Exam Review

1. Exam Review Feb 12, 2013

2. Outline • Chapters 1-4 • Outline of things I find interesting • Feel free to ask any questions • I do not know what will or will not be on the exam

3. Chapter 1 • Methods of Inquiry • Scientific Method • Pseudoscience

4. Methods of Inquiry • How do we know things? • Authority • Using our Reason • Experience

5. Experience • WARNING! – Social Cognition biases. Ways in which the way we experience the world could bias what we learn from it. • Belief Perseverance • Being stubborn about a belief that is often reinforced • Examples? • Sports teams? Iphone. • Confirmation Bias • Only looking for and attending to data that supports our current beliefs • Examples? • Reporters only interviewing people who share the point of view they are reporting on. We read magazines and papers that we know support our beliefs. • Availability Heuristic • When we overestimate the importance of a rare or weird event. • Examples? • Changing answers on multiple choice exams. Friends calling when you are thinking about them.

6. Scientific Method • How is Science different from the other ways of knowing? • Researchers assume determinism and discoverability. What are these things? • Events have causes (one event determines the next) and these causes can be discovered. • What about free will, fate, etc??? • Statistical Determinism – Causes can be determined with a probability greater than chance but less than 1.

7. Scientific Method • Science is objective or public. • Everyone can know it • Objectivity vs. Introspection. • Science produces data-based conclusions • Conclusions come AFTER data is collected. • Scientists expect conclusions to be supported by objective information gathered systematically. Example? • Conclusions are tentative. They are based the current data and will be thrown out when they are no longer supported by data. • Do you see how the social biases are not an issue with the scientific method? • Does this mean there are no biases in Science?

8. Scientific Method • A few more points • Questions must be answerable. • Example? • What am I thinking? A question for science? Why or why not? • Falsifiability. There must be an outcome that will falsify your hypothesis/theory/conclusion. • Example? • All humans speak English.

9. Pseudoscience • What is Pseudoscience? • Something that seems “sciency” but on closer inspection is not. • Example? • Mythbusters. Phrenology (text example). • Often associates with true science. Phrenology had journals, faculty positions, etc. • Relies almost exclusively on anecdotal evidence. Stories and hearsay. • Problem with anecdotal evidence? Effort Justification – If I invest my time or money I am more likely to report a positive outcome purely to save face. • No real data. 3/5 Dentists recommend…

10. Pseudoscience • Sidesteps Disproof • All negative outcomes are explained away with on the fly adjustments to the theory. • Often predictions made by pseudoscience theories are kept unspecific so as not to be directly proven wrong. • Oversimplify concepts. A phrenologist may claim that one part of the skull represents submissiveness. • How is this different from true science? • Is Psychology a pseudoscience?

11. Chapter 2 - Ethics • What is Ethics? • A set of standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession. • Why do we need it? • 3 examples from the txt • Watson – Little Albert • McGraw – Pin Pricks • Dennis – Twin Isolation Study • What was the problem?

12. Ethics. • What was done? • APA asked people to contribute Critical Incident reports. These were reviewed. APA then proposed guidelines for ethical research in Psychology. • First published in 1953, continuously revised, most recently in 2002.

13. Ethics • The APA 5 general principles • Beneficence and Non-Malfeasance – Must weight the positives against the negatives, and maximize the benefits • Fidelity and Responsibility – Obligates researchers to be constantly aware of their responsibility to society and to always act with the highest standards of professionalism • Integrity- Compels researchers to be honest in all aspects of the process • Justice – Obligates researchers to treat everyone involved with fairness and maximum expertise with no bias • Respect for people’s rights and Dignity – you must be vigorous in how you safeguard your volunteers’ rights

14. Research with Humans • Institutional Review Board (IRB) • Typically in place at all institutions that perform research • Minimum of 5 members, from multiple disciplines • At least one non-scientist • Approve or deny research proposals based on Ethics. • They work well however they are not perfect.

15. Problems with IRB • What are the problems? • They lack an appeals process • Studies can be refused for many reasons that have nothing to do with ethics. Lack of understanding by some of the board members outside of the discipline. • Lack of consistency between IRB from different institutions.

16. Informed Consent and Deception • Subjects or Participants(?) must give signed consent to take part in a research study in most cases. • Not needed for naturalistic observation and anonymous questionnaires. • As researchers you are required to inform subjects about any risks, what is required of them, how they can exit the study, when they can exit the study, and any compensation they might receive

17. What about Deception? • What is Deception? • Is deception an necessary evil? • Why or why not? • Would the Milgram study have worked without deception?

18. Informed Consent and Deception • Why do we need informed consent? • Nuremburg Trials of Nazi Doctors that forced prisoners to be subjects in brutal experiments. • Not just the Nazis! • Willowbrookhepatitis study. • Tuskegee Syphilis Study • MK-ULTRA CIA lsd experiments • All three took severe advantage of unknowing and un-consenting subjects, some with lethal consequences. • What do you think, is it always necessarily bad to brutalize subjects? We learned a lot of what we know about Syphilis and Hepatitis from those studies.

19. Consent from special populations. • What about Children or those that are institutionalized (prisons, home for seniors, mental institutions etc.)? • Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) builds on and strengthens existing codes of conduct. • Children must give assent to participate • This involves a verbal communication between the child and the researcher which shows that the child understands what he is capable of understanding. • SRCD also tells us when rewards can be offered and the limits on these rewards. • Rewards cannot be offered during the explaining of the protocol and they cannot be different than what the child is already getting. Anything more could be considered coercion. • Infants and non-language users need fully informed consent from a guardian.

20. Consent for Special Cases • Prisoners, residents in mental health facilities • Must not feel coerced into participating • Prisoners often feel like if they refuse to participate their parole board will find out and judge them harshly. • Rewards cannot be above and beyond any rewards that an inmate might have access to anyway. This is another form of coercion.

21. Treat Your Participants Well! • Participants Must be debriefed • Informed about the real purpose of the study. Although this can result in leakage in certain populations. • Deceptions revealed • Steps are taken to alleviate any remaining stresses • Confidentiality must be ensured

22. Animal Research • Why use animals for research? • Institutional Animal Code and Use Committee (IACUC) • Very similar to IRB • It ensures that animals are used, and maintained in a way that meets the APA guidelines: • Studies must be Justified. Justification requirements go up as discomfort to the animal increases. • Caring for Animals. Husbandry must be performed to the highest level. • Animals for Educational purposes. IACUC attempts to keep animals being used purely for education at a minimum. It is better to use one animal, video tape him and then show the video over and over as opposed to using a new animal for each lesson.

23. Scientific Fraud • What is scientific fraud? • “deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain” • Plagiarism and Falsifying data. • Usually discovered when other labs attempt to replicate a study, or data is requested.

24. Chapter 3 – Ideas in Psychology • Where do our Ideas come from? • What kind of research is done in Psychology? • Basic vs. Applied, Lab vs. Field, Quantitative vs. Qualitative.

25. Varieties of Research • Basic vs. Applied? • Basic research looks at fundamental systems in Psychology. Sensation and Perception, Memory, Vision, etc. • Applied research looks for solutions to real-world problems. How do lighting conditions change the work habits of shift workers. • Is one more valuable?

26. Varieties of Research • Laboratory vs. Field Work? • Lab work is done in the lab under controlled conditions. • Field work is done in real world dynamic conditions. • Is this real vs. artificial? • Is one better than the other?

27. Varieties of Research • Quantitative vs. Qualitative • Quantitative is research where data can be represented by numbers and operated on like numbers. • Examples? • Reaction time, speed, spike timing… • Qualitative is a bit more elusive to define, but usually involves research where findings are reported as case studies.

28. Where do researchers get ideas? • Observation, Serendipity, Theories • Serendipity? • The act of discovering something while looking for something else. • Examples? • Edge detectors in cats. • This is why looking at your data is VERY important.

29. Where do researchers get ideas? • Observation? • Noticing something in the world and then developing research to explain it. • Examples? • Gravity? • Zeigarnik Effect was discovered after a scientists saw how German waiters could remember a tables order right up until the bill was created. • This is why most scientists keep journals!

30. Where do researchers get ideas? • Theories – Test, modify, falsify. • In Psychology what is a theory? • Set of logically consistent statements that 1) best summarizes empirical knowledge, 2) Organizes this knowledge in the form of precise statements of relationships among variables, and 3) Serve as the basis for making predictions about behaviour.

31. Theories • Scientists collect data. How do data relate to theories? • Deduction, Hypothesis, Induction • Deduction is the act of reasoning from a set of general statements to a specific outcomes (Theory->Data) • Hypothesis is the prediction about specific outcomes resulting from deduction. (Theory+Data)->New Data • Induction is the reasoning from specific events to general theories. (Data+New Data) -> Theories

32. Theories • What makes a theory a ‘good’ theory? • Productivity, Falsification, Parsimony • Productivity - Does a theory actually produce new knowledge? Gravity, Quantum Mechanics, vs Phrenology? • Falsification – Can a theory be disproven? When a theory is well formed it is immediately clear how it could be disproved. • All birds are black. How would I falsify this? • Parsimony – A theory is usually seen as superior if it contains the fewest possible statements or constructs. • Electromagnetism.

33. Misunderstandings • Theories cannot be proved. The can only acquire more and more data that support them. • Theories are a “working truth” about some phenomenon. • Theories are not facts, they explain facts. • Fact when I let go of my pencil it falls towards the planet. The theory of gravity is our best explanation of that fact.

34. Questions • This is where you as questions and I attempt to answer them.