that summarizes the magnitude, or effect size, of a relationship - Weighs each study portionately  Chapters in Edited Books o An edited book:  Is a collection of chapters on a common topic, in which each chapter is written by someone different o Generally a book chapter is not the first place a study is reported   Instead scientist is summarizing a body of research and explaining the theory behind it o Good for:  Good place to find a summary of a set of research a particular psychology has done o Not peer-reviewed as rigorously as journal articles o Audience:  Psychologist and psychology students  Written for experts (and budding experts in the field)  Assume reader has a substantial knowledge already Finding Scientific Sources  PsychINFO o Searches sources in Psychology & a few related disciplines for (mainly) peerreviewed articles o Maintained and updated by APA o Need access to the database (through college or university)  Alternative to PsychINFO o Researcher’s homepage  For relatively recent papers  By researchers who have websites and whose names you know o Google scholar  Scholar.google.com  Cons:  For empirical journal articles and scholarly books only  Doesn’t provide abstracts; sometimes provides pdf.  Harder to restrict your search to certain terms  Doesn’t categorize - Peer-reviewed or not, etc. o The old fashion way  Library and inter-library loans Reading the Research: Components of an Empirical Journal Article  Written in APA format  Sections: 1. Abstract  Concise summary (120 words)  Briefly describes hypothesis, method, and major results  When you are collecting articles for a project, the abstracts can help you quickly decide whether each article describes the kind of research you are 2. Introduction  Background on the topic & goals of the current study  First section of regular text  First paragraph:  Explain the topic of the study  Middle paragraphs:  Lay out the theoretical and empirical background for the research  What is being tested? What makes the study important? What have past studies tested?  Final paragraph:  States the specific research questions, goals, or hypothesis for the current study 3. Methods  Details how study was conducted  Usually contains subsections:  Participants, Materials, Procedure, and Apparatus  Ideal methods section would give enough detail so that you could conduct the study yourself without having to ask the author questions 4. Results  Quantitative and qualitative data (not raw data)  Including the statistical tests the authors used to analyze the data  Usually provides tables and figures to summarize key results 5. Discussion  Interpretation of results, alternate explanations, future directions  Opening paragraph:  Generally summarizes the study’s research question and methods and indicates how well the data supported the hypothesis  Next, authors promote their study’s contributions  Discuss the study’s significance:  Also may discuss alternative explanations for their data and pose interesting questions by the research 6. References  Full listing of works cited Reading the Research: Reading with a Purpose  Empirical Journal Articles: o Don’t read every word of an article o Ask two questions as you read:  What is the argument?  What is the evidence to support the argument? o What is the argument?  Step 1:  Read the abstract  Step 2:  Skip to the end of the introduction to find the primary goals ad hypothesis of the study  Step 3:  Read the read of the introduction to learn more about the theory  Or the first paragraph of the discussion  Step 4:  Once you have a sense of what the argument is  look for the evidence o What is the evidence?  In an empirical article the evidence is in the Method and Results  Chapters and Review Articles: o They do not have specific sections o Instead of specific headings  the author usually creates headings o Still read with a purpose  Asking the questions o Argument:  Often presents an entire theory  Whereas empirical articles usually tests only one part of the theory o Evidence:  Is the research that the author reviews Wikis as a Research Source  Psychwiki better than Wikipedia  Problems with either (or any) wiki: o Not comprehensive o May or may not have references o Details may or may not be correct  Always double-check the info you get from wiki’s  Never consider them a reliable source in the absence of confirmation Distinguishing Science from pseudoscience: Correctness  Science is self-correcting. o Idiosyncratic findings and blunders “average out” and do not affect the actual phenomenon under study. o Example  Bill Nye and GMOs  In Pseudoscience o False alarms (chance results) are the only supporting evidence.  Hindsight bias: o AKA: The “I knew it all along” effect o Tendency to exaggerate after learning an outcome, one’s ability to have foreseen how something turned out.  Astrology o Relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world. o NOT the same as Astronomy  “You need to look more closely at your life’s biggest mystery — and your mental energy helps you get the clarity you need to resolve it. It may be a breakthrough or a small, incremental change.”  Horoscopes o Some things to consider:  “…Horoscopes take on meaning from the believers, not for the believers.” (p. 2)  “Debunked” by Charpak and Brock (2004) o The well effect  Also used in politics…  Parapsychology: o The study of the evidence for psychological phenomena, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis, that is inexplicable by science.