2: Philosophical Perspectives on Research Flashcards
What are four common areas clinical psychologists study? Provide examples.
Assessment of normal and abnormal cognitive and behavioural functioning (e.g., conceptual clarity of disorders).
Epidemiology of psychopathology (e.g., cohort studies, proportons).
Impact of interventions and therapies (e.g., CBT vs. mindfulness).
Etiology, course and outcome of different forms of psychopathology (e.g., depression can spontaneously remit).
What is the commonly used definition of disorders?
Clustered symptoms; refinement is constant.
What is the intuitive practitioner model? What is important to note of them?
Conduct clinical work on basis of personal intuition and of knowledge from sources other than research.
However, they may have formidable interpersonal skills which make them great clinicians.
When was the scientist-practitioner model articulated? What is its alternate name?
In the U.S. in the 1940s. Also known as the Boulder model.
What is the scientist-practitioner model?
Clinical psychologists are trained to be clinicians as well as researchers (twin track approach). Clinical practice and research are separate activities.
The applied-scientist model sees clinical work as a scientific endeavour where research and practice are integrated. What are three key elements of this model?
Apply the findings of general psychology.
Only use empirically validated assessment methods.
Form hypotheses about the nature and determinants of the client’s problems and collect data to test these hypotheses.
What is the evidence-based practitioner model?
Use best current empirical evidence to select optimum interventions and assessment methods.
What are five implications of research?
Careful, methodical study.
Detached, critical, scholarly attitude.
No prescribed method.
Discovery versus confirmation.
Facts and reality.
Describe the research cycle.
Form ideas from theory → gather info: data collection → compare to original findings → analyze & interpret.
What is pure research? Applied research? Which kind do clinical psychologists use?
Pure (or basic) research addresses the generation and testing of theory.
Applied research addresses practical questions –also known as evaluation / audit / quality assurance / health services research.
Clinical psychologists may use both, but mostly pure.
What is the colloquial definition of a theory versus the scientific definition?
Colloquial definition: unproven ideas or speculation.
Scientific: set of statements that summarizes and organizes existing info about a phenomenon, provides explanation, basis for making predictions to be tested empirically.
Good theories are parsimonious. What does this mean? Define Occam’s Razor.
With competing interpretations, adopt simplest one that can account for data.
Occam’s Razor: unnecessary to add concepts not needed to explain phenomena.
Why are good theories falsifiable?
Theory is the best “truth” available, but it is always possible that a better explanation exists.
Science is about trying to _____ things, only accepting things as fact after doing it many times.
Disprove.
Define the four theories of knowledge. Provide examples.
Correspondence (“matches reality”): e.g., water droplets from clouds = it’s raining.
Coherence (“logically consistent”): temperature too low, therefore it is not raining.
Pragmatism (“is the knowledge useful?”): e.g., go outside when raining, you’ll get wet.
Consensus (“everyone agrees that it’s true”): e.g., if everyone looks out window, more-or-less agree on weather.
What is important to note about usefulness?
It is subjective.
In many cases, those who take a postmodernism / constructivist standpoint believe what about truth? What is the implication of this? What does this make researchers?
Don’t believe objective truth is knowable.
Interested in the subjective interpretations of people. No true or false stories, only different ones.
Researchers are both observers and participants; can’t escape one’s own perspective.
Induction is based on two principles: theory-dependence of observation; no logical basis when used exclusively. Elaborate on both.
Theory-dependence of observation: what we observe and how we observe it are explicitly or implicitly based on theory.
No logical basis when used exclusively: past performance doesn’t guarantee future results, thus theories are temporary and statements probabilistic, not cause-effect.
Who was the key figure of deduction and falsification? What is the belief of this viewpoint? How does it view science?
Karl Popper.
Progress = falsification of incorrect theories. If can’t be falsified, then it is not science. Upcoming theory will then be closer to truth.
Science is linear process, accumulation of knowledge.
Thomas Kuhn thought what regarding theories?
The progress of science is not linear, but revolutionary. Old and new theories are incompatible.
What is a paradigm?
Theories, methods, and standards members of a scientific community have in common.
Normal science works within the paradigm. What does this mean? Provide an example.
Extends knowledge about facts described by paradigm, increasing consistency between nature and the predictions.
E.g., depression caused by serotonin, therefore can be treated with antidepressants - testing how antidepressants work in different contexts.
A _____ can undermine the existing tradition of scientific practice (“uh oh, the paradigm doesn’t work”). Then, a _____ can take place: a shift in professional assumptions.
Anomaly; scientific revolution.
A scientific revolution is a what? How do scientists react?
Paradigm shift.
Scientists will always try to resist such a change.
