PSYCO105 Lecture 2: Research Methods
13 Jan 2019
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Psyco 105: individual and social behaviour (january 9th, 2019): lecture 2. Things that outside observers can see and agree on. Science of psychology observes, describes and attempts to explain behaviour and the mind. Because psychology studies things that are not tangible, it is often hard to carry out experiments. Lessons about research- using clever han as an example. Background: clever han was a special horse, widely believed to be educated" by its owner. He could answer simple questions about different subjects, in languages not primarily taught to him. Many scientists believed that horses could learn, until one researcher figured out that. Clever hans could pick up minute visual clues from the audience and the researchers, to correctly answer the question. Lesson 1: be sceptic: observe carefully and come up with alternate explanations, like the researcher who doubted clever hans ability to learn, besides scepticism, critical thinking and knowledge is also important.
