Psychology 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Social Desirability Bias, Confounding, External Validity

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Dr.Mike

Document Summary

Steps in the scientific process: identify a question of interest, gather information and form hypothesis, test hypothesis by conducting research, analyze data, draw tentative conclusions, and report findings, building a body of knowledge. Theory- a set of formal statements that explains how and why certain events are related to one another. Theories are broader than hypotheses, and specify lawful relations between certain behaviours and their causes. Problems: related past events can be explained in many creative, reasonable, and sometimes contradictory, ways. There is no sure way to determine which, if any, of the alternatives is correct. It incorporates existing facts and observations within a single broad framework. In other words, it organizes information in a meaningful way. It generates new hypotheses and predications whose accuracy can be evaluated by gathering new evidence. The predictions made by the theory are supported by the findings of new research.