PSYCO104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Dependent And Independent Variables, Descriptive Statistics, Shoe Size

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCO104
• Professor: Clayton Dickson

Document Summary

Common sense psychology: sensible can also be nonsensical. Out of sight, out of mind : post-hoc (based on only past observations, non predictive, have to able to test it or else it isn"t science. Psychology as a science: scientific inquiry (the scientific method) More a process and a set of activities, than a body of knowledge. Elements of scientific inquiry: 1) facts (data) Objective observable and agreed upon by others: 2) theory an idea that: Come up with an overall theory to come up with what the topic is about, is able to explain the facts. Must be able to predict new facts: 3) hypothesis. A claim that can never be contradicted can never really be tested and is therefore non-scientific: even if the evidence we collect supports our hypothesis, the process doesn"t stop, more predictions must be generated and tested.