Psych-Research Methods-Unit 2-Chapter 1: Psychology And Science (Pp. 15‒28)

Front 1

1.Briefly describe the three processes in the discovery ofregularities.

Back 1

The goal of discovering regularities can be considered in three ways: the description of behavior, the discovery of lawful relationships among aspects of behavior, and the search for causes.

Front 2

2.What is a law? Give an example of a law.

Back 2

law: a statement that certain events are regularly associated with each other in an orderly way

Psychology has many examples of laws, because any time a regular association between two variables exists, you have a law.

Front 3

3.Define a theory in broad terms

.

Back 3

We can define the concept of theory either broadly or narrowly. Broadly speaking, a theory is a statement or set of statements about the relationships among variables. If the statements concern only a single relationship between variables, we are speaking of a law. However, sometimes a number of laws are tied together into a more general set of statements, which is called a theory.

Front 4

4.According to Sir Karl Popper, can a theory be proven true?Why, or why not?

Back 4

According to Popper, we make up theories and try to knock them down. The ones that survive the testing process can tentatively be accepted as true by a process of elimination. We can never prove the theory to be true for certain, but we gain more confidence in the theory the more tests it survives.

Front 5

5.What roles do theories play in science?

Back 5

We have emphasized the development of theories as a major goal of science. But why are theories so important? Theories play three crucial roles in the development of a science: (1) organizing knowledge and explaining laws, (2) predicting new laws, and (3) guiding research.

Front 6

6. What is a hypothesis? How is a hypothesis related to atheory? Give an example.

Back 6

hypothesis is a statement that is assumed to be true for the purpose of testing its validity. A hypothesis can be put in the form of an if-then statement: If A is true, then B should follow. The statement must be one that is either true or false:

If people take pain relievers when their feelings are hurt, they will feel better or they won’t; it cannot feel both better and worse.

Front 7

7.What is operational definition?

Back 7

operational definition: a statement of the precise meaning of a procedure or concept within an experiment

Front 8

8.What is a paradigm?

Back 8

paradigm: a set of laws, theories, methods, and applications that form a scientific research tradition; for example, Pavlov ian conditioning

Front 9

Define a theory in strict terms.

Back 9

More often, the term theory is used in a second and stricter sense. According to this view, a theory is a statement or a set of statements about relationships among variables that includes at least one concept that is not directly observed but that is necessary to explain these relationships

Front 10

How is a hypothesis related to a theory?

Back 10

DeWall and his colleagues’ hypothesis consisted of a law that was predicted from the theory. In other cases, the theory may be the focus of the hypothesis.

Front 11

Why is it desirable to use convergent operations?

Back 11

Using different ways of honing in on a concept via different operational definitions is called converging operations. Each new way of producing the concept of learning will rule out one possible objection to the explanation, until a high degree of confidence can be reached. The method of converging operations is much like the method a surveyor uses to locate a point on the ground. The point is marked from two or more independent locations in order to get a good fix on it by triangulation. The larger the number of independent locations from which the surveyor knows the distance and direction, the more precisely the new point is located.