Psychology 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Murder Of Kitty Genovese, Operational Definition, In Essence

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Derek Quinlan

Document Summary

Curiosity, skepticism, and open-mindedness are the driving forces behind scientific inquiry. Diffusion of responsibility- a psychological state in which each person feels decreased personal responsibility for intervening. Gathering evidence: steps in the scientific process. Why did no one help in the kitty genovese case: form hypothesis. If multiple bystanders are present, then a diffusion of responsibility will decrease each bystander"s likelihood of intervening. Hypothesis- a tentative explanation or prediction about some phenomenon: test hypothesis (conduct research) Helping decreases as the perceived number of bystander"s increases. The hypothesis is supported! (if the data does not support the hypothesis, revise and retest): further research and theory building. A theory of social impact is developed based on these and other findings: new hypothesis derived from theory. The theory is tested directly by deriving a new hypothesis and conducting new research. So basically, it consists of asking a question, forming a hypothesis, conducting research, and drawing conclusions based on data analysis.