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cHAPTER 2: Methods in Psychology

empiricism

The belief that accurate knowledge can be

acquired through observation.

scientic method

A procedure for finding truth by using empirical evidence.

theory

A hypothetical explanation of a natural

phenomenon.

hypothesis

A falsifiable prediction made by a theory.

are a few good ways to test claims like Louise Hays and a whole lot of bad ways, and in this
chapter you will learn to tell one from the other. Scientists have developed powerful tools
for determining when an inner ding is right and when it is wrong, and it is these tools that
make science special. As the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1945, p. 527) wrote, It is not
what the man of science believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it.
That, it turns out, goes for women of science too.
WELL STARTBYEXAMININGTHE GENERAL PRINcIPLES THATGUIDEscientific research and
distinguish it from every other way of knowing. Next, well see that the methods of psychology are meant to answer two basic questions: what do people do, and why do they do it?
Psychologists answer the first question by observing and measuring, and they answer the
second question by looking for relationships between the things they measure. Well see
that scientific research allows us to draw certain kinds of conclusions and not others, and
well see that most people have problems thinking critically about scientific evidence.
Finally, well consider the unique ethical questions that confront scientists who study
people and other animals.

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Empiricism: How to Know Stuff

When ancient Greeks sprained their ankles, caught the flu, or accidentally set their
togas on fire, they had to choose between two kinds of doctors: dogmatists (from dogmatikos, meaning belief), who thought that the best way to understand illness was
to develop theories about the bodys functions, and empiricists (from empeirikos, meaning experience), who thought
that the best way to understand illness was to observe sick
people. The rivalry between these two schools of medicine
didnt last long because the people who went to see dogmatists tended to die, which was bad for business. Today we
use the word dogmatism to describe the tendency for people
to cling to their assumptions, and the word empiricism to
describe the belief that accurate knowledge can be acquired
through observation. The fact that we can answer questions
about the natural world by examining it may seem painfully
obvious to you, but this painfully obvious fact has only recently gained wide acceptance. For most of human history,
people trusted authority to answer important questions,
and it is only in the last millennium (and especially in the
past three centuries) that people have begun to trust their
eyes and ears more than their elders.

The Scientific Method

mpiricism is the essential element of the scientic method, which is a procedure

or finding truth by using empirical evidence. In essence, the scientific method suggests
hat when we have an idea about the worldabout how bats navigate, or where the
moon came from, or why people cant forget traumatic eventswe should gather empirical evidence relevant to that idea and then modify the idea to fit with the evidence.
Scientists usually refer to an idea of this kind as a theory, which is a hypothetical
explanation of a natural phenomenon. We might theorize that bats navigate by making
sounds and then listening for the echo, that the moon was formed when a small planet
collided with the Earth, or that the brain responds to traumatic events by producing
chemicals that facilitate memory. Each of these theories is an explanation of how
something in the natural world works.