Psychology 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: When Prophecy Fails, Kinsey Reports, Scientific Method

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Kirk Atkinson

Document Summary

Hypothesis: tentative statement about a relation between 2 or more events. Theory: collection of hypotheses, an organizing system, more general, elaborate, good theories generate good (testable) hypotheses i. e. theory of relativity. Compare: freudian theory (much of our behaviour is due to unconscious conflict, behaviour theory (much of our behaviour is due to responses and real life causes) More testable than freudian theory (can"t test the unconscious) better theory: design and execute the experiment, variables and control. Without proper control, the experiment is confounded: determine the truth . Statistical analysis can help determine this: communicate the results. Present a verbal description of results at a convention. Discuss several related experiments in book chapter. Summary: psychologists are interested in explaining the causes of behaviour, to examine causal relations, they use the scientific method, for hypothesis, manipulate independent variables, measure dependent variables, all extra variables should be controlled. Collecting information about behaviour without trying to change it.