Naive Realism

Concept: Naïve Realism

Naïve Realism is the belief that humans see the world just as it is or that "seeing is believing". We tend to trust our perceptions of the world for what they are.
Chapter 1, page 5
This concept is important because it points out that we are not always right when we use, what we think to be, our common sense. The following youtube video does a good job of explaining that what we see isn't always the right answer. If "seeing is believing" was how we lived life, there would be a lot of problems and science would lose significance.
Often times we, as humans, rely on our common sense, and we can't live by our common sense alone. Sometimes we can get by on just common sense, but we need facts to back up our decisions and ideas other times. Humans rely on common sense because they are prone to naive realism. The use of common sense or Naïve Realism, tends to make humans write things off such as "psychology being easier than physics, chemistry, biology, or most other sciences" (Lilienfeld 5) because we think that is the most logical conclusion based on other common knowledge we have accumulated over time.
Real Life Example:
An example of this would be when one fills a glass with water half way. There would appear to be a glass that is partially filled with water and we are commonly asked whether the glass is half empty or half full. People tend to pick one answer or the other based on the sight of the glass being half filled. The real answer to this question is that the glass is completely full. Based on knowledge from chemistry, one should know that there is air that occupies the space that is not occupied by water. Naïve realism comes into play in this situation because we used our common sense to come up with an answer that made sense based on what we saw. Science and facts should back our answers to make more accurate conclusions.

Limited Perception
This youtube video explains that our common sense or naïve realism tells us that there is a half a glass of water, but science or the facts tell us that the glass is completely full with both water and air. The guy in this video is trying to make a point saying that we believe what is seen or what makes sense to us, but seeing isn't always believing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqpHbIry4I8