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The Need for Scientific Methodology

The Characteristics of Modern Science


The Objectives of Psychological Science
The Tools of Psychological Science
Scientific Explanation in Psychological Science
The Organization of the Text

How are science, methodology, and data


interrelated?
Science connotes content and process.
Methodology consists of the scientific
techniques we use to collect and evaluate data.
Data are the facts we gather using scientific
methods.

The Need for Scientific Methodology

What is commonsense psychology?

Heider called nonscientific data gathering


commonsense psychology.
This approach uses nonscientific sources
of data and nonscientific inference.
An everyday example is believing that
opposites attract.

The Need for Scientific Methodology

What is commonsense psychology?


Commonsense psychology is the kind of
everyday, nonscientific gathering that shapes
our expectations and beliefs and directs our
behavior toward others.
As commonsense psychologists, the persons ability to
gather data in a systematic and impartial way is
constrained by two factors:
1. sources of psychological information
2. our inferential strategies

Explain nonscientific inference.

Sources of psychological information the


data we gather as commonsense psychologists
come from sources that seem credible and
trustworthy- friends, relatives, people with
authority
Nonscientific inference is the nonscientific use
of information to explain or predict behavior.
The gamblers fallacy, overuse of trait
explanations, stereotyping, and overconfidence
bias illustrate this problem.

The Need for Scientific Methodology

What is the gamblers fallacy?

In the gamblers fallacy, people misuse data to


estimate the probability of an event, like when a
slot machine will pay off.

The Need for Scientific Methodology

Why is the overuse of trait explanations a problem?

When we overuse trait explanations to explain


others' behavior, we often make unwarranted
dispositional attributions and underuse
situational information.
This bias can reduce the accuracy of our
explanations and predictions.

The Need for Scientific Methodology

How can stereotyping mislead us?

In stereotyping, we falsely assume that specific


behaviors cluster together.
For example, since Imei is a Chinese-American
student, she must study 10 hours a day and
excel at math. In reality, she failed calculus.
Stereotypes ignore individual differences.

The Need for Scientific Methodology

Why is overconfidence bias a problem?

In overconfidence bias, we feel more confident


about our conclusions than is warranted by
available data.
This form of nonscientific inference can result in
erroneous conclusions when we dont recognize
the limitations of supporting data.

The Need for Scientific Methodology

Why is the scientific mentality important?

Characteristics of Modern Science


1. Alfred North Whiteheads scientific mentality
assumes that behavior follows a natural order and can
be predicted.
This assumption is essential to science. There is no
point to using the scientific method to gather and
analyze data if there is no implicit order. The principle
of determinism is applied when we believe that the
causes of human behavior can be researched.

The Characteristics of Modern Science

What makes data empirical?

2. Gathering Empirical Data


Data are empirical when observed or experienced,
preferably in a systematic and orderly way.
Galileos empirical approach was superior
to Aristotles commonsense method.
Galileo correctly concluded that light objects
fall as rapidly as heavy ones in a vacuum.

The Characteristics of Modern Science

What is a law?

3. Seeking General Principles


A law consists of statements generally
expressed as equations with few variables
that have overwhelming empirical support.
Laws, like the Laws of Thermodynamics,
are useful in the physical sciences.

The Characteristics of Modern Science

What is a theory?

A theory is an interim explanation; a set of


related statements used explain and predict
phenomena.
Theories integrate diverse data, explain
behavior, and predict new instances of behavior.

The Characteristics of Modern Science

What is good thinking and why is it important?

4. Good thinking is critical to the scientific


method.
We engage in good thinking when data collection
and interpretation are systematic, objective, and
rational.
Occams Razor- this emphasizes to the basic
premise that entities should not be multiplied
without necessity.

The Characteristics of Modern Science

What is parsimony?

The principle of parsimony is that we prefer


the simplest useful explanation.
For example, Crandall (1988) showed that
a social contagion model of bulimia
was more parsimonious than competing
explanations.

The Characteristics of Modern Science

5. Self-Correction
Modern scientists accept the uncertainty of their
own conclusions.
Changes in scientific explanations and theories
are an extremely important part of scientific
progress.

The Characteristics of Modern Science

6. Publicizing Results
The number of scientific papers published each
year in scientific journals is growing, and new
journals are constantly being added in
specialized disciplines. This continuous
exchange of information is vital to the scientific
process.

The Characteristics of Modern Science

7. Replication
We should be able to repeat our procedures and
get the same results again if we have gathered
data objectively and if we have followed good
thinking.

The Characteristics of Modern Science

Four major objectives of research conducted in


Psychology
1. Description
In psychological science, we are referring to a
systematic and unbiased account of the
observed characteristics of behaviors. Good
description allow us greater knowledge of
behaviors because they provide us with the
information about what the behavior will be like.

The Objectives of Psychological Science

Four major objectives of research conducted in


Psychology
2. Prediction refers to the capacity for knowing
in advance when certain behaviors would be
expected to occur to be able to predict them
ahead of time because we have identified
other conditions with which the behaviors are
linked or associated.

The Objectives of Psychological Science

Four major objectives of research conducted in


Psychology
3. Explanation
When we have explained a behavior, we also
understand what causes it to occur. Explanation
includes knowledge of the conditions that reliably
reproduce the occurrence of a behavior.

The Objectives of Psychological Science

Four major objectives of research conducted in


Psychology
4. Control refers to the application of what has
been learned about behavior.
Control is rarely the intent of experimentation,
but some research is conducted with the intent
of producing behavioral change along with
increasing knowledge.

The Objectives of Psychological Science

Applied Research is research that is designed


to solve real-world problems.
Basic Research is research designed to test
theories or to explain psychological phenomena
in humans and animals.

The Objectives of Psychological Science

Three Main Tools of Scientific Method

1. Observation is the systematic noting and


recording of events.
We can only make a scientific study of events
that are observable. To make scientific study of
internal process like feeling and thinking, we
must able to define those events in terms of
observable signs.

The Scientific Method: Tools of Psychological

Three Main Tools of Scientific Method

2. Measurement is quantifying an event or


behavior according to generally accepted rules.
We try to measure in standardized units so that
our measurements will be meaningful. We keep
our measurements consistent.

The Scientific Method: Tools of Psychological

Three Main Tools of Scientific Method

3. Experimentation is a process undertaken to


demonstrate that already observed events will
occur consistently under a particular set of
conditions.
To conduct an experiment, the hypothesis must
be testable; procedures must be available to test
it, and it must be ethical to do so.

The Scientific Method: Tools of Psychological

Antecedent Condition are the circumstances


that come before the event or behavior that we
want to explain.
Treatment Condition- a specific set of antecedent
conditions created by the experimenter and
presented to subjects to test its effect on
behavior.

Scientific Explanation in Psychological

Psychology Experiment- is a controlled


procedure in which at least two different
treatment conditions are applied to subjects.
The subjects behaviors are then measured and
compared to test a hypothesis about the effects
of those treatments on behavior.

Scientific Explanation

What are the requirements for an experiment?

An experiment requires that we create at


least two treatment conditions and randomly
assign subjects to these conditions.
In psychology experiments, we control
extraneous variables so we that we can
measure what we intend to measure.

Scientific Explanation

How does an experiment establish cause and effect?

An experiment attempts to establish a causeand-effect relationship between the antecedent


conditions (IV) and subject behavior (DV).
Experiments establish a temporal relationship,
because causes must precede effects. However,
not all prior events are causes.

Scientific Explanation

What are pseudosciences?

A pseudoscience is any field of study that


gives the appearance of being scientific,
but has no true scientific basis and has not
been confirmed using the scientific method.
Modern pseudosciences include past life
regression, reparenting, and rebirthing.

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