Research Design Chapter 1 & 2

availability heuristic

influenced by what easily comes to mind - ex. shark attack vs coconut

illusionary correlation

perceiving a correlation where none exists or overestimating its magnitude - rare events stick out more in our memory and therefore seem more common

present/present bias

notice or remember when a combination of events is present - ex. blondes have more fun

confirmation bias

only look for evidence that supports beliefs and ignores/criticizes counter-evidence - ex. IQ tests and articles about IQ validity

naive realism

belief that we see the world precisely as it is - top down processing based on expectations - selective attention - ex. unhappy partners notice negative behaviors more

self-serving bias

tendency to perceive oneself favorably

hindsight bias

exaggerating one’s ability to have foreseen an outcome after learning about it

belief perseverance

sticking to our initial beliefs even when evidence contradicts them

a priori hypothesis

making hypotheses before testing

post hoc hypothesis

making hypotheses after testing

empiricism

knowledge based on observations

occam’s razor

does a simpler explanation work just as well?

rational

consistent with known findings

testable

using the scientific method

falsifiable

capable of being proven wrong

parsimonious

simplest explanation for data

tenative

never proven right

temporal presendence

cause comes before the thing that it caused

covariation of cause and effect

when cause is present, effect is also present

basic research

increase understanding of fundamentals - what, why, how

applied research

aimed at solving practical problems

lower levels of analysis

tied to biological influences

higher levels of analysis

tied to social and systematic influences

proximate explanations

focus on more immediate reasons

ultimate explanations

focus of the evolutionary reasons

unsystematic observation

causal observation of everyday behavior

systematic observation

focused observation of everyday behvario

probabilistic

not expected to explain all cases all the time

hypothesis

tentative answer to the research question

prediction

guess at the outcome of a specific study

developing research questions

ask answerable and important questions

primary sources

written by researchers using language understood by the field

secondary sources

summarize from a primary source

literature reviews

critical summaries of previous research

meta-analysis

statistical analysis of numerous studies

theory articles

new framework for understanding topic

empirical articles

new data collected and analyzed