Lecture 11 + chapter 10 & 11 Flashcards
Psychology was promoted as an academic discipline on the basis of two messages, what are those?
Respectful past: it is a continuation of the old and respectful tradition of mental and moral philosphy
Scientific method: it uses the scientific method, also used in disciplines
critical psychology
psychology wrongly treats man as physical objects
What are the main critisisms of critical psychology? 3
1 idealism: scientific psychology wrongly believes in realism, while they should believe in idealism
2 social construction: science is not a progressive uncovering of reality, but a social construction in which statements are primarily determined by the language and culture of scientists; they are not fixed truths
3 moral responsibiliy: psychologists should be aware that their theories and research affects reality
Dilthey distinguished two kinds of science, what are these?
Natural science: sought to distil universal laws from a limited set of observations, mainly trough experiments
Mental science: aimed at understanding and interpreting the individual person by an analysis of his/her socio-cultural history
What are the four elements of Dilthey’s approach?
- content based: focus on what the mind comprises, not on how the brain functions
- totality of experience: the subject matter was human experience in its totality
- context: a person’s life is embedded in a context and could not be studied in isolation
- understanding: the appropriate method was understanding, not the scientific method
pseudoscience
Branch of knowledge that claim to be scientific, but that violates the scientific method on essential aspects
Vul’s voodoo correlations
Edward Vul complaint about the small studies in neuroscience. Really high correlations where identified by personality and fmri results. The results where higher then what was possible. So he argued that it could not be true
what article should you write according to Bem?
option 2: the paper that makes the most sence once you see the results
Side note: this is exploratory research and shouldn’t been sold as confirmatory research
replication crisis (crisis of confidence)
many published finding could not be replicated if studies are rerun.
was was the outcome of the Manylabs projects
many ‘sexy’ findings of psychology don’t replicate.
Some did, but then just with way smaller effect sizes
Critisisms of open-science
more bureaucracy, and more work for researchers
many of the data are never even downloaded and checked.
it is expensive and thus can create inequality
some approaches may decline (field studies, qualitative research)
what happens when you cling to methodological precepts
risk of degrading into methodolatry. Where the methods are more important then what it is meant to achieve
quantitive mainly rests on …. and qualititative mainly rests on….
positivism and social constructionism
The four norms of Merton
Communalism: scientific products belongs to no one
Universalism: truth claims are judged the same, its not about who makes it
Disinterestedness: scientists have no interest in the outcome of research
Organized skepticism: ideas are cracked down on and rigorously tested, regardless of who proposes them (it’s not personal)
P hacking is a form of
questionable research practices
In reaction to Daryll Bem some people made a statement with a few point, what where these points?
sample sizes varied across studies
different studies appear to have been limped together or split apart
its not clear which analyses were planned in advance
one tailed test in absence of directional predition
P-values very close to 0.05
how many other studies where run but not reported
OVERALL CONCLUSION: they must change the way they analyse
What was the conclusion that was reported after using “statcheck”
results revealed that 50% of papers contained errors
The important difference between QRP’s and the Stapel fraud case
Fraud is intentional
Pottery barn rule
in science there is a moral obligation of a scientific journal to publish a failure to replicate a finding previously published in the journal.
Pilars of open science
Open science (all relevant information is made easily available, so that other researchers can check the findings and integrate them in their own research)
Open data
Open materials
Pre registration
Publish or perish: not reported if they don’t have strong portfolio of scientific publications
Open access journal
Declaration on Research Assessment
Double dippin
practice in science in which journals make money both by journal subsciptions and by article fees for open access
OSF (open science framework)
a location that allows researchers to make all their data available
TOP (Transparancy and Openness Promotion)
Guidelines, a list of criteria written by advocates of describing the extent to which journals adhere to the standards of open en reproducible science
The mainstream psychology is characterized by…
controlled experiments
Measurement procedures and measurement models
the use of statistics to analyse data
objectifying as much as possible
quantative imperative (like you can not know what you cannot measure)
When I say: hypothetico deductive model, finding causal relationships, reality translated in laws, based on numbers, big N small T, statistic approach….
You say
Quantative research
Assumptions of quantative research
Realism: phenomena in the world have an existence outside people’s mind (realism) which can be discovered by using the scientific method
Causality: the main aim of research is to find universal causal relationships
Confounds and noise: the presence of confounding and random variables are to be avoided
Bias: standardized measurements and instruments are used to avoid researcher bias
Nomothetic approach: studies are in search of universal principles that exceed the confines of the study
What are strengths of quantative research (4)
- Lends itself well for statistical analysis of large datasets
- Can produce precise predictions, that can be tested
- Makes comparison between groups etc. possible and easier
- easier to investigate confounds and validity threats
What are weaknesses of quantative research (4)
- Little interest in the perception of participants
- Research limited by what is measurable
- better suited to test general theories than to finding solutions
- If you don’t have well developed theory yet, quantative methods aren’t as helpful; they are not very suitable for generating theories
input from the researcher is crucial for…
qualitative research
Assumptions of qualitative research
Idealism: there is little to no evidence for a reality outside peoples mind. The only reality that matters is the reality as perceived and constructed
Control: attempting to control the situation makes the setting artificial and thus, doesn’t help to make the real world visible
Immersion: the researcher is immersed in the situation that is being studied, so that the meaning can be understood
Ideographic approach: the conclusion of the study stay limited to the phenomenon under study
Induction: reason from observation
Evidence based: conclusions still need to be able to be verified by others
Bracketing
requirement in qualitative research to look at a phenomenon with an open mind and to free oneself from preconceptions (like hypotheses)
Thematic Analysis focus on….
systematically identifying, organising and offering insight into patterns of meaning (themes) accross DATASETS
Phases of TA (thematic analysis)
- becoming familiar with the data: have interviews with participants from a certain group
- Generating initial codes: paraphrase what is being said
- Searching for themes: how can you order things being said into themes
- Reviewing themes (quality control)
- Defining and naming themes
- Writing reports
Grounded theory
- to develop a new theory about a specific problem. And tries to understand what is happening in a particular situation.
They use semi-structured interview and sturctured interview. The researcher writes a problem analysis.
But it did not take into account that it was based on the perceptions of the participants
Is grounded theory inductive or deductive
Strongly inductive
Interpratative phenomenological analysis (IPA)
About understanding people, and how they experience a situation
Emphasis on the people that are involved. Here it is the researchers interpretative ability to act as a measuring instrument
Discourse analysis
research method that aims to discover how social relations between peope are determined by the language they use. Language is the only topic worth investigating
Strengths of qualitative research (3)
- Direct focus: the focus is on understanding a problem and working towards a solution directly
- Generation and elaboration: because they involve intensive investigations, they are well suited for finding new ideas which can be taken on later by quantative studies
- Responsive to the needs of participants: there is much better feeling for participants needs
Weaknesses of qualitative research (4)
- Less suitable for demonstrating general laws
- Little room for precise predictions/falsification
- Less suitable for deciding between theories, because there is no external criterion
- Largely based on introspection/subjective evaluation
Quantitative psychologists that argue against qualitative methods come with the following arguments (3)
It throws away all the progress that has been made and throws psychology back to where it was scientific
It rejects the existence of an objective reality, which is why science exists
It doesn’t provide researchers with new information and devalues psychological research to pop psychology
Qualitative psychologists that argue against quantitative methods come with the following arguments (3)
It clutches at the scientific method just for status and money, not for understanding of human functioning
It is misguided in its search for the objective reality
There is no objective realoity, so quantitative methods have nothing to tell us about human functioning
Rather than viewing qualitative research as a different method you can also view it as a different……. why can you do this…..
Paradigm… Because both aim for something fundamentally different
Maracek fights misconceptions about qualitative research
- Qualitative and quantitative provide the same kind of understanding
- Qualitative research is a first exploration and not something on its own
- Qualitative research is purely inductive (no: we also use theory and knowledge from earlier research)
- Qualitative research is the same as quantitative psychology but then without numbers
- It doesn’t meet the requirements of quantitative research (no: it doesn’t need to because it doesn’t have the same requirements as quantitative research)
Criteria for quantitative psychology
- validity
- reliability
- replicability
- transparency
- generalisability
- objectivity
Criteria for qualitative psychology
- Rigour
- Sensitivity to context
- Coherence
- Commitment
- Impact & importance
- Reflexivity
