Course Code: HUM204

Course Title: Psychology

Lecture / Week No. 2

Department of Business Administration

Contents

1.The Monty Hall Problem

2. Need for psychological science
3.Hindsight Bias
4.Overconfidence
5.How Psychologist Ask Questions.
6.Approaches to Research
Is Psychology Common Sense?
• Do you agree or disagree with each of these statements?

• Opposites attract
• We only use 10% of our brain
• Traumatic or emotional memories are often repressed
• The more people witness a crime, the greater the chance that someone
will intervene to help
• Hypnosis can be used as mind control
• Rewarding people always works to increase the rewarded behavior
The Monty Hall Problem
"Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three
doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a
door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the other
doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says
to you, 'Do you want to pick door No. 2?' Is it to your advantage to
take the switch?"

Should the contestant stay with the chosen door or switch to door #
2? Does it matter?
Three doors to choose from
• 1/3 chance that the prize is behind each door

? ? ?

1/3 1/3 1/3

Contestant chooses door # 1... ? ? ?

1/3 Prize
2/3 Prize
2/3 No prize
The Need for Psychological Science
We can’t rely on common sense and intuition because we’re often
biased
Psychology, like other sciences, bases conclusions on analysis of data
(from observations) to uncover patterns
• Only questions that are empirically solvable and falsifiable are the
domain of science
• Is there technology available to make the necessary observations (collect
data) to test the question?
• Is it possible to disconfirm the hypothesis?
Confirmation Bias
• Tendency to seek out information that confirms or supports our
beliefs
• Science seeks information that would disconfirm our beliefs or
assumptions
• Four-card task

Suppose each card has a number on one side and a letter on the other. Which
of these cards are worth turning over if you want to know whether the
statement below is false?

If a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the other
side.
The only way to falsify an "if X, then Y" statement ("if vowel, then even number") is by finding an
instance of "X and not Y" ("vowel and odd number"). D and 4 are irrelevant, because these cards
cannot combine a vowel and odd number.

If a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the other side.
• Another version of the problem…

If a patron is drinking a beer, then they must be 21 years or

older.

Only need to check those patrons who could possibly violate

(disconfirm) the rule
Hindsight Bias
• “Knew-it-all-along” phenomenon
• Many things seem obvious after the fact
• Examples:
• Will the Dolphins or 49ers win the Super Bowl? (Brigham, 1985)

• Other examples? In sports? Politics? Relationships?

Overconfidence
• Tendency to have too much confidence in our knowledge and
accuracy of our answers

Anagrams How long would it take you

to unscramble each word in
WREAT WATER the left column? (Goranson,
1978)
ETYRN ENTRY

GRABE BARGE …Probably longer than you

think
Overconfidence

How would you describe

the relationship between
how competent a person
is and how confidence
they are in their abilities?
• Take home messages:

• Confidence does not always predict accuracy

• Just because something seems obvious doesn’t mean you
actually knew it before-hand
• We are biased information seekers
• So we need a better way of predicting, explaining, and
figuring things out
How do Psychologists Ask Questions?
• …by using the Scientific Method

• Steps of the scientific method:

1) Observe and describe a phenomenon

2) Form theories & hypotheses to explain & predict
3) Test hypotheses and draw conclusions
4) Revise theories in light of results
5) Replicate (repeat) results*
• Theory: a set of statements about the relationship
between variables

• A good theory is:

• Logically consistent
• Falsifiable
• Consistent with known data

• Makes testable predictions called hypotheses

• Theory: Heat makes people irritable
• Hypothesis (prediction): ?
 Theory:

Low self-esteem contributes to greater depression

• Evaluating the theory:

• Does it organize observations?
• Does it imply testable predictions (i.e., hypotheses)?
• Predictions can be checked or replicated
Summary of the Scientific Method
Approaches to Research

• 3 Types of research methods:

1) Descriptive methods
2) Correlational methods (really, this is a descriptive method too)
3) Experimental methods

These are not mutually exclusive and they are combined in practice
Descriptive Methods
• Case Study: detailed observational study of a single individual, group, or
event

Advantages:
• Suggest hypotheses to be tested
• Give insight into rare phenomena
• Teaching purposes – illustrate psychological concepts

Disadvantages:
• Subjective interpretations (observer bias)
• Uncontrolled, non-experimental
• Individual cases may be unrepresentative of general population
• Lead to false generalizations and conclusions
• Naturalistic Observation: Unobtrusively observing and recording behaviors
in a naturally occurring situation
• Advantages:
• Suggest directions for further research and hypotheses to be tested

• Help reveal possible correlations (relationships between things)

• Disadvantages:
• Cannot explain phenomena
• Archival research: describing data that existed before the time of the
study
• “Secondary data”

• Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, National Opinion Research Center, Pew Research
Center, Educational Testing Service, Centers for Disease Control, Bureau of Justice
Statistics, social media use, public records, etc.
• Examples:
• Immigration policies, public opinions, trends
• Public attitudes toward LGBT community, marriage equality
• Public attitudes toward law enforcement
• Law enforcement perceptions of job-related risk
• Advantages of archival data
• Objective and verifiable
• We can check the records
• Intrinsic importance
• These are real-life outcomes
• Often free or low cost
• Useful for performing a “literature review”
• Surveys: process of collecting data by asking people questions and
recording their responses

• Advantages:
• Inexpensive means to gather responses from a large number of people
• Can collect data on a wide variety of topics
• Disadvantages:
• Relies on accuracy of self-reports
• Social Desirability Response Bias: Tendency to respond in ways that make a person
look good to others
• Must have a representative sample…
Samples
• A good sample is representative of the population
• The only way to obtain a representative sample is…

Random Sampling!
Random Sampling
• Random Sample: Every member of the population has an equal
probability of being sampled

• Non-random samples biased results

• Difficult to obtain a truly random sample

• Important to be critical of any research findings
• Who was sampled? How was the sample obtained?
Correlational Methods
• Another descriptive method - examines naturally occurring
relationships
• Does not explain why things are or are not related
• Correlation DOES NOT mean causation
• Allows us to predict outcomes
• Upgrade from other descriptive methods (Descriptive method
2.0!)

• Example:

• SAT scores should correlate with college GPA

• If so, I can predict your college GPA from your SAT score

• Correlations are quantified using a statistic called the

correlation coefficient, r
References / Resources

1. Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W., Dumper, K., Lovett, M., & Perlmutter, M. (2018). Psychology:
OpenStax.
2. LibGuides: OpenStax Psychology Resources Guide: Psychological Research. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://columbusstate.libguides.com/c.php?g=834572&p=6339947
3. Psychology. (2020, April 11). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology
4. Geher, G. (2017, December 20). Top 10 Cool Psychological Research Findings. Retrieved from
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/darwins-subterranean-world/201712/top-10-cool-
psychological-research-findings
5. The 25 Most Influential Psychological Experiments in History. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://www.onlinepsychologydegree.info/influential-psychological-experiments/