Keep these questions in mind when you encounter statistics: Question 1: How was the data collected, and did the data collection method match what the study was trying to figure out? This question gets at a study's validity, which means measuring what it is supposed to measure. Sometimes results are published, but sloppiness in the way the data was

One effect psychologists study is the availability heuristic, which refers to how easy it is to draw up an example of what you believe.[xxiv]

Question 4: How is the data presented, and is the presentation misleading in any way? This question gets a whole chapter to itself (Chapter 9) because misleading statistical presentations are, unfortunately, very common in the media.

Think of the display as a puzzle that you are trying to figure out, and ask yourself the following questions: ● What is the title of the graph? ● If there are axes, what does each axis represent, and what is the scale of each axis? ● Can I pick one data point and figure out what it represents? ● What is the shape of the data? Does it show a certain

Another way of thinking about it is that p-values tell us how likely it is that another experiment would have the same results.

In your everyday life, you don’t need to know the formula or even have a solid mathematical understanding of the theorem to use its basic principle.

Question 2: Can the results be replicated in another study? This question asks about a study's reliability or how likely you are to get the same result if you performed the test again.

Pitfall #5: Getting causation backwards

In this last step, you might take the findings from a sample and apply them, drawing inferences and conclusions about the larger population.