PSYC 217 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Falsifiability, Essentialism, Operational Definition
Document Summary
Learning objectives: explain the principle of parsimony, distinguish between more and less parsimonious theories, discuss how operational definitions are used to progress psychological science, critically evaluate conclusions drawn from an example research study. Remember, parsimony means that the simpler ideas are preferred over the most complicated ones in. Only when both the simple and complicated theory can explain the data equally well. There is already so much data which verifies and supports theories that have already been made and tested. As a result, when someone makes a theory is the polar opposite of what we"ve been doing, they need more data to support theirs as there is already so much data that exists that does not support it. You are evaluating the whole theory not parts of it. Uri geller is an example of someone who uses tricks to convince people that he is magical. Conceptual variables are broad, abstract variables such as heat, education, achievement, aggression.
