Psychpt2

Hindsight- one approach to understanding behaviour Life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards- kierkegard One approach to understanding behaviour relies on hindsight, or trying to understand why something happening by speculating about it after the fact People tend to be overconfident in how likely it is that they would havec correctly predicted something when they don't think abou the question until after they already know th result. This is reffered to as hindsight bias.

Hindsight bias is when people are overconfident in how likely it is that they would have correctly predicted something when they don’t think about the question until they’ve already received the result. Relying on hindsight reasoning tends to result in many contradictions because there are often many possible explanations for any given behaviour/situation

will a long distance relationship be successful? If it is, 'distance makes the heart grow fonder'. if not, 'out of sight out of mind' It's sort of like betting on the outcome of a hockey game you've already seen
Particularily problematic for building theories and models about behaviour, it is not clear how to evaluate accuracy of hindsight reasoning. You can brainstorm, but definitive answers should not come from this reasoning. An alternative to hindsight for understanding behaviour is relying on scientific method. Places emphasis on prediction, control, and theory building. It could be argued that psychology has been historically slow to adopt the scientific method, which may relate to it's intangible nature as far as mental processes go. Hard to measure intelligence vs speed of a ball thrown.

Principles of this method- curiousity (why does something happen?), skepticism (what is the evidence for a claim?), and open-mindedness (are there other explanations?) 'We never difinitively prove anything, they're all tentative works in progress that other scientists will improve and correct over time.' Steps of scientific method

Identify question of interest
Gather information and formulate hypothesis
Test hypothesis by conducting research
Analyze data, draw tentative conclusions report finding
Build a body of knowledge, build theory
   Best to focus on one factor at a time, they may be integrated into a theory later anyway.
   Hypothesis is a tentative explanation or prediction about some phenomenon. Often takes an if, then form. Should be clear and specific, and must be testable.
   It must be possible to collect evidence that would logically be able to support the claim that the hypothesis is incorrect.
   You must also be able to prove that it cannot be supported. It should be possible.

Bystander effect experiment Has an introduction, explanation, and results section.

Independant variable- the variable that's changed by the scientist.

Dependant variable- the reaction to the change in independant variable.

Confederant condition- certain actors instructed to act a certain way but are disguised as other participants.

Objectivity is an ideal rather than a be-all end-all thing. Theories are broader than a single prediction, dynamic in that new theories are constantly replacing old ones, change is generally incremental but paradigm shifts do occur (believing the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa.) Good theories are testable, have predictions supported by research, conform to law of parsimony/occam's razor, generates principles that can be applied to new situations

Occam’s razor- is the idea that, in trying to understand something, getting unnecessary information out of the way is the fastest way to the truth or to the best explanation.