PSYCH253 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Dependent And Independent Variables, Random Assignment
13 Sep 2018
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Researchers/scientists set out to demonstrate that their ideas are wrong. When cannot prove them wrong, then we accept the ideas for now but can be proved wrong later (i. e. newer editions of textbooks are keep coming out) Scientific and psychology experiments are set up to infer causation. In order to infer causation, you have to first demonstrate that the cause is correlated with the effect. You have to demonstrate that people who watch a lot of violence in the media are people who are more violent. This is correlation; as watching media violence goes up, actual violence goes up. Correlation when one variable changes the other changes too. In order to infer causation, correlation is needed as well as time order (first violent media, then - violence) and elimination of all other possible causes. Psychologists set up experiments to establish causality (to establish correlation, time order, and elimination of all other possible causes)
