PSYC 3140 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Statistical Inference, Stratified Sampling, Social Cognition

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3140
• Professor: Peter Papadogiannis

Document Summary

Provides foundation to other psychology courses; since the research method teaches the process of acquiring knowledge in other course the content. Critical thinking in terms of evaluating claims and drawing conclusions based on evidence; analyzing the data and presenting in clear fashion and not to take things at face value. 1) authority figures: we accept the validity of information from a source we judge to be expert (parents, md"s, profs, coaches, etc) 2) logic: use of reason; we sometimes arrive at the conclusion by using logic and reason: primates are capable of using language, george the monkey is a primate. = george is capable of using language: *conclusion depends not only on logic. Empirical studies: manipulating variable in a controlled fashion to observe their impact on other variable. The beauty of science is its objectivity (charles peirce: the data are what the data are! Data base driven; independent from opinion; no bias.