hindsight bias: tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it; i knew it all

along phenomenon. it reflects a tendency to overestimate your own ability because of your overconfidence, leading us to overestimate our intuition. critical thinking: smart thinking, examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions; doesn't blindly accept arguments and conclusions. psychologists's curiosity drive them to test ideas and theorizeleading up to the scientific method. theory: an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events.

hypothesis: a testable prediction, often implied by a theory. operational definition: a statement of the procedures (operations) used to define research variables. human intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures. operational definitions must be known to replicate research. replication: repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situations, to see whether the basic finding extends to other participants and circumstances. vital to science, like the "double check" of a study to ensure reliability so the finding is wellestablished. case study: an observation technique in which one person is

studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principals. survey: technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of people, usually by questioning a representative, random sampling of them. false consensus effect: the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors; tendency to overestimate others' agreement with us. population: all cases in a group, from which samples may be drawn for a study; the group in which you want to study and describe. random sample: sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of

participating/ inclusion because random sampling chooses people. naturalistic observation: observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations w/o trying to manipulate and control the whole situation; ranges from watching chimpanzee societies to videotaping parent-child interactions in different cultures. doesn't explain behaviors, but describes it. correlation: measure of the extent to which 2 factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other. correlation coefficient: mathematical expression of the relationship, ranging from -1 to +1, of 2 factors.

scatterplot: graphed cluster of dots, each of which represents the values of 2 variables. the slope of the points suggests the direction of the relationship between 2 variables. the amount of scatter suggests the strength of the correlation (little scatter= high correlation). illusionary correlation: the perception of a relationship where none exists. IC are random events we notice and falsely assumer are related. when we believe there is a relationship between 2 things, we are likely to notice and recall instances that confirm our belief. hindsight bias and overconfidence often lead us to overestimate our intuition. underlying science is a curiosity, a passion to explore and understand w/o being mislead or

misleading. psychologists approach behavior with a curious skepticism, as in showing them evidence. putting a scientific attitude into practice requires skepticism and also humility, because we may reject our own ideas. what matters is the truths nature reveals in response to our questions. curiosity, skepticism, and humility make modern science possible. always put a theory to test. in a survey, wording effects can affect responses. correlation indicates the possibility of cause-effect relationship, but doesn't prove causation. a third factor may be cause of correlation. we search for patterns in an attempt to make sense of world around us. patterns or sequences occur naturally in sets of random data, but we tend to interpret these connections as

something meaningful.