The Scientific Attitude

�     Scientific approach that is skeptical and open-minded

�     To shift away from illusions to reality, one must use Smart thinking or critical thinking: thinking that does not blindly accept things, but approaches with skepticism and examines the evidence carefully; Ask how did they know, on guts and instinct? Are the evidence biased?

�     However, must remember to have humility as too extreme would be stubbornness

The Limits of Intuition and Common Sense

�     Intuition often ends up nowhere

�     Tend to use a lot hindsight bias: tendency to believe that one would have known it after the results are shown;

Seems like common sense;  The answer was right there and look how obvious it was

�     Experience it usually when looking back on history; eg. Glen Clark and the fast ferries

�     Humans tend to be overconfident, think we know more than we actually do (probably result of self-serving bias)

�     Hindsight causes us to be overconfident as we believe we would have picked the answer when the results are in front of us

The Scientific Method

�     Scientific theory: explanation using set of principles to organise/predict observations

�     No matter how good theory sounds, must put it to test

�     Must imply testable prediction = hypothesis

�     Beware of bias when testing

�     Good experiment can be replicated: the experiment can be repeated and would yield constant results; done with a different group of people or by a different person ending with constant results

�     Theory useful if:

(1) effectively organises range of observations

(2) implies clear predictions

�     Case study: research method where one person is studied in depth to find universal principles (things that apply to all)

�     Drawback is that the individual being studied could be atypical, results not universally contained

�     Survey: research method to get the self-reported attitudes/behaviours of people

�     Looks at cases less depth and wording of question affects the response given (framing)Tend to hang around group similar to us so using them as study is wrong

�     False consensus effect: tendency to overestimate other’s agreement with us; eg. Vegetarians believe larger amount of pop. is vegetarian than Meat-eaters

�     Population: all the cases in the group being studied

�     To make a good sample, use random sampling: sample that gives each case a good chance of being studied to ensure results within range

�     Naturalistic observation: observing and recording behaviour in natural settings with any control on situation

�     Like case study & survey,  doesn’t explain behaviour

�     When finding a trait that accompanies another, not resulting effect, but correlation: the way 2 factors vary together and how well one predicts the other

�     Positive correlation: direct relationship where factors increase or decrease together

�     Negative correlation: inverse relationship where one factor goes up while one goes down

�     Does not explain cause, simply show relationship between factors