Psychology 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Social Desirability Bias, Scientific Method, Operational Definition

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Mike Atkinson

Document Summary

Curiosity, skepticism and open-mindedness are the driving forces behind scientific inquiry. Scientific principles in psychology: evidence is needed, and better explanations are always looked for. Hindsight (after the fact understanding) the biggest problem with using hindsight reasoning is that past events can be explained in many ways no sure way to determine which, if any, of the alternative is correct. Understanding through prediction, control and theory building scientists seek to test their understanding directly, and if we understand something, we should be able to predict the conditions under which the behaviour will occur again. Even when many successful predictions support a theory, it will never be an absolute truth, because it is possible that a future observation with contradict it, or a newer theory will replace it. Measures of overt behaviour recording directly observable (overt) behaviour. Psychologists have coding systems to record different categories of behaviour data is reliable if multiple observers watching the same behaviour agree in their coding.