Presentation 3- The Logic of Social Psychological Research Flashcards
Science
is one of knowledge along with tradition, experience and common sense and journalism but it is a superior source of objective and accurate knowledge of the world.
Sources of knowledge
1.Traditional knowledge
2.Experiental knowledge
3.Common Sense
4.Journalism
Traditional knowledge
This is based on custom, habit and repetition. It is founded on a belief in the sanctity of ancient wisdom and the ways of our forbearers. Traditional knowledge is widespread in all societies. Tradition can be an important source of knowledge especially in such areas as moral judgements of value decisions, but it can have some major disadvantages. First tradition is very resistant to change, even in those cases where change might be necessary because new information surfaces or new developments occurs. Secondly. Traditional knowledge easily confuses knowledge (an understanding of what is) with values (a preference of what ought to be). For many people the traditional emphasis on the two- parent family is actually based on a value regarding the preferred family form rather than a knowledge of the effect of such a family has on childhood development.
Experiental knowledge
Experience as a source of knowledge refers to first-hand personal observations about events.
This is based on the assumption that truth and understanding can be achieved through personal experience and eye witnessing events will lead to an accurate comprehension of those events.
Experience is a common source of knowledge for human service workers who have numerous opportunities to make first-hand observations of emotionally disturbed children, people with physical disabilities, foster children and other service population. These assists workers to develop an understanding -not necessarily an accurate one of what motivates their clients and what social and psychological processes have influenced them.
Experiential knowledge has some severe limitations that can lead to erroneous conclusions.
Second part of experiential knowledge
First human perceptions are notoriously unreliable.
Perceptions are affected by many factors, including the cultural background and the mood of the observer, the conditions under which something is observed and the nature of what is being observed. Even under the best conditions, some misperception is likely, and thus, knowledge based on experience is often inaccurate.
Secondly, human knowledge and understanding do not result from direct perception but rather from inferences made from those perceptions.
The conclusion that marital counselling does not work is an inference and is not directly observed
. All that has been observed is that these women have been battered by their husbands.
There is no observation about the effectiveness of any type of counselling.
Third part of experiential knowledge
Thirdly, the very people in positions to experience something directly frequently have vested interests in perceiving that thing in a certain way.
A final limitation on experiential knowledge, is that it is difficult to know, if that the people directly available to you, are accurate representatives of all the people about whom you wish to draw conclusions.
If they are not, any conclusions drawn for your observations maybe in error.
Common sense
The accumulation of knowledge from tradition and experience often blends to form what people call common sense. This is practical judgement based on the experiences, wisdoms and prejudices of a people. People with common sense are presumed to be able to make sound decisions even though they lack anything, specialized, training and knowledge. Common sense tells us that people with similar interests and inclinations will likely associate with one another. When we see a youngster, who smokes marijuana associating with others who do the same, we may comment “Birds of a feather flock together” Then we see an athletic woman become involved with a bookish, cerebral man and we say opposites attract”.
Second part of common sense
In other words, common sense explains everything even when those explanations contradict one another. This is not to say that common sense is unimportant and always useless. Common sense can be valuable and accurate, which is not surprising because people need sound information as a basis for interacting with others and functioning in society. However common sense does not normally involve a rigorous and systematic attempt to distinguish reality from fiction. Rather, it tends to accept what everyone knows to be true and reject contradictory information. Furthermore, common sense is often considered something people have or don’t have because it is not teachable.
Third part of common sense
In fact, it is often contrasted with book learning.
This discourages people from critically assessing their common-sense knowledge and tempering it with knowledge acquired from other sources. For this reason, common sense knowledge should be accepted and use cautiously. As a basis for human service practice, knowledge needs to be
based on the rigorous and systematic methods used in scientific research. Common sense or vague feelings of “helping” is not enough
Journalism
The materials prepared by journalists for newspapers, magazines television or other media are another important source of knowledge about the world for most people.
Though some journalism consists of opinion pieces about the speculation and inferences of the journalist, much of it like science is grounded in observation. A key difference between science and journalism is that the observations of scientists are much more systematic in nature.
This means that scientist use far more careful procedures to reduce the chances that their conclusions will be inaccurate. One such procedure is the selection of a sample.
Second part of journalism
A second key difference between science and journalism is that journalism is not concerned with theory building and theory verification as a way of developing of an abstract explanation of people’s behaviour. Journalists are much more focussed on “just the facts”. Scientists on the other hand recognise that facts often do not speak for themselves- they need to be interpreted in the context of a theoretical understanding to fully comprehend what the facts mean.
Science first and second characteristic
Science is empirical-this means that science is based on direct observation of the world.
Science is not like what some people mistakenly believe founded in theorising, philosophising, or speculating. Though scientist at times do all of these things they must eventually observe the world to see whether their theories or speculations agree with the facts.
Science is systematic- (a) this means that the procedures used by scientists are organized methodical, public and is recognized by other scientists. One dimension of the systematic nature of science is that scientists report in detail all the procedures used in coming to a conclusion. This enables other scientists to access whether inferences and conclusions drawn are warranted given the observations made .b) A second dimension of the systematic nature of science is replication. This is repeating studies numerous times to determine if the same results will be obtained. Scientists are very cautious about drawing hard and fast conclusions from a singe observation or investigation. In fact in quite at variance with experiential knowledge scientists assume that a single direct observation is as likely to be incorrect as correct. Only repeated observations can reduce the chance of error and misinterpretation. (Rosenthal 1991)
Third characteristic of science
Science is the search for causes – scientists believe that there is order in the universe; that there are ascertainable reasons for the occurrence of all events and that science can rediscover the orderly nature of the world.
If we assumed that there is no order no pattern there will be no need to search for it.
We could write off events as due to chance or the intervention of some benevolent or (malevolent or indifferent) otherworldly force that we can never understand.
Fourth characteristic of science
Science is provisional – This means that scientific conclusions are always accepted as tentative and subject to questions and possible refutation. There are no ultimate untouchable irrevocable researches.NB: Truths in science –There are no scientists whose work is held in such high esteem that it cannot be rejected or criticized.
Science is a process of continuous movement toward a more accurate picture of the world, and scientists fully realise that we will never achieve the ultimate and final picture.
Fifth characteristic of science
Science is objective – this means that scientists attempt to remove their biases and values from their scientific research.
Science strives for objectivity – this means that scientists attempt to remove their biases and values influence their scientific conclusions.
This is a controversial and complicated characteristic of science because many social scientists would argue that true objectivity is impossible for human being to achieve.
It is worthy to note that that all scientists are concerned that their scientific conclusions are not solely or merely a product of their own personal biases and values. This does not mean that scientist should be devoid of values.
Quite the contrary, they can be as passionate, concerned and involved as any other groups of citizens. They realise however that their values and biases can and probably lead to erroneous scientific conclusions. To address this problem, science incorporates mechanisms to reduce the likelihood of biased observations becoming an accepted part of the body of scientific knowledge. Further detail reporting permits replication so that other researchers, with different values, can see if they come to the same conclusions requiring a set of observations.
