Psych 218 Introduction to Behavioral Research Methods

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Psych 218Introduction to Behavioral Research
Methods

• Week 1 Lecture 1

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Outline of Todays Lecture

• Epistemology (ways of knowing)
• Introduction to the scientific method

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Epistemology how do we know what we know?

• Sources of knowledge
• Common sense observation and explanation
• Belief based on authority
• Belief based on reason
• Science

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Epistemology how do we know what we know?

• What differentiates science from other
  disciplines such as humanities (philosophy,
  literature, history, art) and religion?
• The Scientific Method

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The Scientific Method

• Four Steps
• Observe a phenomenon
• Formulate tentative explanations
• Conduct further observation and experiments
• Refine and retest your explanations

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How do Common Sense and Scientific Explanations
Differ?

• Commonsense
• typically accepted at face value (it makes
  sense)
• Based on casual observation
• Tends not to consider alternative explanations
• Post hoc generally not used to predict or
  account for yet-to-be observed events

• Science
• treated skeptically and tentatively
• Based on systematic, carefully controlled
  observation
• Considered to be one of potentially several
  plausible alternative explanations
• Predictive Can be used to predict or account for
  yet-to-be observed results

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How do Belief-based and Scientific Explanations
Differ?

• Belief-based
• Based on faith rather than observation
• Often cannot be empirically disconfirmed (tested)
• Are absolute (dogmatic) no other explanation is
  considered
• Discard or reinterpret any disconfirming evidence
  in an ad hoc and unparsimonious manner
• Can be offered to explain just about any subject

• Science
• Based on a logical organization of a broad
  pattern of systematic observations
• Make precise testable predictions that can be
  empirically disconfirmed
• Are tentative, assumed to be flawed or incomplete
• Disconfirming evidence results in rejection or
  substantial reformulation
• explain only phenomena that can be tested by
  objective observation