Sources of Information Part 1 - Chapter 2

Comparison group / Comparison condition

Compare what would happen in both with and without the thing we are interested in

Basing conclusions on WHAT experience is problematic because daily life usually doesn’t include WHAT experiences

Basing conclusions on PERSONAL experience is problematic because daily life usually doesn’t include COMPARISON experiences

Confound

An alternative explanation for a research finding

Confederate

An actor playing a specific role for the experimenter

WHAT results from several similar studies mean that scientists can be more WHAT in the findings

CONSISTENT results from several similar studies mean that scientists can be more CONFIDENT in the findings

WHAT supports theories

DATA supports theories

Probabilistic

Findings do not explain all cases all of the time but rather are meant to explain a certain proportion of the possible cases

Intuition

using our hunches about what seems “natural” or attempting to think about things logically

What are the four types of bias

• WHAT

• WHAT

• WHAT

• WHAT

What are the four types of bias

• Good story

• Availability bias

• confirmation bias

• Bias blind spot

Good story

Accepting a conclusion just because it makes SENSE or feels NATURAL

Problems to the good story bias

Automatically believing a story just because it makes sense can lead you astray 

Availability heuristics

Being persuaded by what comes easily to mind

problems with the availability heuristics

Leads us to wrongly estimate the number of something or how often something happens

Confirmation bias

focusing in evidence we expected

problems with confirmation bias

“cherry picking” the information we take in - seeking and accepting only the evidence that supports what we already think

Bias blind spot

• Biased about being biased

• Believing that the biases that affect other do not apply to us

Strive to collect potentially WHAT evidence, not only evidence that WHAT their hypotheses

Strive to collect potentially DISCONFIRMING evidence not only evidence that CONFIRMS their hypotheses

If an authority refers to peer-reviewed evidence in their own area of WHAT, their advice might be worthy of WHAT  

If an authority refers to peer-reviewed evidence in their own area of EXPERTISE, their advice might be worthy of ATTENTION  

A statement may be based on an authority’s WHAT, WHAT experience or WHAT, one should stay skeptical

A statement may be based on an authority’s RESEARCH, PERSONAL experience or INTUITION, one should stay skeptical