PSYC 201W Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Paul Feyerabend, Thomas Kuhn, Operational Definition
24 Nov 2018
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Locke* & david hume*, possibility of researcher bias. 3 basic assumptions underlying scientific research: uniformity or regularity in nature, determinism - belief that mental processes are fully caused by prior natural factors. Shoot someone causing someone to die: probabilistic causes - a weaker form of determinism. Characteristics of scientific research: control - holding constant or eliminate influences of extraneous variables, allows for ambiguity about cause & effect. Logic or context of discovery = inductive part of scientific theory. Logic or context of justification = deductive part of scientific theory. Pseudoscience - an approach that claims to be scientific, but in fact violates many tenets to science, attempted association with science made in an attempt to gain legitimacy. Experimental - attempts to identify cause and effect relationships through psychological experiments (manipulate independent variable to see effect on dependant variable) Descriptive - focuses on describing phenomenon, events, or situations. Qualitative - collect non-numerical data to answer research questions.
