Lecture 2 Flashcards
What are the 2 many ways of acquiring knowledge?
- Authority
- Intuition
Describe how we and why we acquire knowledge through authority. What are the advantages?
- Authority: Trust those we think know better
Advantages:
Fast, efficient, cheap, necessary (We cannot collect some infromation on our own so we need systems/networks of authority to help us understand what is going on. )
Disadvantages: Who to trust? When to trust?
- where can we find new sources that are worth trusting?
- Some people are experts in one particular setting and they are very ignorant on other topics
When are we using authority to acquire knowledge?
when we’re using authority we are trusting those who we think know better than us. Ex: social media, if someone says they are from the place that the news is happening etc. can also apply to our parents, we think our parents know everything when we’re young
Describe how and why we use intuition to acquire knowledge. What are the advantages and disadvantages?
- Intuition: Trust our gut feelings or folk wisdom (knowledge passed on over many generations)
Advantages:
Fast, efficient, feels ‘right’
Disadvantages:
Subject to bias/distortion (This knowledge is almost always constructed by humans and is not tested rigorously)
Highlight confirming evidence
Discount disconfirming evidence (we tend to remember and highlight all the things that proved our folk wisdom/intuition and ignored things that disproved our intuotion / folk wisdom. if we only used this we would feel really confident about the things we know)
Intuition is powerful, but it’s unclear when to trust intuition
What does scientific method start with? What should a researcher’s first question be? What is the second component of the scientific method?
Scientific method starts with skepticism. First question should be, What could be wrong with our claim?
Second component of the scintific method is empiricism: collecting data that helps us know whether the intuition, or folk wisdom was correct or incorrect.
What is the result of skepticism and empiricism?
the scientific method
What quote sums up the scientific method? Explain. Give examples of things that can’t be tested.
“All claims are subject to tests against reality”
There are many claims that we can’t collect data on which does not mean that they’re wrong
Ex: the existence of god. we can’t collect data that confirms or does not confirm god’s existence. it doesn’t mean god doesn’t exist it just means it isn’t testable within the scientific method.
What are the 3 basic ingredients for science?
Claim: Theory/Idea (Be very clear about what our idea is.)
Test against reality: Data/Observation (This is empiricism)
Skepticism (When we collect our data we need to think about all the ways in which the data has not been perfectly predicted by our theory. )
What is the cycle of science?
idea/theory
design a test
collect data
interpret data
refine
repeat
In psych, does any theory make perfect predictions? What dod we need to do as a result?
no. In psychology, no theory makes perfect predictions about psychology. Our theories will always be wrong in many ways. We need to determine, is this worth disregarding the theory or does it need to be refined.
What is an example of a boundary to a theory?
Boundary ex: it is true that humans will be happier when they are running unless they have a condition that leads to them experiencing discomfort when running. Every theory has boundaries such as this.
What are the 4 principles of science?
universalism
communality
disinterestedness
skepticism
What is universalism? What methods are most agreed upon?
Agreement about what constitutes acceptable method or piece of data
consensus about what it means to have a good method of researching / testing behaviour. In the field we agree that collecting observable points of data is universal but it stops us from collecting lots of benefiical data. Qualitative methods are less agreed upon methods
What is communality? Why is it important? Example?
Shared research methods and data (or openness)
sharing methods is important because in order to critique a study you need to know how it was conducted. We share our materials, stimuli and procedures becuase we want to help other researchers build upon our findings. We share our data because we want other people to be able to check our results and have people know if you made a mistake somewhere. In psych lots of people are not completely open about these things. There are good reasons for this and bad reasons. Ex: what if you took pictures of people and did not get consent to share their pictures with other researchers. If you are producing a medication that works, you probably don’t want to share your formula (profit motive). You’ve developed a questionare but are not sharing it unless people pay you for the questionnaire.
What is the principle of disinterestedness? Why is this important? Does this always happen?
Motivation for research should be a quest for
truth
We want to not be motivated to find a conclusion in one direction or another. Our motivation should simply be a quest for truth. People often don’t live up to this. If you’re manufactuing something, you will make money if you find that it works and you won’t if it doesn’t. Another place we get challenges for this principle is many researchers will name their theories after themselves so if they are proved wrong there is a motivation to discredit people who are disproving it. You are no longer disinterested. You see this all the time in the language people use ex: “we are hoping to find x”. Motivation might change the way you interpret data.
What is the principle of skepticism? Why is this important? how is this process basically carried out?
Organized criticism by experts
Systematizing criticism. A standard project in graduate studies is working on the same question for 3 or 4 years, collecting data, finding a conclusion, and then sending this off to your most harsh critics and you are going to ask them to try to find something wrong with your project. Usually they will find several things wrong with your project. This can hurt but it is good because if we can convince our harshest critics we have likely found something close to the truth. basically, peer review.
Do researchers conduct research entirely on their own? Is science an independent endeavor?
We try not to conduct research on our own but instead pool our collective research together so we can collectively help each other. Science is a collective endeavor. This is difficult because then we neeed baseline agreements
What is the primary limitation of the scientific method?
When we are using the scientific method, it’s primary limitation is that it takes a long time and it is expensive.
