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PSY1022 - WEEK 3
Assignment

Practice quiz

Readings Whole of Chapter 1 (The Scientific Method)

Readings done

Topic The Scientific Method

Watch Lecture

The scientific method

LEARNING OUTCOMES

1.1 explain how the purpose of a methods course differs from other courses in
the psychology curriculum

1.2 identify and evaluate non‐scientific ways of knowing about things in the
world — through authority, reasoning and experience

1.3 describe the attributes of science as a way of knowing

1.4 distinguish science from pseudoscience and recognise the attributes of

pseudoscientific thinking

1.5 describe the main goals of research in psychology and relate them to
research strategies to be encountered later in the text.

Ways of knowing
Authority

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 Whenever we accept the validity of information from a source we judge to be expert,
then we are relying on authority as a source of our knowledge

Use of reason
Peirce labelled the use of reason, and a developing consensus among those debating
the merits of one belief over another, the a priori method for acquiring knowledge.

Experience
Empiricism is the process of learning things through direct observation or experience
and reflection on those experiences.

Social cognition biases

Belief perseverance : Motivated by a desire to be certain about one’s

knowledge, there is a tendency to hold on doggedly to a belief, even in the face
of evidence that would convince most people the belief is false

Confirmation bias: a tendency to search out and pay special attention to

information that supports one’s beliefs while ignoring information that
contradicts a belief.

Availability heuristic: it occurs when we experience unusual or very memorable

events and then overestimate how often such events typically occur

First instinct fallacy: It is not uncommon to hear students tell others not to
change answers but to ‘go with your initial gut feeling'. This fallace cause no
evidence

The ways of knowing and science

Method of science.
Its procedures allow us to know ‘real things, whose characters are entirely
independent of our opinions about them’

Science as a way of knowing

Determinism

Determinism simply means that events, including psychological ones, have causes.

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 Discoverability
Discoverability means that by using agreed‐upon scientific methods, these causes
can be discovered with some degree of confidence

Science assumes determinism

Statistical determinism

This approach argues that events can be predicted, but only with a probability
greater than chance. Research psychologists take this position.

Science makes systematic observations

A major attribute of science as a way of knowing is the manner in which science goes
about searching for regularities in nature.

The scientist’s systematic observations include

a. Precise definitions of the phenomena being measured

b. Reliable and valid measuring tools that yield useful and interpretable data

c. Generally accepted research methodologies

d. A system of logic for drawing conclusions and fitting those conclusions into
general theories.

Science produces public knowledge

Another important characteristic of science as a way of knowing is that its procedures
result in know ledge that can be publicly verified. objectivity

Introspection
This procedure varied considerably from one laboratory to another, but it was
basically a form of precise self‐report

Science produces data‐based conclusions

Another attribute of science as a way of knowing is that researchers are data‐driven

Science produces tentative conclusions

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 Related to the data‐driven attitude that characterises researchers is the recognition that
conclusions drawn from data are always tentative and subject to revision based on
future research.

Science asks answerable questions

Empirical questions are those that can be answered through the systematic
observations and techniques that characterise scientific methodology.

Science develops theories that can be falsified

When designing research studies, an early step in the process is to reshape the
empirical question into a hypothesis, which is a prediction about the study’s outcome.

Psychological science and pseudoscience

Pseudoscience
Any field of inquiry that appears to use scientific methods and tries hard to give that
impression but is actually based on inadequate, unscientific methods and makes
claims that are generally false or, at best, simplistic.

Relies on anecdotal evidence

A second feature of pseudoscience, and one that helps explain its popularity, is its
reliance on and uncritical acceptance of anecdotal evidence.

Effort justification

The idea is that, after people expend signifi cant effort, they feel compelled to
convince themselves the effort was worthwhile

Sidesteps the falsification requirement

In pseudoscience this does not occur, even though on the surface it would seem that
both phrenology and graphology would be easy to falsify. Indeed, as far as the scientific
community is concerned, falsification has occurred for both

Reduces complex phenomena to simplistic concepts

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 A final characteristic of pseudoscience worth noting is that these doctrines take what is
actually a complicated phenomenon (the nature of human personality) and reduce it to
simplistic concepts.

The goals of research in psychology

Description
To provide a good description in psychology is to identify regularly occurring sequences
of events, including both stimuli or environmental events and responses or behavioural
events.

Prediction
To say that behaviour follows laws is to say that regular and predictable
relationships exist for psycho logical phenomena.

The strength of these relationships allows predictions to be made with some

degree of confidence.

Explanation
To explain a behaviour is to know what caused it.

Application
Application, refers simply to the ways of applying principles of behaviour learned
through research.

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