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Scientific Laws and Theories

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Fundamental Attribution Error

Fundamental Attribution Error

According to some social psychologists, people tend to overemphasize internal factors as explanations—or attributions—for the behavior of other people. They tend to assume that the behavior of another person is a trait of that person, and to underestimate the power of the situation on the behavior of others. They tend to fail to recognize when the behavior of another is due to situational variables, and thus to the person’s state. This erroneous assumption is...

Cause and Effect

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While variables are sometimes correlated because one does cause the other, it could also be that some other factor, a confounding variable, is actually causing the systematic movement in our variables of interest. For instance, as sales in ice cream increase, so does the overall rate of crime. Is it possible that indulging in your favorite flavor of ice cream could send you on a crime spree? Or, after committing crime do you think you might decide to treat yourself to a cone?

Bystander Effect

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The discussion of bullying highlights the problem of witnesses not intervening to help a victim. This is a common occurrence, as the following well-publicized event demonstrates. In 1964, in Queens, New York, a 19-year-old woman named Kitty Genovese was attacked by a person with a knife near the back entrance to her apartment building and again in the hallway inside her apartment building. When the attack occurred, she screamed for help numerous times and eventually died from her stab wounds.

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The scientific method is a detailed, empirical problem-solving process used by biologists and other scientists. This iterative approach involves formulating a question based on observation, developing a testable potential explanation for the observation (called a hypothesis), making and testing predictions based on the hypothesis, and using the findings to create new hypotheses and predictions.
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The Scientific Method

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Experiential Explanation.

Sara Aronowitz¹, Tania Lombrozo²

¹University Center for Human Values & Program in Cognitive Science, Princeton University.

Topics in Cognitive Science

|August 3, 2019

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Experiential explanations, like stories, aid learning and theory translation better than abstract ones. These narratives play a key role in human cognition and scientific understanding.

Keywords:

Abstraction Explanation Learning Mental simulation Narrative Storytelling Theory change

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Science
Philosophy of Science
Psychology

Background:

Traditional theories of explanation emphasize abstractive accounts, focusing on general relationships and omitting specific details.
Experiential explanations, characterized by narratives and concrete details, are commonly used in everyday 'why-questions'.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the distinct structures and epistemic functions of abstractive versus experiential explanations.
To highlight the unique contributions of experiential explanations to individual learning and scientific progress.

Main Methods:

Conceptual analysis comparing abstractive and experiential explanation structures.
Exploration of the cognitive roles of narrative and abstractive reasoning in knowledge acquisition.

Main Results:

Experiential explanations differ structurally from abstractive ones, incorporating temporal elements and concrete details.
Experiential explanations facilitate mental simulation and are robust across theoretical shifts, aiding learning and framework translation.

Conclusions:

Experiential explanations play an essential, irreducible role in human cognition and scientific understanding.
Both abstractive and experiential explanation types serve distinct and valuable epistemic goals.