Becoming A Psychological Detective

1. Becoming A Psychological Detective Psychology, Research, and You Chapter 1 Section 1

2. Chapter in Perspective • Describe the methods psychologists use to gather information about the numerous problems and areas they research • Examine the historical development and growth of psychology • Look at the different types of jobs that psychologists currently hold

3. Why do we need to learn about psychology?

4. Be a Knowledgeable Consumer • The results and claims of psychological research fill our daily lives, so we need to know how to evaluate the accuracy and credibility of these claims.

5. Question: • How much electric shock, from 0 to 450 volts, would you administer to someone as part of a psychology experiment?

6. Stanley Milgram (1974) • Conducted a study in which people were asked to administer shocks to others in what they believed was an investigation of how people learned. • No shocks were actually delivered. • Participants continued to administer “shocks” even when they believed that the shocks could be harmful.

7. Obedience to Authority • Can be incredibly powerful • 1978 – Jonestown, Guyana • Jim Jones • Persuaded his followers to give cyanide-laced Kool-Aid to their children and then poison themselves (918 total died) • http://abcnews.go.com/Health/slideshow/jonestown-massacre-anniversary-17728596

8. The Science of Psychology

9. What is psychology? • Psychology is the science of behavior (both human and animal) and mental processes. • It also includes dreams, daydreams, and other inner experiences.

10. Psychology as a Science • Psychology provides the tools we need to answer questions about a wide range of issues including IQ testing, problems in learning, ethics in research, and countless other issues.

11. Becoming a Psychological Detective • We need to be clear about what happened to determine why and how it happened • Asking and answering these questions can provides tools to answer questions about other situations. • Takes practice!

12. Sample Questions: • Will most people administer a 450-volt shock to another person as part of a study of learning? • How strong is obedience to authority?

13. A Barrage of Info • We are bombarded by information from newspapers, radio, television, family and friends, and advertisements on a daily basis designed to influence our opinion, persuade us to buy products, entertain us, and/or inform us about the world.

14. Sample Headlines: • Miracle Happy Pill Banishes the Blues • You’ll Read 200% Faster with Better Comprehension • Recovered Memories Point to a History of Abuse • Hidden Messages in Rock Songs Linked to Suicides • Three-Year-Old Psychic Predicts the Future

15. Psychological Techniques • To evaluate information, psychologists have found certain techniques to be helpful in thinking critically. • We will explore these techniques in the next section, but let’s consider a common alternative: folk wisdoms.

16. Folk Wisdoms • Usually presented in the form of a proverb. • Folk wisdom provides explanations for every event as well as the exact opposite event so that they can never be proven wrong. • Hence, folk wisdom provides answers for all situations but actually explains none.

17. Examples List A List B People who hesitate are lost. It’s never too late to learn. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. If you want something done right, do it yourself. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Birds of a feather flock together. • Look before you leap. • You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. • Out of sight, out of mind. • Two heads are better than one. • A penny saved is a penny earned. • Opposites attract.

18. Psychological Research • Psychologist are trained to: - ask good questions - gather useful information - arrive at appropriate conclusions - develop and ask further questions based on the information collected. • There are right and wrong ways to conduct research.

19. Evaluating Info

20. Spiritualism • A belief in the supernatural • Popular after WWI on both sides of Atlantic • People would hold séances and hire mediums to contact the spirit world to communicate with the dead loved ones.

21. Arthur Conan Doyle • Creator of Sherlock Holmes- England 1920s • Became deeply interested in spiritualism after the death of his son in WWI. • Believed he had spoken with his dead son on several occasions.

22. Fairies Found? • May 1920-Report claimed fairies had been photographed by two young girls which confirmed Doyle’s belief in spiritualism. • He rejected the possibility of fraud because the girls were young and did not know how to use photographic equipment even though one had worked in photographic shop.

23. Confirmation? • In 1921, Doyle presented the results of his investigation in a book, The Coming of Fairies. • His authoritative statements led many people to believe that the photographs were genuine which led to other people writing to him about similar experiences.

24. Fairy Hoax • Modern technology reveals that the fairies were cardboard cutouts from a children’s book suspended by nearly invisible threads.

25. Question? • Why did the famous author of the most well-known detective stories fall for such a hoax? • Before he had seen the photographs he was already convinced of the existence of the spiritual realm.

26. Bias • beliefs that interfere with objectivity • Bias can - cloud our observations - influence the questions we ask - determine the methods we use - influence our interpretation of the data we gather.

27. Lessons? • 1. Prominent public figures may have great credibility, but their statements should not keep us from asking our own questions. • 2. We should be aware of the potential for bias which could cloud our judgment.

28. Table 1-2 Simple Questions that May Reveal Some Evidence of Bias

29. #1 • Is the sun closer to the Earth or farther from the Earth during the winter months, or is the distance the same in summer and winter?

30. #2 • Whose face appears on a penny?

31. #3 • Who stole the greatest number of bases in a single season of professional baseball?

32. #4 • Can you transform the following figure into a perfect square using just one straight line?

33. Answers:

34. #1 • Is the sun closer to the Earth or farther from the Earth during the winter months, or is the distance the same in summer and winter?

35. #1 • The answer depends on the hemisphere you are in when you answer the question. For people in the Northern Hemisphere, the Earth is closer to the sun from September to May; for people in the Southern Hemisphere, the Earth is closer to the sun from May to September. The degree of warmth is not associated with distance from the sun; the tilt of the Earth as it receives the sun’s ray determines warmth.

36. #2 • Whose face appears on a penny?

37. #2 • It depends. If the country minting the coin is the United States, the answer is Abraham Lincoln though you may be aware of the much older and very valuable “Indianhead” pennies. • In Canada, the Queen of England appears on a penny.

38. #3 • Who stole the greatest number of bases in a single season of professional baseball?

39. #3 • The answer is Sophie Kurys, who played for the Racine Belles in the Women’s Professional Baseball League in 1946; she stole 202 bases.

40. #4 • Can you transform the following figure into a perfect square using just one straight line?

41. A#4 • The answer is simple, provided that assumptions do not get in your way. Extend the line on the right side downward and you will produce the number 4 (a perfect square).

42. Quandary • Suppose we have two or more explanations for an event or a claim. • Which should we accept? • Assume for a moment that all the proposed explanations explain the event or claim. • The law of parsimony tells us to adopt the simplest explanation—the one that requires the fewest assumptions.

43. The Law of Parsimony • The principle that simple explanations of phenomena (the one that requires the fewer assumptions) are preferred to complex explanations.

44. Doyle’s Choices: • Doyle was faced with two explanations for the apparent sightings of the fairies by the girls. • One explanation was that the girls had actually seen the fairies. • The second explanation was that the girls had played an elaborate hoax on Doyle.

45. Which to choose? • Which explanation is simpler and involves fewer assumptions? • Clearly, the belief in the existence of fairies involves many more complex assumptions than does the view that the girls perpetrated a hoax.

46. Goal • Goal of book is to help you become a better psychological detective capable of asking good questions, collecting useful information, arriving at defensible conclusions, and being aware of your own biases and those of others.

47. Study Tip • Name a bias that you have seen in people you know or even in yourself. • Evaluate the bias: - What effects does it have on behavior and belief? - What are the results of such behaviors or beliefs, and are the results positive or negative?

48. Critical Thinking • Critical thinking, or the reasoning we do in order to determine whether a claim is true, is a cornerstone of psychology.

49. Guideline Questions

50. Question #1 • What is the statement or claim, and who is making it?