This unit introduces the field of psychology as a scientific discipline. You’ll learn about different approaches to psychology and the research methods psychologists use to investigate behavior and mental processes.
Although humans are cognitively advanced, we often make mistakes and arrive at incorrect conclusions about mental processes and behavior.
Complexity and Errors: Human cognition is powerful but prone to errors in judgment, perception, and reasoning.
Intuition vs. Reasoning: Many decisions are based on intuition—fast, automatic thinking—rather than careful, systematic reasoning. Intuition can be useful, but it is often flawed.
Intuition: Effortless, immediate, automatic feelings or thoughts used instead of logic or analysis. It's often based on experience or heuristics, not evidence.
Overestimation: Psychological research reveals that people often overestimate how accurate their intuition is. This overconfidence contributes to widespread misconceptions in psychology and behavior.
Bias: A tendency, inclination, or prejudice toward or against something or someone, often without logical justification.
Heuristics: Mental shortcuts or "rules of thumb" the brain uses for quick decision-making. They save time but often lead to biased or irrational thinking.
Nature and Nurture: Some biases are inborn (nature), while others are learned through experience and culture (nurture). Not all biases are harmful—some, like health-promoting tendencies, can be adaptive.
Recognizing Bias: Many biases arise from stereotypes or media influences and lead to systematic errors in thinking, called cognitive biases
Definition: The tendency to believe, after an event has occurred, that one "knew it all along."
Example: Saying "I knew our team would win!" after a game, even though you doubted it beforehand.
Impact: Makes outcomes seem more predictable than they really were, giving a false sense of foresight and inflating confidence in one’s ability to predict future events.
Definition: The tendency to be more confident in one's knowledge, predictions, or abilities than is objectively justified.
Example: Expecting to ace an exam without studying, only to receive a disappointing score.
Impact: Leads to poor decision-making, as it discourages gathering new information or questioning assumptions.
Definition: The tendency to detect patterns or meaning in random, unrelated events.
Example: Believing that a pattern of coin tosses (like H-T-H-T-H) is less random than all heads or all tails, even though each sequence is equally likely.
Impact: Leads to false conclusions and superstitions (e.g., gambler’s fallacy or pareidolia—seeing shapes in clouds).