PSYC2009 Study Guide - Quiz Guide: Empiricism
Introduction
• Is psychology a humanities or a science?
o Essentially, it depends on who you ask
o Some universities offer psychology courses under a college of arts/social science,
while others offer it under a human sciences/medical colleges
o Often times, the department it is taught in, will affect the way in which it is taught
• If under science college, it is likely to be more science geared or weighted,
possibly being more focused on the science side of psychology, or the
empirical side of psychology, while arts/social science may teach in a way
that conveys more of the human costs of psychology, or the way in which
psychology can affect a population
• At the ANU, psychology is taught under the ANU Joint Colleges of Science
(Research School of Psychology) – although may be undertaken as a double
degree with arts, so it’s the best of both worlds
• Why learn about quantitative methods?
o Often need to measure things in psychological experiments
• Includes classifying things
• Even if not conducting your own experiment, you need to be aware of quantitative
methods to interpret data from pervious experiments and papers
• If quantitative methods are not understood, it is practically impossible to conduct
viable research, or to understand research already conducted
o Summaries ad iterpret what it is that’s beig easured
• Risk: need to understand statistics/probability to discern risk
o Consequences of something that might happen
• Unreliable data, should this be excluded?
o Likelihood that that is going to happen
• Linked to experimental design
• Is the experiment designed in a way that allows more error to occur?
o There are 2 types of risk (Type I and Type II) – this will be explained further later in the
course
• Science and paths to knowledge
o Scientific communities have norms
• Universalism
• Organized scepticism
• Communalism
▪ Make your methods/results/etc. public so people can scrutinize your results
• Disinterestedness (or impartiality)
▪ Do not favour one theory over another
▪ Not abiding by this can lead to bias
• Honesty
▪ If you’re not honest, why should your results be trusted?
• Methods are grounded in empirical methods
o To disprove something, you need to knock over the assumptions and the logic of the
argument, it will fall
o Question assumptions, then you can discern whether you can believe the argument
presented
o Assumptions:
• Empiricism is a doctrine that ascribes superior truth-status to things that have
been directly observed or manipulated
• Rationality: involves adherence to a system of reasoning (usually standard logic)
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