PSY 2307 - Chapter 2 Lecture

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Chapter 2: Sources of Information: Why Research Is Best and How to Find It PSY 2307 CHAPTER 2 IS DUE FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2023, AT 11:59 PM, CST. 1

How many people have heard that releasing or venting negative feelings is a healthy way to manage anger? You may have even heard of “Smash” or “Rage” rooms popping up around the country which offer participants a safe and controlled environment to let out their anger. People are paying good money to break objects instead of bones, but is it worth the money? Does expressing aggression make it go away? 2

Outline • The Research vs. Your Experience − Experience Has No Comparison Group − Experience Is Confounded − Research Is Better Than Experience − Research Is Probabilistic • The Research vs. Your Intuition − Ways That Intuition Is Biased − The Intuitive Thinker vs. The Scientific Researcher • Trusting Authorities on the Subject • Finding and Reading the Research − Consulting Scientific Sources − Finding Scientific Sources − Reading the Research − Finding Research in Less Scholarly Places 3

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Introduction • We tend to base our beliefs on experience, intuition, and authority • Scientists value empirical, research- based conclusions • Learning Objective : Learn how to locate research-based information, and read it with a purpose We tend to base our beliefs on three primary sources: experience, intuition, and authority. As we discussed previously, however, scientists value empirical, research-based conclusions. Therefore, the learning objective for Chapter 2 is to learn how to locate research- based information, and read it with a purpose. 4

Research vs. Your Experience • Our own personal experiences are powerful sources of information • Research, as opposed to experience, considers a comparison group • Researchers isolate variables to avoid confounds When we need to decide what we believe, our own experiences are powerful sources of information. Often, too, we base our opinions on the experiences of friends and family. For instance, we might get their recommendation for a restaurant or a car brand because we trust that they will be honest about their positive experience. There are many reasons not to base beliefs solely on personal experience, but perhaps the most important is that when we do so, we usually don’t take a comparison group into account. Research, by contrast, asks the crucial question: Compared to what? A comparison group enables us to compare what would happen with and without the variable that we are interested in. Not only do comparison groups allow you to isolate your variables, but they also allow researchers to identify potential confounds which are alternative explanations for an outcome. For example, if you think about the last time you had an upset stomach, what did you attribute it to? Was it something you ate? Was it because you were nervous about an upcoming exam? Was there some other reason. Going back to our aggression example, how can we be so sure that it was the venting that made you feel better? What if you were to just sit and wait out your emotions, 5

or let out your aggression with a nonviolent activity instead? Do you think you still would have felt better? 5

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Research Is Better Than Experience Results from controlled research on the catharsis hypothesis. In this study, participants were asked to write an essay, which was subsequently harshly criticized by another student who was actually a member of the research team. After being insulted, the participants were assigned to one of three groups to systematically compare the effects of venting and not venting anger. Group 1 was instructed to sit quietly in a room for two minutes. Group 2 was instructed to punch a punching bag for 2 minutes, having been told it was a form of exercise. And Group 3 was instructed to punch a punching bag for two minutes while imagining the other student’s face. Later, all three groups had a chance to get back at the student by blasting him with a loud noise. The researchers found that the group that sat quietly, punished the student the least, while the group that punched the bag while imagining it was Steve exhibited the most aggression. As it turns out, venting doesn’t necessarily release aggression, it can actually elicit more anger by increasing your arousal. Instead, researchers suggested that people reduce or learn better ways to manage their arousal when angry by doing things like mediation. 6

Research vs. Your Experience • Sometimes our personal experiences contradict research results • Research is probabilistic — findings are not expected to explain all cases all of the time • Bottom line : Predictions are not perfect Although research is usually more accurate than individual experience, sometime our personal stories contradict the research results. At times, your own or others’ experiences may be an exception to what the research finds. In such cases, you may be tempted to conclude that the research is wrong. However, behavioral research is probabilistic , which means that its findings are not expected to explain all cases all of the time. In practice, scientific conclusions are based on patterns that emerge only when the researchers set up comparison groups and test many people. Your own experience is only one point in that overall pattern. The bottom line is this: Psychological predictions are not perfect and exceptions to the rule are bound to happen. 7

5 Ways That Intuition is Biased Humans are not born scientific thinkers. We might be aware of our potential to be biased, but we often are too busy, or not motivated enough, to correct and control for these biases —and that’s if we admit we have them in the first place. Fortunately, the formal processes of scientific research help prevent these biases from affecting our decisions. Here are five examples of biased reasoning. We will discuss each on in detail: 1. Being swayed by a good story 2. Being persuaded by what easily comes to mind 3. Failing to think about what we cannot see 4. Focusing on the evidence we like best 5. Biased about being biased 8

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Being Swayed By a Good Story • We often accept a conclusion because it “makes sense” or “feels natural” • Faulty intuition can be misleading or even harmful • Important to adjust beliefs when empirical evidence contradicts commonsense On example of a bias in our thinking is accepting a conclusion just because it makes sense or feels natural. We tend to believe good stories — even ones that are false. More importantly, however, faulty intuition can actually be harmful. For example, the “Scared Straight” program is a commonsense intervention that turned out to be wrong. Such programs propose that when teenagers are susceptible to criminal activity hear about the difficulties of prison from actual inmates, they will be scared away from committing crimes in the future. It “makes sense” that impressionable young people would be frightened and deterred by such stories; however, research has consistently found that Scared Straight programs are ineffective at preventing future crime and may even cause more crime. The intuitive appeal is strong, but the research warns against them. 9

Being Persuaded By What Easily Comes to Mind Availability heuristic : Things that come to mind easily tend to guide our thinking Another bias in thinking is the availability heuristic , which states that things that come to mind easily tend to guide our thinking. When events or memories are vivid, recent, or particularly memorable, they come to mind more easily, leading us to overestimate how often things actually happen. For example, when you see a headline saying that a person died after being attacked by a shark, you might be tempted to avoid beaches or murky water out of fear that you might also be attacked. Dramatic news like this might prompt us to change our vacation plans. If we rely on our intuition, we might think shark attacks are truly common. However, a closer look at the frequency of reported shark attacks reveals that they are incredibly rare. Being killed by a shark is less much less likely than say dying in a car crash, dying from the flu, or dying in a bathtub; yet we’re probably less likely to avoid those other causes of death. 10

What About What We Can’t See? Present/present bias : Failure to consider appropriate comparison groups The availability heuristic leads us to overestimate events, such as how frequently people die in shark attacks. A related problem prevents us from seeing the relationship between an event and its outcome. When deciding if there is a pattern, for example between venting one’s mood, people forget to seek out information that isn’t there. In the context of managing anger, the present/present bias means we will easily notice the times that we did express frustration at the gym and subsequently felt better. In other words, we notice the times when both the treatment (venting) and the desired outcome (feeling better) are present but are less likely to notice the times when we didn’t express our anger and just felt better anyway. 11

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Focusing On The Evidence We Like Best Confirmation bias : Seeking out information that agrees with what we already believe During an election season, you might check opinion polls for your favorite candidate. What if your candidate lags behind in the first opinion poll you see? If you’re like most people, you will keep looking until you find a poll in which your candidate has the edge. The tendency to look only at information that agrees with what we already believe is called the confirmation bias . We “cherry - pick” the information we take in -seeking and accepting only the evidence that supports what we already think. 12

The flat earth conspiracy is a great example of confirmation bias. Essentially, people who believe the conspiracy do not think the earth is round. Instead, they try to compile evidence in favor of their argument that the earth is actually flat. Let’s watch a short clip of the confirmation bias in practice with a few flat earth conspiracy theorists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vrP8EplfP0 Remember how we talked about good theories needing to be falsifiable? In their case, they cannot reasonably provide evidence to suggest that the earth is flat and therefore their theory has no ground to stand on. By not jumping to conclusions, formulating multiple hypotheses and proactively seeking to disconfirm initial suspicions, you can avoid the bias confirmation Confirmation bias can be a strong influence, so you will need to actively look for evidence that disproves your point of view. Get a different perspective – Get out of your echo chamber. Approach someone you know sees things differently from you 13

and ask them what they are seeing. Allow yourself to be wrong. If you want to get closer to objective truths, you have to be able to admit you were wrong, especially in the face of conflicting evidence. 13

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Biased About Being Biased Bias blind spot : The belief that we are unlikely, or less likely, to be biased compared to others Even though we just talked about the numerous biased ways people think, we nevertheless conclude that those biases do not apply to us . We have what’s called a bias blind spot , the belief that we are unlikely to fall prey to the other biases previously described. Most of us think we are less biased than others, so when we do notice our own view of a situation is different from that of somebody else, we conclude that “I’m the objective on here” and “you are the biased one.” The bias blind spot might be the sneakiest of all of the biases in human thinking because it makes us trust our faulty reasoning even more. We may not even question our conclusions in the first place if we already think what we believe is correct. 14

Trusting Authorities On the Subject We’ve talked about common misconceptions people hold about psychology like “we only use 10% of our brains” or “people are either left -brained or right- brained.” People, even those that we trust, make such claims as if they are facts. However, you should be cautious about basing your beliefs on what everybody says — even when the claim is made by someone who is (or says they are) an authority. This could include people like parents, guidance counselors, TV talk show hosts, and even your professors. Obviously, there are people that you can trust, but before taking the advice of authorities, ask yourself about the source of their ideas. Did the authority figures base their conclusions on empirical evidence? Do they have the credentials to match their so-called expertise? 15

Keep in mind, too, that not all research is equally reliable. The research an expert uses to support their argument might have been conducted poorly, or the results could have been misinterpreted. We’ll discuss more concretely how you can interrogate others’ research and form conclusions about its quality, but in the meantime, you can use this decision tree to help you make decisions on what to believe based on the source of the information. 16

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Consulting Scientific Sources • Psychologists usually publish their research in 3 kinds of sources… 1. Journal articles 2. Chapters in edited books 3. Full-length books Psychological scientists usually publish their research in three kinds of sources. Most often, research results are published as articles in scholarly journals. In addition, psychologists may describe their research in a single chapter within edited books. Some researchers also write full-length scholarly books. 17

Journal Articles • Empirical articles : Report the results of an empirical research study for the first time • Review articles : Provide a summary of all published studies that have been done in one research area Scientific journals come out monthly or quarterly, similar to magazine. You are most likely to find then in college or university libraries or in online academic databases like PsychINFO or Google Scholar. Empirical journal articles report, for the first time, the results of an empirical research study. Empirical articles contain details about the study’s method, the statistical tests used, and the results of the study. Review articles, on the other hand, provide a summary of all published studies that have been done in one research area. This allows other scholars to gain a better understanding of the current state of research happening in their field. Both types of articles are considered the most prestigious forms of publication because they have been rigorously peer-reviewed by other scholars in the field. 18

• Chapters in edited books : A collection of chapters on a common topic written by different contributors • Full-length books : A single book dedicated to a single scholar’s work Books An edited book is a collection of chapters on a common topic; each chapter is written by a different contributor. Generally, a book chapter isn’t the first place a study is reported; instead, the scientist is summarizing a collection of research and explaining the theory behind it. Although chapters in edited books can be a great source of second-hand knowledge, they are not peer-reviewed as rigorously as empirical journal articles or review articles. Finally , full-length books , though uncommon in psychology; are another way for scholars to publish their work. 19

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PsychINFO PsychINFO is a database and search engine for finding research articles in psychology. It is maintained by the American Psychological Association (APA). You can access PsychINFO by visiting the UHD Library website (https://www.uhd.edu/library/Pages/library- index.aspx), clicking “Databases,” clicking the letter “P” to browse databases by name, and clicking “ PsychINFO (EBSCO).” You will need your UHD Gator log-in/password to access this database. It’s similar to Google, but it only searches for sources in psychology and related fields. Most articles on PsycINFO are peer-reviewed. 20

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Google Scholar If you want to find empirical research but don’t have access to PsycINFO, you can try the free tool Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/). It works like the regular Google search engine, except the search results are only in the form of empirical journal articles and scholarly books. 21

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Reading the Research Once you have found an empirical article or book chapter, then what? You might wonder how to go about reading the material. At first glance, some journal articles contain and array of statistical symbols and unfamiliar terminology. Even the titles can be intimidating. It helps to know what you will find in an article and to read with a purpose. 1. The Abstract is a concise summary of the article, about 120 words long. It briefly describes the study’s hypotheses, method, and major results. When you are collecting articles for a project, the abstracts can help you quickly decide whether each article describes the kind of research you are looking for, or whether you should move on to the next article. 2. The Introduction is the first section of regular text, and the first paragraphs typically explain the topic of the study. The middle paragraphs lay out the background for the research. What theory is being tested? What have past studies found? Why is the present study important? Pay attention to the final paragraph, which states the specific research questions, goals, or hypotheses for the current study. 22

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3. The Method section explains in detail how the researchers conducted their study. It usually contains subsections such as Participants, Materials, Procedure, and Apparatus. An ideal Method section gives enough detail that if you wanted to repeat the study, you could do so without having to ask the authors any questions. 4. The Results section describes the quantitative and, as relevant, qualitative results of the study, including the statistical tests the authors used to analyze the data. It usually provides tables and figures that summarize key results. Although you may not understand all the statistics used in the article (especially early in your psychology education), you might still be able to understand the basic findings by looking at the tables and figures. 5. The opening paragraph of the Discussion section generally summarizes the study’s research question and methods and indicates how well the results of the study supported the hypotheses. Next, the authors usually discuss the study’s importance: Perhaps their hypothesis was new, or the method they used was a creative and unusual way to test a familiar hypothesis, or the participants were unlike others who had been studied before. In addition, the authors may discuss alternative explanations for their data and pose interesting questions raised by the research. 6. The References section contains a full bibliographic listing of all the sources the authors cited in writing their article, enabling interested readers to locate these studies. When you are conducting a literature search, reference lists are excellent places to look for additional articles on a given topic. Once you find one relevant article, the reference list for that article will contain a treasure trove of related work. 22

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Finding Research in Less Scholarly Places • Additional sources for psychological research… − Nonacademic books − Wikipedia − Popular Media (e.g., Slate , Vox , Psychology Today ) Reading about research in its original form is the best way to get a thorough, accurate, and peer-reviewed report of scientific evidence. There are, however, other sources for reading about psychological research that you might also find interesting including: nonacademic books written for the general public, websites, popular newspapers, and magazines. These can be good places to read about psychological research, as long as you choose and read your sources carefully. 23

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So, how can you avoid the pitfalls of intuition? • When we think intuitively — rather than scientifically — we make mistakes • We tend to notice and actively seek information that confirms our ideas • Biases are inevitable, but thinking critically can help guard against them So, how can you avoid the pitfalls of intuition? When we think intuitively, rather than scientifically, we are bound to make some mistakes. Because of our biases, we tend to notice and actively seek information that confirms our ideas instead of seeking information that may contradict them. To counteract your own biases, try to adopt the empirical mindset of a researcher. Doing to will help you interpret data in a more objective way and wade more confidently in today’s sea of misinformation. 24

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Chapter 2 Key Concepts • The Research vs. Your Experience − Confounds − Probabilistic • The Research vs. Your Intuition − Availability heuristic − Present/present bias − Confirmation bias − Bias blind spot • Trusting Authorities on the Subject • Finding and Reading the Research − Journal articles − Chapters in edited books − Full-length books 25

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