PS101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: The Control Group, Dependent And Independent Variables, Naturalistic Observation
Document Summary
Psychologists and other scientists share three sets of interrelated goals: measurement and description: science"s commitment to observation requires that an investigator figure out a way to measure the phenomenon under study. To evaluate their understanding, scientists make and test predictions called hypotheses. A hypothesis is a tentative statement about the relationship between two or more variables. Once people understand a phenomenon, they often can exert more control over it. To build toward a better understanding of behaviour, they construct theories. A theory is a system of interrelated ideas used to explain a set of observations. By integrating apparently unrelated facts and principles into a coherent whole, theories permit psychologists to make the leap from the description of behaviour to the understanding of the behaviour. In a typical study, investigators test one or two specific hypotheses derived from a theory. If their findings support the hypotheses, confidence in the theory that the hypotheses were derived from grows.
