PSYC 3140 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Personal Distress, Mania, Phenotype
Document Summary
Recap: personal distress, statistical rarity, dysfunction - impairment, danger to self or others, deviance - break /violation of cultural norms. Science is limited by: a) the current state of knowledge b) remaining objective when studying abnormal behaviour. So its a basic way of shaping the way you think. A paradigm is a set of basic assumptions that outline the particular universe of scientific inquiry. Scientists whose research is based on shared paradigms are committed to the same rules and standards for scientific practice. Vital function of defining what rules are allowed to be followed. Paradigms are vital, they help you define the rules and assumptions - the price you may pay. You are losing information anytime you take on a model/ paradigm. A paradigm injects inevitable biases into the definition and collection of data and may also affect the interpretation of facts. The meaning or importance given to data may depend to a considerable extent on a paradigm.