CH01a - Dimensions of Science Flashcards
Determinism
all events in the universe are orderly, lawful, predictable, and determined by physical causes.
A child doesn’t hit his brother “out of the blue.” In the past hitting his brother removed the brother from the area and allowed him to gain access to something.
Behavior analysts believe that current behavior is determined by two variables:
current behavior is determined by phylogenetic and ontogenetic variables
Philosophical Doubt
a) CONTINUALLY QUESTIONING assumptions, FINDINGS, and conclusions.
b) “continually questioning the truthfulness of what is regarded as fact”
- skepticism
Empiricism
a) the practice of OBJECTIVE OBSERVATION of the PHENOMENA of INTEREST.
b) the attitude that the information available to science comes from the senses, and that SCIENTIFIC CONCLUSIONS should be BASED primarily on SENSORY EVIDENCE.
“independent of the individual prejudices & opinions”
making scientific decisions regarding interventions, research, and theory development in an objective manner, and BASED on FACTUAL DATA.
Experimentation
a) the MANIPULATION of environmental antecedents and/or consequences as the INDEPENDENT VARIABLE, and behavior as the dependent variable.
b) used to IDENTIFY the VARIABLES RESPONSIBLE for the improvement of the behavior
the principal method of studying behavior
Functional relation is said to exist when
a CHANGE in an INDEPENDENT VARIABLE reliably PRODUCES a defined CHANGE in the DEPENDENT VARIABLE .
Describing a functional relation between a response and its reinforcer under a specified environmental context is more precise than saying that the environmental events caused the behavior.
Reliability or Repeatability
REPEATEDLY MEASURING the DEPENDENT variable in the ABSENCE of the INDEPENDENT variable across MULTIPLE SESSIONS, until a stable baseline is obtained. NEXT, the INDEPENDENT variable is INTRODUCED and levels of the dependent variable are again REPEATEDLY measured across multiple sessions until stable levels are observed. These two steps (multiple sessions of measuring levels of compliance, with and without praise) are repeated.
Parsimony
When TWO alternative EXPLANATIONS account for the available observations and facts equally well, the scientist should FAVOR the SIMPLIER or more parsimonious explanation.
The attitude of parsimony was first discussed by William Occam and is sometimes referred to as “OCCAM’S razor.”