PSY100Y5 Chapter 2: Textbook chapter 2 summary

• School: UTM
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY100Y5
• Professor: Dax Urbszat

Document Summary

Looking for laws: the scientific approach to behavior. As scientist, psychologists assume that behavior s governed by discernible laws or principles. Goals of the scientific enterprise: measurement and description, understanding and prediction, application and control. Science"s commitment to observation requires that an investigator figure out a way to measure the phenomenon under study. Develop measurement techniques that make it possible to describe behavior clearly precisely. Scientists believe they can understand events when they can explain the reason for occurrence of the events. Hypothesis- tentative statement about the relationship between two or more variables. Variables- any measurable conditions, events, characteristics or behaviors that are controlled or observed in a study. Scientists hope that they information they gather will be of some practical value in helping to solve everyday problems. Once people understand a phenomenon, they often can exert more control over it. Theory- system of interrelated ideas uses to explain a set of observations.