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| List 5 reasons why it's important to study human behavior scientifically: |
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| 1) Common sense can be wrong. 2) Science can prove things that might seem preposterous. 3) Quick fixes and miracle cures lack support. 4) Self-help books lack scientific proof. 5) Popular psychology can be misleading. |
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| A toolbox of skills that people sue so that they don't mislead themselves. |
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| Willingness to share your findings. |
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| Objectivity in evaluating evidence. |
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| Tendency to find support for your belief instead of pure truth. Not actively seeking that information, but just automatically using it. |
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| Letting contradictory evidence "bounce off of you" so that false beliefs continue to thrive. |
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| 'Keep an open mind, but not so open that you believe everything you hear.' |
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| Describe this principle of critical thinking-- Extraordinary Claims require Extraordinary Evidence. |
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| Ask yourself if a claim contradicts what we already know, then consider whether the evidence for the claim is sufficient. |
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| Describe this principle of critical thinking-- Falsifiability. |
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| It must be possible to disprove a claim, or science can't measure it. |
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| Describe this principle of critical thinking-- Replicability. |
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| A finding must be replicable, or else it does not matter. |
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| Describe this principle of critical thinking-- Ruling out rival hypotheses. |
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| There may be a better explanation than yours for a certain behavior. |
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| Describe this principle of critical thinking-- Correlation isn't causation. |
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| Just because two things are related doesn't mean they cause each other. |
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| Overuse of Ad Hoc Immunizing Hypotheses: |
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| Escape hatch or loophole that defenders of a theory use to protect their theory from falsification. |
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| Proponents cling to incorrect claims despite contrary evidence. |
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| Psuedoscience tends to claim a miracle then refuse to back it up. |
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| Overreliance on anecdotes: |
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| Anecdotes are the weakest form of evidence because they are difficult to prove. |
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| A claim doesn't follow current thought trends, and also doesn't have evidence. |
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| Using "scientific language" to make a product sound better. |
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| Compare rational and experiential thinking. |
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| Rational: Slow, Hard work, logical reasoning. Experiential: Fast, emotional, irrational. |
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| Emotional Reasoning Fallacy: |
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| Error of using our emotions as guides for evaluating the validity of a claim. |
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| Assuming that a claim is correct because many people believe it. |
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| Error of framing a question as though we can answer it in only one or two extreme ways. |
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| Error or believing that we're immune from thinking errors that afflict others. |
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| Lack of awareness of our biases, coupled with an awareness of others' biases. |
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| Assuming that since someone else does not believe your claim that they should be the ones to prove it's truth. |
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| Rumors Don't Equal Reality: |
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| Failures are Rationalized: |
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| There are excuses for the times things didn't work out, and the focus is on the times it did work. |
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| Error of assuming a claim must be true because no one has shown it to be false. |
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Source A makes claim X
There is something objectionable about Source A
Therefore claim X is false |
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| Error of drawing a conclusion on the basis of insufficient evidence. |
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| Mechanism whereby experts in a field carefully screen the work of their colleagues. |
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| Extent to which a researcher's findings build on previous findings. |
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| Approach of evaluating all claims with an open mind, but insisting on persuasive evidence before accepting them. |
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| Tendency to dismiss any claims that contradict our beliefs. |
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| Psuedoscience that claims to predict people's personalities and futures from the precise time and date of their birth. |
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| Set of skills for evaluating all claims in an open-minded and careful fashion. |
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| Forecast that stands a good chance of being wrong. |
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| Implies that we should generally select the simplest of two explanations when two explain data equally well. Note that it is possible to take Occam's razor too far. |
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| Case in which a third variable causes the correlation between two other variables. |
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| Assertions about the world that are unfalsifiable. |
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| Transcendental Temptation: |
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| Desire to alleviate our anxiety by embracing the supernatural. |
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| Terror Management Theory: |
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| Theory proposing that our awareness of our death leaves us with an underlying feeling of terror with which we cope by adopting reassuring cultural world views. |
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| Tendency to perceive meaningful images in meaningless visual stimuli. |
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| Tendency to perceive meaningful connections among unrelated phenomena. |
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| Investment of time, energy, and effort in a questionable treatment that can lead people to forfeit the chance to obtain an effective treatment. |
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