PSY 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Ad Hoc Hypothesis, Falsifiability, Spiritualism
21 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
Research is important to all psychology including clinical psychology. The scientific study of the mind, brain, and behaviour. Five main challenges: human behaviour is difficult to predict, actions are multiply determined, psychological influences are rarely independent, individual differences among people, people influence one another, reciprocal determinism, behaviour is shaped by culture, emic vs. etic approaches. Consider: the earth seems flat, we seem to be standing still but the earth is rotating around the sun 30 km/sec. Science is not a body of knowledge (i. e. chemistry or physics) A theory: explains just one event, is just an educated guess. An explanation for a large number of findings in the: tendency to seek evidence that supports our hypothesis, neglecting or distorting contradicting evidence. Tendency to stick to our initial beliefs even. Metaphysical claims: assertions about the world that are not testable. Set of claims that seem scientific but lack defenses from bias.
