PSY 105 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Karl Popper, Conjoined Twins, Falsifiability
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Sir francis bacon=emphasized avoiding biases; argued that people look selectively to confirm their beliefs & are thus subjective. Karl popper: stressed that a good & sound theory must be falsifiable/be able to be proven false. Theories has to be set up as either/or proposition, there has to be a binary aspect, ie. either right or wrong. Ryerson students are better or nicer than uoft students (falsifiable) There was no falsifiability in his theory b/c he was right in both cases. Steps in the scientific method (see fig 2-1 pg. 32) Operational definitions: an operational defn is how we (the researcher) decide to measure our variables in order to express hypothesis in a clear, specific & concrete manner. There are usually many ways to measure a variable, eg. aggression, depression, sense of humour. When you do research, you have to decide how you"re going to measure the variables. Choose participants: 1) population the entire group of interest.