Week 1: Foundations of Psychological Science Flashcards
What are the 5 Methods of Knowing?
Intuition, Authority, Rationalism, Empiricism, The Scientific Method
What is science?
The systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment
What are the 3 features of science?
- Systematic empiricism
- Empirical questions
- Public knowldge
Pseudoscience
Activities or beliefs claiming to be scientific but are not
How to determine science vs pseudoscience
a) adherents claim or imply that it is scientific but
b) it lacks one or more of the 3 feature of science
What does Karl Popper state all scientific claims be?
Falsifiable - the claim is expressed in a way that there are observations that would count as evidence against the claim
What are the 3 goals of science?
- Describe.
- Predict
- Explain
What are the two types of research?
Basic and applied research
Basic Research
Primarily concerned with understanding phenomena in more detail or accuracy
Applied research
Research that addresses a practical problem
Folk Psychology
Intuitive beliefs about people’s behaviour, thoughts, and feelings.
Not always accurate
Heuristics
Mental shortcuts informing and maintaining our beliefs
Confirmation Bias
The tendency to focus on confirming evidence and disregarding disconfirming evidence
Tolerance for uncertainty
Scientists accept there are many things we do not know
Empirically supported treatments
A psychology treatment that has been shown through systematic observation to lead to better outcomes when compared to no-treatment or placebo control groups
Intuition
What feels true, can be wrong due to cognitive or motivational biases
Authority
Accept knowledge as true due to authority saying so. Can’t always trust authority
Rationalism
Logic and reasoning acquire new knowledge.
What is the issue with rationalism?
Premise or logic being wrong will lead to an invalid conclusion
Empiricism
Observation and experience acquire knowledge.
What is the issue with empiricism?
Can’t observe everything ( e.g. white swan issue - black swans exist but are rare).
Syllogisms
Sound premise leads to sound conclusion
The Scientific Method
Process of systematically collecting and evaluating evidence to test ideas and answer questions
What is the issue with the scientific method?
- Not always feasible due to time resource constraints
2. Can’t be used to answer all questions, only empirical questions
