Critical Thinking Learning Objectives

Belief that we see the world precisely how it is.-"common sense realism"ex: If someone is about to run into you, it's a good idea to get out of the way.

Naïve realism is the belief that we see the world precisely as it is - we trust our intuition without questioning; scientific inquiry gets rid of this by requiring facts and explanation for things; our common sense often misleads us-Intuitions-we trust our common sense b/c naive realismScientific inquiry-thinking scientifically and using science to believe.

Representative heuristic - judging the likelihood of something based on how well it matches a certain popular; we focus on whether a description is representative of a category's members & ignore useful base rate information; for example Rudy, artistic, tattoos, performer - think he would be a trapeze artist rather than a lawyer but statistically there are more lawyers than trapeze artists; availability heuristic - judging things based on info currently available in memory - influenced by recent cases or vivid cases; ex: shark attacks are uncommon but when they do happen they are publicized and graphicPros: quick, help us escape analysis paralysis;Cons: ignore relevant information and overestimate frequency of occurrence

-People have a tendency to think in ways that lead to error.-ex: Some people won't fly on airplanes because they're afraid of crashing. -sometimes our commonsensical understanding of psychology isn't merely incorrect, but entirely backward, ex: The more people present at an emergency, the less likely at least one of them would help.

-sometimes our commonsense can lead us to believe two things that cant be true simultaneously- or at least that are largely at odds with each other. Ex: opposites attract, out of sight, out of mind-Can be helpful guide for generating hypotheses that scientists can later test in rigorous investigations.-Can sometimes help guide us to the truth

Confirmation bias - looking for evidence that supports a theory while ignoring contradictory evidence (ex: people refuse to fly on planes b/c they're scared of crashing but how many daily flights go fine?);hindsight bias - we are often overconfidence that we could have predicted the outcome of a prior event & misremember the events so that they are consistent with the outcome; overconfidence - we think we know more than we really do; Asked how sure we are of our answers to factual questions, we tend to be more confident than correct. Students' predictions of their future behaviors are similarly overconfident. Experts' predictions of world events made with 80 percent confidence were right less than 40 percent of the time; We are routinely overconfident of our judgments, thanks partly to our bias to seek information that confirms them.

Science, with its procedures for gathering and sifting evidence, restrains error by taking us beyond the limits of our intuition and common sense.

1. State a clear theory;2. Form hypothesis; 3.

Make observations or measurements;4. Draw conclusions/evaluate theory;5. Share the results

1.Exaggerated claimsex: Three simple steps will change your life forever!2.

Over reliance on anecdotesex: This woman practiced yoga daily for three weeks and hasn't had a day of depression since.3. Absence of connectivity to other researchex: Amazing new innovations in research have shown that eye massage results in reading speeds 10 times faster than average!4. Lack of review by other scholars (called peer review) or replication by independent labsex: Fifty studies conducted by the company all show overwhelming success!5.

Lack of self-correction when contrary evidence is publishedex: Although some scientists say that we use almost all our brains, we've found a way to harness additional brain power previously undiscovered.6. Meaningless "psychobabble" that uses fancy scientific sounding terms that dont make senseex: Since wave-filtered auditory stimulation is carefully designed to encourage maximal orbitofrontal dendritic development.7.

Talk of proof instead of evidenceex: Our new program is proven to reduce social anxiety by at least 50 percent!

Error of using our emotions as guides for evaluating the validity of a claim (emotional reasoning fallacy); error of assuming that a claim is correct just because many people believe it (bandwagon fallacy); error of framing a question as though we can only answer it in 1 of 2 ways (either-or fallacy); error of believing we're immune from errors in thinking that afflict other people (not me fallacy); error of accepting a claim merely because an authority figure endorses it (appeal to authority fallacy); error of confusing the correctness of a belief with its origins or genesis (genetic fallacy); error of assuming that a belief must be valid b/c it's been around for a long time (argument from antiquity fallacy); error of confusing the validity of an idea with its potential real word consequences (argument from adverse consequences fallacy); error of assuming that a claim must be true because no one has shown it to be false (appeal to ignorance fallacy); error of inferring a moral judgment from a scientific fact (naturalistic fallacy); error of drawing a conclusion on the basis of insufficient evidence (hasty generalization fallacy); error of basing a claim on the same claim reworded in slightly different terms (circular reasoning fallacy)

Ruling out rival hypotheses (have important alternative explanations for the findings been excluded?); -Correlation vs. causation (Can we be sure that A causes B?); -Falsifiability (Can the claim be disproved?);-Replicability (Can the results be duplicated in other studies?); -Extraordinary claims (Is the evidence as strong as the claim?); -Occam's razor (Does a simpler explanation fit the data just as well?)

Naturalistic observation - Pros: high external validity; captures subjects in their natural environment; mitigates concerns about experimental effects; provides future questions for experimental research; Cons: may be difficult to determine causation; difficult to eliminate alternative explanationsCase studies - Pros: reveals info that could be beneficial for the population of the study; looks at cases that could not be experimentally manipulated; Cons: every individual is unique; care must be taken when extending findings to more than the individual in the studySelf-report measures and surveys -Pros: allows the experimenter to obtain pertinent info useful to the study; relatively inexpensive and fast; a great first step in research; Cons: people may be biased in their answers b/c they do not want to look bad; answers could be biased according to wording of the questions; samples issues

Positive - a higher value of one variable predicts a higher value of the 2nd variable (when one thing goes up, so does the other); negative - a higher value of one variable predicts a lower value of the 2nd variable (when one thing goes up, the other goes down); correlation does not imply causation - A & B may be effected by another variable C

Spurious - outwardly similar or corresponding to something w/o having its genuine qualities; of falsified or erroneously attributed origin;are correlated but caused by something else; actual correlation Illusory Correlation: "perception of a statistical association b/w 2 variables where none exists"; no actual correlation - people perceive a relationship but there is none

Manipulate one variable while keeping all others the same to observe change; control group stays the same

Give each person an equal chance of being in experimental or control group; minimizes pre-existing differences

To be able to compare experimental group to a group that varies from them only in terms of the independent variable

Board that reviews research to ensure it is conducted ethically

Conceptually driven processing influenced by beliefs and expectanciesStarts with our beliefs and expectancies, which we impose on the raw stimuli we perceive. It starts in the association cortex and then the primary visual corte

Heuristics-Mental short cut that helps us to streamline our thinking and make sense of our world Algorithms-step by step learned procedure used to solve a problem

Mental sets-phenomenon of becoming stuck in a specific problem solving strategy, inhibiting our ability to generate alternatives(example: if you are trying to come up with a topic for a paper you might have trouble thinking of one that the professor hasn't already talked about)Functional fixedness- difficultly conceptualizing that an object typically used for one purpose can be used for another (example: if you needed a hammer but didn't have one you might have trouble finding something that would work in replace of the hammer because you're fixated on one conventional use.)

Informed consentJustification of deceptionDebriefing of subjects afterwards