01:830:101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Jane Goodall, Naturalistic Observation, Scientific Method

• School: Rutgers University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: 01:830:101
• Professor: Lawrence Jacobs

Document Summary

In psychology: scientific method, scientific methods in psychology. This chapter is about how we utilize scientific methods in evaluating claims and. Science means (cid:498)knowledge. (cid:499) psychology is a science. It is almost impossible to prove that a claim or theory is true beyond a doubt. The scientific method allows us to reach conclusions that are very likely to be true. The purpose of psychological research is to test ideas about behavior: theory: a set of facts and relationships between facts that can explain and predict related phenomena. Science seeks to develop theories, a set of ideas that helps to explain data and make predictions. It is a set of principles to explain how facts are related. If a theory is good, we can make predictions: hypothesis: proposed explanation for a situation: (cid:498)if a happens then b will be the result(cid:499) The scientific word for a claim is hypothesis.