Psychology 2810 Lecture Notes - Operational Definition, Nomothetic
3 Apr 2013
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Document Summary
The goals of science and the role of theories. Part 1: the goals of science: classification of goals: Basic (immediate) goals; we must achieve these goals before all other goals: types of basic goals: Idiographic (describe unique attributes of things - objects, people, behaviour); Nomothetic (describe what things have in common) A law describes a regular relation that"s highly general across people, contexts, and time. Scientific concepts are not always the same as concepts we use in everyday life (e. g. , aggression ) Scientific concepts must be clearly defined by a scientist in order to avoid confusion. Hypothetical constructs (concepts that can never be directly observed, e. g. , intelligence, self-esteem: identify regular relations between concepts: If 2 things are correlated, than we can predict one from knowledge of the other. Does not tell us anything about causes (see also stanovich, ch 5)
