Psychology Q and A

ASSIGNMENT #1

http://news.morningstar.com/classroom2/course.asp?docId=145104&page=2&CN

http://psud43.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-case-studies/

Define and provide a real-life example of “overconfidence”.

Overconfidence refers to our boundless ability as human beings to think that we're smarter or more capable than we really are. An example of this is to not study for a test coming up because you feel you already know the content and you will do well. When people say that they're 90% sure of something, studies show that they're right only about 70% of the time. Such optimism isn't always bad. We would have a difficult time if everyone were a pessimist. Yet sometimes studies show that overconfident investors trade more rapidly because they think they know more than the person on the other side of the trade which can have a negative effect on them.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of case study methods?

A case study is an observation technique in which one person is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles. There are many advantages and disadvantages of using case studies. Case studies allow a lot of detail to be collected that would not normally be easily obtained by other research designs. The data collected is normally a lot richer and of greater depth than can be found through other experimental designs. Case studies tend to be conducted on rare cases where large samples of similar participants are not available. Cases of brain damage are quite minimal and it is extremely rare to find people with the exact same parts of the brain affected. To be able to gain knowledge of brain functions the damage between people have to be exact to ensure you are testing the right thing, this can generally only be done through case studies. Within the case study, scientific experiments can be conducted. Case studies can help experimenters adapt ideas and produce novel hypotheses, which can be used for later testing. The disadvantages of case studies are that the data collected cannot necessarily be generalized to the wider population. This leads to data being collected over longitudinal case studies not always being relevant or particularly useful. Some case studies are not scientific. Freud used case studies for many of his theories or studies. Such examples are that of Anna O and Little Hans. Both of these are not scientific nor are they able to be generalized. This can be attributed to them being case studies, but also Freudian theory in general. Case studies are generally on one person, but there also tends to only be one experimenter collecting the data. This can lead to bias in data collection, which can influence results more than in different designs. It is also very difficult to draw a definite cause/effect from case studies.

What is the main difference between methods of correlation and experimentation?

Correlation is how much one variable is an effector on another variable. Positive correlation means a change in one variable has a similar affect on the other variable (an increase in calories causes an increase in weight gain). Negative correlation means a change in one variable has an opposing affect on the other variable (an increase in exercise causes a decrease in weight). Experimental methods can be naturalistic or structured. They are as they sound- naturalistic methods are experiments done in the natural setting of the person, be it home, school, etc- structured are set up in order to create a certain situation and a certain outcome.