Psychology 2800E Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Falsifiability, Measuring Instrument, Essentialism

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2800E
• Professor: Patrick Brown

Document Summary

Essentialism- the idea that the only good scientific theories are those that give ultimate explanations of phenomena in terms of their underlying essence of their essential properties. Scientists consider questions about ultimate to be unanswerable. A common indication of the essentialist attitude is an obsessive concern about defining the meaning of terms and concepts before the search for knowledge about them begins. The meaning of a concept in science is determined after extensive investigation of the phenomena. Operationism- the idea that concepts in scientific theories much in some way be grounded in, or linked to, observable events that can be measured. A concept in science is defined by a set of operations, not by just a single behavioural event or task. Operational definitions are needed to force us to think carefully and empirically in terms of observations in the real world.