Humbehv 3MD3 - 3md3 notes

Human Behaviour 3MD3 Lecture 2 Week 1 Wednesday September 8 The importance of being skeptical An introduction to Empirical Thinking Where does knowledge come from? - Rationalism - Was dominant for very long - You can only know what you can logically think through - Logically thinking through facts and evidence available - Examples: Plato, Descartes - Believes that genuine knowledge can only come from pre-existing thoughts - As long as you arrive at a logical conclusion, that is the truth - Empiricism - Can only be gathered through what can be sensed and measures- to get to facts, need to be able to observe it - You can only know what you can experience through your sense and measure - Examples: William James, John Locke, Galileo - Even if we come to conclusion, cannot find an absolute truth - Creating alternate explanations An example of rationalism and empiricism - We naturally like to think about the world in terms of cause and effect - Eg. if I threw a rock through a window, it will break the window - Rationalists will look at facts and determine absolute truth - An empiricist would think about other variables that may impact this cause and effect Systematic empiricism - How do we test our ideas about the world in a systematic way? - Skepticism: something may seem to be true, but we must act in a way that it is not - Skepticism comes from our need for replication- want to be able to reproduce the same results - Need to be skeptical - Skepticism leads us to have better experience Downloaded by Kevin Lang (dilas34153@fesgrid.com) lOMoARcPSD|31076631

- - Key takeaway: empiricism cannot just rely on what is observable through our senses, but rather we need to do it systematically Facilitated communication (Klewe) - A technique aimed to help someone who is non-verbal communicate using a facilitator who can guide the person’s arm or hand to use an assistive device - It was actually facilitators guiding the movement subconsciously Anecdotes and intuition Reliance on experts - There are many situations day to day that force us to rely on experts - Expert: someone that has a lot of experience - Eg. travel to a new country and want to know about spots, ask locals - Can be problematic - Eg. Dr Oz & Dr Phil - Advice goes beyond their expertise Problem with relying on experts - Just because an expert said something does not mean they are perfect, but we assume they are - Even if they are making a mistake, we brush it off - Eg. in health care, physicians make big mistakes, still forget about it because they are an expert - Experts are also prone to biases - Comes in subtle ways Downloaded by Kevin Lang (dilas34153@fesgrid.com) lOMoARcPSD|31076631

- Theory: animals in captivity thrive in enriched environments - Hypothesis: cows will produce more milk when their environment has music - Prediction: cows will produce more milk when listening to country music than when there is no music playing Three purposes of theories - Good theories provide us with three types of information: - Organizing phenomena - Eg. G theory - Predicting future events - Eg. looking at attachment theory states early attachment styles can predict how one will behave later on - Generating new research What makes a good theory? - Good theories are also supported by three types of data: - Replication - Converging evidence across researchers/labs - Converging evidence across methods A double-blind test of astrology (carlson) - Sample: 30 American and European astrologers considered in their field to be experts - Told to match personality test with sign - Did not perform better in chance Astrology beliefs among undergraduate students - BUT some theories still persist despite not being supported by data Good theories must be falsifiable - Falsifiable: there must be a way to create an experiment that disproves the idea in question - Theory: all swans are white - However it only takes one swan to falsify this theory Examples of unfalsifoable theories - Stanovich’s tiny green men - We have tiny green men in our brains that control everything - When they detect intrusions, they disappear - The existence of ghosts - Ghosts exist in haunted places Downloaded by Kevin Lang (dilas34153@fesgrid.com) lOMoARcPSD|31076631

- Now giving different coloured pens Wednesday September 15 What can we take away from research? - The media is especially problematic for misinterpreting scientific claims - Knowing what conclusions we can actually draw from research is a difficult skill - Variables - Variable: something that varies across at least two levels - - Why does this matter? - Some studies have to variable manipulation (no independent variables) Random assignment - “The great equalizer” Downloaded by Kevin Lang (dilas34153@fesgrid.com) lOMoARcPSD|31076631

- Eg. clinical and drug trials first done on mice, then generalize to humans - Cases where mice responds but human doesn’t - This is why age and demographics is important- when replicating, want to see if we can replicate across populations - Eg. tend to do research on first year undergrads- might not be the best - Stimuli - Media generalizes stimuli more than you expect - Eg. mozart effect- media said if we do this with all classical music it will work - Situations - What happens in real world does not happen in lab space - Eg. people can navigate well in real life, but are not able to in a lab setting - May behave differently than they would in real life - Best way to establish external validity is through replication A special case of external validity - Ecological validity: when what the participant experiences in the lab corresponds with what they would experience in the “real world” - Eg. driving training, fire fighter training, CPR - Mundane realism- environment resembles real life - Psychological realism- forget theyre in the study because it feels so real - Increases likelihood that participants will behave like they do in real life - Has been problematic- milgrims experiment Statistical Conclusion Validity - Did te researchers use the correct statistical methods to arrive at their conclusions? - Eg. right number of participants? Did measurement scales capture what it wanted to capture? - Downloaded by Kevin Lang (dilas34153@fesgrid.com) lOMoARcPSD|31076631

Internal validity - The degree to which we can be confident that the independent variable created changes in the dependent variable - Have we eliminated all compounds and tested for all variables? - Controlled environment - Consistent intructions - Same lab space - Confederates Internal validity without construct validity - Example: giving computer game math tutoring to a group of 2nd graders to improve their math abilities - - Kids with math program performed better - Lacking construct validity- is it the tutor that is changing things or is it the math game? Tuesday September 21 What is measurement? - Measurement: the process of recording and collecting data required for a research study - Reliability and validity Measurement in psychology - The fields of psychology and behaviour are notorious for being filled with difficult to measure constructs - “The unusual uses” test Defining variables - Conceptual definition: describes what we are measuring or observing in a study - Operational definition: defining an abstract concept using measurable terms Downloaded by Kevin Lang (dilas34153@fesgrid.com) lOMoARcPSD|31076631

- - Good enough if above 0.7 Test-retest reliability of the WISC-IV - Test: weschler intelligence scale for children - Population: kindergarten to grade 1 - Retest: 1 year later Test-retest reliability of the WISC-IV - Have to report their own test-retest - Things can impact test-retest reliability - Trained administrators? - Even trained can make mistakes - Practice effects? - May be able to remember and perform better eventually - Limited sample demographics? - Had very limited demographic Inter-rater reliability - Inter-rater reliability: the extent to which two observers can use the same measure and achieve the same results - Eg. judges have different opinions - May not be consistent - Especially relevant for observational studies - Requires explicit training - Natural variability occurs all the time Rate errors - Strictness Downloaded by Kevin Lang (dilas34153@fesgrid.com) lOMoARcPSD|31076631

Tuesday October 5 What is survey research? - There is an enormous range of topics that can be studied using surveys - Survey research can be either quantitative or qualitative - Quantitative- produces numerical data, qualitative: produces non-numerical data Goals of survey research - Compare different groups or populations - Good at tracking similarities or differences - Describe characteristics of a population - Test hypothesis, theories, and models Why choose survey research? - There are many reasons why someone would choose questionnaires over other types of studies - Efficient method of data collection - Some things can’t be studied behaviourally - Low cost - Ease of administration Developing a good survey - While developing a survey may seem intuitively easy, it is actually incredibly difficult to design well - Convert research question to measurable topics - Design items - Pre-test and re-test Open-ended items - Open-ended questions: allows us to maximize freedom of response by allowing respondents to give any answer they choose - Unlimited possible responses and gives insight into creativity and thinking style - BUT can produce irrelevant responses and is difficult to code - Eg. participant 1: the best part has been learning skills that are career specific - Participant 2: probably gaining knowledge and skills Closed ended items - Closed ended questions: questions that provide a predetermined set of possible answer choice Downloaded by Kevin Lang (dilas34153@fesgrid.com) lOMoARcPSD|31076631

Subjective measures Face Validity - Face validity: at the surface level, does the measure appear to be a good measure of the construct we want to measure? - Make or break if participant continues in the measure - Controversial; psychologists say things that are face valid but when measured, it is not great - Content validity - Content validity: does the measure represent the entirety of what the construct captures? - Especially useful when evaluated by experts or a target population - - Eg. measures captures 3 but not all 5, need all 5 Downloaded by Kevin Lang (dilas34153@fesgrid.com) lOMoARcPSD|31076631

- 1. Diagnosed current MDD - 2. No history of MDD - Compare scores - If something had high criterion validity what would we expect to happen here? - Those diagnosed with MDD would score higher on the questionnaire - Established measure of MDD, have 2 groups, comparing it to - Beck’s depression inventory by measuring it against people who had been diagnosed using the DSM - - People already diagnosed with depression had a higher BDI score than those who had not - Wanted to also know if it correlated with … Convergent validity - Convergent validity: are outcomes on your measure correlated with outcomes on another measure that captures the same construct? - Using another well-validated measure to justify the validity of your measure - Eg. problem item (BDI-1) - - Looks like it can capture something other than depression - BDI has more convregent validity? Discriminant validity - Discriminant validity: the extent to which outcomes on your measure are not correlated with measures of different constructs Downloaded by Kevin Lang (dilas34153@fesgrid.com) lOMoARcPSD|31076631

- Patient reimbursement - Research in healthcare often provides a per-patient reimbursement Deception - Deception: when the researcher intentionally misleads the participant about some key aspect of the study - Pros - Capture behaviour more organically - Capture situations difficult to observe naturalistically - Eg. emergency situation and want to see to what extent people help someone - Cons - Can increase suspicion - Can lead to strange behaviour - Leads to decreased trust in experimenter - Deception cannot be used when the experiment is thought to cause physical pain or any intense emotional distress Is direct deception ethical? - Indirect - Participant agrees to postpone the full disclosure of study details until a given time point - Direct - Participant is deliberately lied to or manipulated without prior knowledge - Potentially negative effects on well being and self esteem - Eg. when they come in they are told they have to give a speech, did not know they would have to and may get stressed out The bystander effect - Lead into empty room alone, told they would talk about their experiences as a college student, can only talk once at a time - Independent variable - The number of people the participant thought was in the discussion group - Dependent variable - How long it took for the participant to notify the experimenter - Have random person talking in distress, wanted to see if they would tell experimenter - When many people, 6 out of 60 ppl notified - When they thought it was 2 people, all notified experimenter Working with children Downloaded by Kevin Lang (dilas34153@fesgrid.com) lOMoARcPSD|31076631

- Turned off amygdala completely - Decreased activity across all areas of the brain Three R’s of research with animals - Replace - Live animal studies should be replaced by other methods when possible - Reduce - The number of animals should be reduced to the minimal number possible - Refine - We must refine the study to minimize harm on animals Wednesday October 6 ADD CONTENT Social desirability and exercise - Methods: 1200 undergrads completed a two part Preventing social desirability bias - 1. Guarantee anonymity - 2. Use items designed to catch social desirability - Example: i am always a good listener, no matter who i am talking to - 3. Bogus pipeline - A deception technique that convinces the participants you will know if they are lying Asking answerable questions - People know what but don’t necessarily know why (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977) - Almost every woman picked the last pair on the right - Even if switched it up or they were all the same Memory is fallible - Asking participants about the past can be problematic because we are especially a=prone to hindsight bias Downloaded by Kevin Lang (dilas34153@fesgrid.com) lOMoARcPSD|31076631