Psychology 2320A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Positron Emission Tomography, New Approach, Magnetic Resonance Imaging

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2320A/B
• Professor: Elizabeth Hayden

Document Summary

Good research tests specific hypotheses based on theory (accumulation of facts; explains experiments) Hypothesis: prediction about relationship between constructs (i. e. , abstractions that must be operationalized for research) [cannot prove hypothesis, can only reject/fail to reject(support)] Can"t be proven, only supported (or not) by data. Can (and should) test in many different ways. Once you"ve operationalized your constructs (and received ethics approval), you next: Collect data (i. e. , scores on the constructs of interest) Yields probability that results due to chance (p < . 05 is convention) Can"t be used to argue that variables are unrelated: usually, correlational designs (rather than strictly experimental) are used (often unethical to manipulate certain variables that we think are causal; cannot randomly assign people to stress, or other factors) Early exposure to abusive parenting and adult antisocial behaviour: often these things are associated with other things so it is difficult to confirm a direct relationship/conclusion about causality. Measure two variables and estimate their degree of relationship.