Need for Scientific Methodology

Need for Scientific Methodology

• Science originates from the Latin word "scientia," meaning knowledge.
• Methodology is the scientific technique used for collecting and evaluating psychological data.
• Commonsense psychology involves the everyday, nonscientific collection of psychological data to understand the social world.
• The scientific method includes the steps taken by scientists to gather and verify information, answer questions, explain relationships, and communicate feelings.

Characteristics of Modern Science

• Scientific mentality involves the assumption that behavior follows a natural order, which is why it can be predicted.
• Empirical data is data that is observable or experienced.
• Modern scientists pursue general principles, like laws or theories, to explain observations.
• Laws are general scientific principles that explain our universe and predict events.
• Good thinking includes organized and rational thought, characterized by open-mindedness, objectivity, and parsimony, and is essential to the scientific method.
• Parsimony means that the simplest explanation is preferred until conflicting evidence arises. This concept is also known as Occam's razor.
• Self-correction includes the understanding that scientists accept the uncertainty of their conclusions.
• Falsification is challenging an existing explanation or theory by testing a hypothesis that follows from it and demonstrating the hypothesis is false.

Tools of Psychological Science

• Observation is the systematic noting and recording of events, and constitutes a principal tool of the scientific method
• Measurement is the scientific estimation of the quantity, size, or quality of an observable event and is essential to the scientific method.
• Experimentation discovers something new or demonstrates that events that have already occurred will occur again under specific conditions, and is used as a principal tool of the scientific method.
• Publicizing results happens when scientists meet at professional events to exchange information on current work.
• Replication is the process of repeating research procedures to verify that the outcome will be the same, and serves as a principal tool of the scientific method.
• To do an experiment, predictions must be testable.
• A testable hypothesis, requires procedures for manipulating the setting and an observable predicted outcome.

Scientific Explanation

• Identifying antecedent conditions means specifying the circumstances of an event or behavior in a scientific context
• Antecedent conditions encompass all circumstances that occur or exist before an event or behavior.
• Comparing treatment conditions is difficult in psychology because identifying all antecedents affecting research participants' behavior at a specific time can be impossible.
• A subject is the scientific term for an individual who participates in research.
• "Treatments" are specific sets of antecedent conditions.
• A psychology experiment is a controlled procedure with at least two different treatment conditions applied to subjects. Their behaviors are measured and compared to test a hypothesis about how treatment affects behavior.
• The value of a psychology experiment is the ability to infer a cause-and-effect relationship between antecedent conditions and subjects' behaviors.
• A cause-and-effect relationship is where the behavior is directly influenced by the measured antecedent.
• Experiments establish a temporal relationship, where behavior is assessed after treatment.
• Necessary conditions must be present for an event to occur, such as fuel being necessary for a car to run.
• Sufficient conditions guarantee the occurrence of an event, but other conditions could also cause the same outcome. For example, reducing fat intake is one way to lose weight, but it is not essential.