PSYA01H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Descriptive Statistics, Internal Validity, Random Assignment
Document Summary
Methods in psychology: empiricism: how to know stuff (pgs 40 43) Empiricism: the belief that accurate knowledge can be acquired through observation. The scientific method (pgs 40 41) Scientific method: a set of principles about the appropriate relationship between ideas and evidence. Theory: a hypothetical explanation of a natural phenomenon. Hypothesis: a falsifiable prediction made by a theory. The art of looking (pgs 41 43) Empirical method: a set of rules and techniques for observation. Method: technologies that enhance the powers of the senses. What three things make people difficult to study: complexity: the human brain is complicated. Scientists can barely begin to say how the 500 million interconnected neurons that constitute the brain give rise to the thoughts, feelings, and actions that are psychology"s core concerns: variability: people are as varied as their fingerprints. When people know they are being studied, they don"t always behave as they otherwise would.