Psychology 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Demand Characteristics, Confounding, Informed Consent

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Terry Biggs

Document Summary

We learn about the world and ourselves via science, reason, intuition, common sense, etc A good scientist is an incurable skeptic, always asking for evidence: must be open-mined to conclusions that disagree with their beliefs. Diffusion of responsibility individuals feeling decreased responsibility ex. Steps in scientific process: identify a question of interest, form a hypothesis, test hypothesis by conducting research, analyze the data, further research/test data, (not listed in textbook) new hypothesis. Hypothesis: te(cid:374)tati(cid:448)e e(cid:454)pla(cid:374)atio(cid:374), takes the fo(cid:396)(cid:373) of a(cid:374) (cid:862)if-the(cid:374)(cid:863) state(cid:373)e(cid:374)t. Theory: set of formal statements explaining events relations (more broad than hypothesis) Conforms to the law of parsimony: the simplest theory is the referred one. Hindsight (after-the fact): u(cid:374)de(cid:396)sta(cid:374)di(cid:374)g a situatio(cid:374) afte(cid:396) it"s happe(cid:374)ed (cid:894)li(cid:373)itatio(cid:374): past events can be explained in many ways) Most that are studied are abstract or not observable (ex. Operational definition of variable: translates abstract concepts into something observable and measurable (ex.