PSYC 3450
Experimental Psychology
Course Instructor: Alla Chavarga
Monday 9:05-10:45am
Course Syllabus
• Syllabus handout
•
Your ONLY homework assignment!
Email me: alla.chavarga@gmail.com
Subject: Your Name PSYCH 3450 – Name of TA
• Attendance
• Course Format: Lecture & Lab
• Required Textbook
CHAPTER 1
Scientific Thinking in Psychology
Why take this course?
How do we come to know things?
Science as a way of knowing
Psychological Science vs. Pseudoscience
Goals of Research
Why take this course?
• Learn how to do research in Psychology
Process vs. content
• Informed and critical consumption of information
• Responsibility as a clinician
• How to Get into Grad School 101
How do we come to know
things?
I know three things:
Correlation does not prove causation.
Authority
Socrates has ten fingers.
Reason (a priori)
The sun will come up tomorrow.
Experience (a priori)
Empiricism
How do we come to know
things?
Empiricism – the process of learning things through direct
observation or experience, and reflecting on those experiences.
Sounds legit. What could be wrong about this method?
Social Cognition Biases
Belief perseverance – the tendency to hold on to a belief,
even in the face of contradictory evidence.
Confirmation Bias – tendency to seek out information only
in support of belief, ignoring contradictory information.
Availability heuristic – tendency to overestimate the
frequency with which unusual or memorable events occur
Science as a way of knowing
Scientific Method - the most reliable way to develop a
belief; independent of pre-existing bias and opinion.
Hypothesis  Experiment  Conclusion
Assumptions
• Determinism
All events have causes.
Statistical determinism.
• Discoverability
Through systematic observation, these causes can be found.
Science as a way of knowing
Scientific methods are characterized by objectivity.
Scientists need not be perfect; their results simply need be publicly
verified and replicated.
• Specific, detailed descriptions of method.
Scientists are data-driven.
Science produces tentative conclusions.
Science asks answerable questions.
Science develops theories that can be disproven.
Science as a way of knowing
Some important concepts:
• Hypothesis
• Theory – a set of statements that summarize what
is known about some phenomenon and propose
working explanations for those phenomena.
• Falsification
Psychological Science vs. Pseudoscience
• Pseudoscience: any field of inquiry that appears to
be scientific but is based on inadequate scientific
methods and typically produces false conclusions.
• May seem convincing! Anecdotal evidence; effort
justification
• Sidesteps disproof
The Goals of Research
• Description
• Prediction
• Explanation
• Application
Lab Prep
• Typically, at the end of a lecture, we will do a minilecture consisting of the material to be presented in
lab that very week.
• Often times, you will be responsible for writing up the
experiment you will perform in lab, so please pay special
attention to the definitions and concepts presented.