Blog Post #2-Thinking Critically

Researching is VERY important. Without research the world wouldn't be as we know it today. We wouldn't have the electronics or technology we have these days. Can you imagine a world without cell phones or computers? Without research that's how our world would be. The scientists and inventors who created the technology didn't succeed on their first time. They had to research and look at other people's failed attempts to learn from other's mistakes. Research is a very important step in the scientific method. Without research you could do countless experiments that would be pointless if they didn't turn out, when you could have just done a little research and found out what did and didn't work in other's past experiments. Research is important in everyone's lives not just scientists. Students research for school and people research when they are making an important decision and want to choose the right choice.

Research that is relevant with my life is the article "Essentials of Group Psychology." It was about how groups form, conform, then warp people's decision-making, productivity and creativity. They can either cause a person to conform to the group's consensus or cause them to be more creative and independent and share their ideas with the group. Most of the time you see people conforming to be like the others in the group. In class, when the teacher asks for a vote and the majority of the class votes for one thing, it influences the rest of the class to vote for that same thing because they are afraid of being different. I have seen this in many of my classes and have I have conformed to be like the rest of the group before.

I learned about the placebo effect and thought it was very interesting. The placebo effect is experimental results caused by expectations alone. It is any effect on behavior caused by the administration of an inert substance or condition, which the recipient assumes is an active agent. It is important because if it's used with the double-blind procedure it is an effective way to get accurate results. I did a study once that was a double-blind procedure with a placebo. It was to come up with a new vaccination. Some of the people who volunteered for the study got the vaccination and others got a placebo and you didn't know what you got until the end. Everyday for the duration of the study I had to take my temperature and write down how I felt and any symptoms I had. In the end, the study worked and they were able to come up with a vaccination.
I also learned about illusory correlations. They are the perceptions of a relationship between two things where none exists. It is important because when we have illusory correlations, we forget that they are random and see them as correlated. Because of this, we easily deceive ourselves by seeing what is not there. We must remember this so we don't believe one of these false coincidences. I also learned that psychologists study animals. It's important because we are animals and they can connect some animal behaviors to us. Psychologists can learn a lot about people from animals and have come up with treatments for diseases.