PSYC 215 Lecture Notes - Construct Validity, Statistical Significance, Kurt Lewin

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 215
• Professor: Michael Sullivan

Document Summary

Separating myths from truths can be difficult i. e. common sense and intuition can often be very inaccurate. Learning about the evidence on which the true research findings and theories are based should help you distinguish the correct from the plausible, but incorrect answers. Training in research methods in psyc can improve your reasoning about real life events (lehman et al. Hypothesis: an explicit, testable prediction about the conditions under which an event will occur: e. g. Teenage boys are more likely to be aggressive towards others after playing violent video games for one hour : allows us to move from the realm of common sense to the rigors of the scientific method. When people"s internal states (feelings or attitudes) are difficult to interpret, they often infer this inner attitude by referring to their behaviour in the situation. Basic research: designed to increase the understanding of human behaviour, often by testing hypotheses based on a theory.