PSY100H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Internal Validity, Stroop Effect, Dependent And Independent Variables
65
PSY100H1 Full Course Notes
Verified Note
65 documents
Document Summary
Observation: determine whether something is true or not, collect data. Not defined by what it studied but how it is studied. Four canons of science: determinism: the universe is orderly all events have meaningful, systematic causes. Theories: statements about the casual relation between two or more variables. When facing two competing theories that do an equally good job of explaining a set of empirical observations, we should prefer the simpler of the two. Also known as occam"s razor: testability: scientific theories should be testable (confirmable or disconfirmable) using currently available research techniques. Falsifiability: it must be possible, in principle, to make an observation that would show the hypothesis/theory to be false. Operational definitions: definitions of theoretical constructs that are stated in term of concrete, observable procedures. Sometimes variables are well defined and easily measurable, others are not well defined and cannot be directly observed.
