Lecture Terms 1 Flashcards
What are 5 ways we acquire our beliefs:
tenacity, authority, experience, empirical evidence, logical reasoning
tenacity
commonly understood idea but source is unclear, cannot link to a primary source and thus does not usually hold up under further scrutiny
authority
someone specific, who you view as an authoritative or credible figure, said this was true. Does not always hold up
meta-analysis
puts together results from multiple studies
correlational results does not mean:
causation, this requires experimental studies to determine
experimental studies require:
control of variables and random selection of test subjects
experience
can be either direct or a prior experience. Not always valid because negative info is more likely to be remembered and brought to mind, creating the illusion of a higher frequency of occurrence
empirical evidence
systematic or formal observation to obtain objective, reliable, valid, and often quantitative measures of the matter of interest
by itself, empiricism cannot explain:
WHY things are, they only demonstrate THAT they are: mechanisms must be tested as possible hypotheses
logical reasoning
a system of rules regarding the relationship between premises (descriptive statements) and conclusions
logical syllogisms
2 descriptive statements followed by a conclusion which may be either true or false based on the following statements
what makes a conclusion true even if it isn’t known?
if the argument is valid and the premises are empirically true
belief bias
endorsement of invalid arguments if they agree with the values, stronger belief bias could also result in pursuit of confirming evidence rather than disconfirming evidence
scientific reasoning is formed from a basis of:
empirical evidence and logical reasoning
the scientific method has four features:
objectivity, replication, self-correction and control
representativeness
extent to which the sample is representative of the population. the sample statistic should be similar to the population parameter
random selection
everyone in the population has equal chance of being assigned to one of the experimental groups
statistics is affected by:
- the type of data we collect (continuous/categorical)
- difference or relationship?
- number of groups/variables
- scale of measurement (nominal/ordinal/interval/ratio)
what are some non-systematic sources for research ideas?
observation of our surroundings, observation of people, inspiration, serendipity
what are some systematic sources for research ideas?
past research, theory, classroom lectures
what are some characteristics of a hypothesis:
synthetic statement (can be T or F), falsifiable, can be stated in general implication form, is either DIRECTIONAL or NON-DIRECTIONAL
deductive logic
general to specific (how we form hypotheses)
inductive logic
specific to general (how we build theories)
