Chapter 1 Flashcards
Why even study the history of psych?
Valuable source of ideas: Many good ideas waiting to be explored further. ex. evolution, unconscious motivation, conditioned responses, all existed as ideas before they were explored and demonstrated.
Fads and fashions (to understand that zeitgeist effects the ideas we take on. In our time and in others)
Context understanding of the present: see the context of where we are at now, and avoid the mistakes of the past.
What is science?
Two things:
Empirical observation: direct observation of nature
Theory: organizes our observations and attempts to explain them.
Karl Poppers’ 2 disagreements with the traditional view of science?
Kuhn’s disagreement with the trad view of science?
- Science doesn’t start with observations, it starts with a problem. That guides our observations, then we suggest solutions and criticize/refute those solutions.
- Principle of falsifiability: to be scientific, a theory must be capable of being proven wrong. It should make risky predictions.
ex. Criticized Freud and Adler’s theories for engaging in postdiction; if your theory can be in agreeance with most information then it isn’t worth much.
Kuhn: Science operates according to a societally determined paradigm that dictates the focus of research problems
Who thought that even nonscientific theories had value?
Karl Popper. Can be useful like myths.
Who said that all theories were to be proven false eventually? That all scientific truths were tentative.
Karl Popper
What were Popper’s disagreements with Kuhn?
- Popper accepted the correspondence theory of truth and objectivity. For Kuhn, science was never objective, it was always through the lens of a subjective paradigm.
(Correspondence theory of truth: scientific laws and theories are evaluated based on whether they are found to correspond with the objective world. )
- Popper did not accept normal science as being science. For Popper science is a creative problem solving process, not filling in the pieces of a defined puzzle.
Name the types of determinism and explain.
What two large categories of determinism exist in opposition to eachother?
(CLARIFY THE ANSWER TO LAST IN TEXT)
Sociocultural
- Social and cultural norms determine behavior. (a type of environmental determinism)
Environmental
- Events and conditions determine behavior
Biological
- Physiology, genetics, and brain structure are the determinants of behavior. ex. evolutionary past gives us balls, test, and aggression.
SEB
(TEXT**HOW IS THIS WORDED?)
Physical determinism: genes, environment, cultural customs are all quantifiable and labelled as physical determinism.
Psychical determinism: psychological events conscious and unconscious. (ex. freud)
What assumption is necessary for us to conduct science?
Determinism. We have to assume cause and effect.
Does Heisenber’s uncertainty principle apply to nondeterminism or indeterminism? Define all terms
HUP: showed that observing an electron changed it. Thus, what we observe we also change and we cannot be certain of anything in science. ex. if we do a psych study just by observing we might change behavior.
indeterminism: determinist view that we can never know all of the causes of behavior. Multiple interacting events and/or chance
Nondeterminism: belief in free will, rejection of determinism. Ex. humanists, existentialists
BLANK’S concept of science stresses subjectivity and convention. There is no such thing as neutral scientific observation.
BLANK’s idea of science stresses logic and creativity and accepts objectivity
Kuhn
Popper
Karl popper proposed what principle regarding what theories are scientific?
Principle of falsifiability: theory must be capable of being proven false, to make risky predictions, in orser to be scientific.
Criticized freud and adler because almost any observation could fit their theories with postdiction.
