Features Of Science Flashcards
What are the features of science?
-objectivity and empirical methods
-Falsifiabillity
-Replicability
-Theory construction and hypothesis testing
-Paradigms and Paradigm shifts
What does empiricism suggest?
All knowledge should be derived from direct and sensory experience e.g observation and experiements
According to empiricists like Locke (theory)
If a theory has not been tested using empirical methods, it cannot classify itself as being scientific
Empirical methods must be what?
What can subjectivity cause?
Objective
Contamination of data due to own beliefs
What is objectivity?
Feature of science and not affected by researchers personal feelings or experience
Who established scientific theories tested by hypothetico deductive method.
Karl popper (1934)
What is deductive method?
Wider theory is tested through hypothesis testing
What is falsifiability?
A theory is disproved (which makes it scientific)
Give an example of falsifiability (swans)
All swans r white theory proven false due to sight of black swans
What is pseudo science?
popper believed science whose theories cannot be falsified
give an example of pseudo science
Psychodynamic theory (id cannot be tested so could be pseudo science)
What is replicability?
Repetition of study - For a theory to be tested , the finding must be replicable across different contexts + circumstances (replication therefore increases (external reliability))
when r effects that occur in a study more likely to be reliable?
if they occur in a repeat of the study
What must a psychologist do in order to make replicability possible?
-Standardised procedures
-Rigorous + specific methods
-operationalise variables
-reports (detailed methods for others to replicate)
Theory construction and hypothesis testing
What is a theory?
A set of general principles that attempt to make sense or explain particular observational facts
what should theories satisfy?
key principles in science (order + direction)
What r theories needed for?
To organise facts, find patterns + condense into general principles (helps to understand and predict future)
What is theory construction?
Process of developing an explanation by systematically gathering evidence
And organising into coherent theory so theories provide a basis of research
What is hypothesis testing?
Testable explanations + r tested using systematic + objective methods to see if hyp is supported/refuted
Paradigms and Paradigm shifts
What are paradigm shifts?
Paradigm - set/concepts of ideas or theories
An agreed upon set of theoretical assumptions about a subject and its method of enquiry as too much evidence goes against the theory
Who implied that a subject can only be called a science if there is an agreed ‘global’ theory?
Thomas Kuhn (1962)
give an example of a ‘global’ theory
all biologists accept the theory of evolution
Thomas said their were 2 main phases in science, what was the first?
Normal science (when a theory remains dominant)
what is phase 2?
revolutionary shift
(Copernicus - 2000 idea that earth is centre of universe but one of many planets circulating sun - too much evidence against)
what is Thomas’s argument?
these phases r how science moves forward (not via poppers falsifiability)
What does Kuhn suggest about psych?
It does not have an acccepted paradigm
What does Kuhn call psuychology?
a pre-science ( he says due to lack psych has yet to achieve status of norm science)
why is psych regarded as a pre-science?
Kuhn suggests there is not one global unifying theory in psych
psych is characterised by what (Kuhn)
many theoretical approaches (some aspects r conflicting (psychodynamic vs humanistic)
also psych has conflicting methods of enquiry (research methods)
