Psychology is such an interesting subject, and frankly, there are many concepts that I will remember five years from now. The most prominent phrase that has stuck in my head since first learning it is "correlation isn't always causation."
This information would have helped you in a case of sibling rivalry. I am sure many of you have experienced being blamed for something your brother or sister did. You could have explained that just because such and such was correlated, it doesn't imply causation.
I never noticed how often I used to connect two things together because they seemed at least remotely related, even though they were so far from the truth. Now whenever I notice two things that seem similar, I stop and think logically about what the true cause may be rather than assuming that A caused B. It is actually something that is very handy, because it is so easy to jump to conclusions too soon and make mistakes. We are cognitive misers after all. Knowing this information gives me the chance to determine the real cause and make better decisions. This is definitely something that will stay with me down the road, hopefully even longer than five years.
Haha, creative use of this scientific principle! I agree that I will never forget that phrase after how many time we've heard it on this class. :)
I can definitely relate to this post- I'm sure many of us have fallen into assuming correlation means causation! It's interesting that this textbook reiterates the idea throughout the whole book (unlike other textbooks I've had), an important concept that some of us haven't heard before.
This is a great way of explaining this concept. Too bad I didn't understand this as I was growing up!
I really like your comic strip. But in all seriousness, if there is one thing to take away from this class, this is really helpful. Not only in everyday life, but also for classes like psychology and statistics. Although it's not a really interesting concept, it is nonetheless very important.
I really enjoyed your pictures and I think that you make a very good point. I have heard the term over and over again in class and in lecture, and it took me a while to understand the concept. Even until just reading this, I never really thought about how much we use it in our every day lives.
Unique context to use this concept in! I took a statistics course this semester so I am definitely clear on the difference of the two meanings. It was nice to be able to use examples from each class to learn the concept in different contexts. It is an important one to remember as it can be used in many careers and other life situations such as sibling rivalry! ;)