Psych 111 - Roadblocks to Scientific Thinking + Elements of Research

Hindsight Bias

• Once we know the outcome of something we convince ourselves that we already believed in said outcome.

• “I knew that”

• “I was right all along”

Overconfidence

• Overestimating one’s own knowledge and abilities can cause errors, limits one’s own willingness to learn

Patterns

• Perceiving patterns that don’t exist to cope with the randomness of the world.

• Ex. Superstitions, stereotypes.

Post-Truth

• Emotions + Personal Beliefs > Objective facts and evidence.

Repetition

• When things are repeated, we believe in the accuracy of said claim/statement.

Availability of Powerful Examples

• You think less about the likelihood of something happening.

• Ex. If someone wins the lottery, you may overestimate your own odds of winning.

Elements of Research

• Hypothesis - Testable Statement

• Independent Variable - Causes the Change

• Dependent Variable - Changes

• Operational Definition - Define Abstract Concepts and makes it measurable or observable