Contents

CHAPTER 2: The Scientific Method 29“Scientific” define the scientific method. The distinctions made in Table 2.1highlight differences between the ways of thinking that characterize a scientist’sapproach to knowledge and the informal and casual approach that oftencharacterizes our everyday thinking. These distinctions are summarized in thefollowing pages.General Approach and AttitudeWe described in Chapter 1 that in order to think like a researcher you mustbe skeptical. Psychological scientists are cautious about accepting claimsabout behavior and mental processes, and they critically evaluate the evidencebefore accepting any claims. In our everyday ways of thinking, however,we often accept evidence and claims with little or no evaluation ofthe evidence. In general, we make many of our everyday judgments usingintuition. This usually means that we act on the basis of what “feels right”or what “seems reasonable.” Although intuition can be valuable when wehave little other information, intuition is not always correct. Consider, forexample, what intuition might suggest regarding ratings of video games,movies, and television programs for violent and sexual content. Parents useratings to judge appropriateness of media content for their children, and intuitionmight suggest that ratings are effective tools for preventing exposureto violent content. In fact, just the opposite may take place! Research indicatesthat these ratings can entice adolescent viewers to watch the violent andsexy programs—what Bushman and Cantor (2003) called a “forbidden-fruiteffect.” Thus, rather than limiting exposure to violent and sexual content,ratings may increase exposure because “ratings may serve as a convenientway to find such content” (p. 138).When we rely on intuition to make judgments we often fail to recognizethat our perceptions may be distorted by cognitive biases, or that we maynot have considered all available evidence (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973;Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in2002 for his research on how cognitive biases influence people’s economicchoices. One type of cognitive bias, called illusory correlation, is our tendencyto perceive a relationship between events when none exists. Susskind(2003) showed that children are susceptible to this bias when they makejudgments about men’s and women’s behaviors. Children were shownmany pictures of men and women performing stereotypical (e.g., a womanknitting), counterstereotypical (e.g., a man knitting), and neutral behaviors(e.g., a woman or a man reading a book), and then were asked to estimatehow frequently they saw each picture. The results indicated that childrenoverestimated the number of times they saw pictures displaying stereotypicalbehavior, showing an illusory correlation. Their expectations thatmen and women behave in stereotypical ways led the children to believethat these types of pictures were displayed more often than they were. Onepossible basis for the illusory correlation bias is that we are more likely tonotice events that are consistent with our beliefs than events that contradictour beliefs.