PSY 2012 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Tabula Rasa, Jean Piaget
Document Summary
Psychology is compromised of several areas of specialization: In order to gain information about behavior, psychologists conduct research using the scienti c method: observation. 2: drawing conclusions (support/refute the hypothesis, developing a theory. If accepted, becomes part of one theory (theory 1) If accepted, becomes part of opposing theory (theory 2) Basing all of our research on observable behavior and inferring what the covert might be from that research. The hypothesis is your strong belief based upon your observations. Case study: type of experiment where they look at someone at great depth (random sample: represents population. A hypothesis is speci c and concrete: test hypothesis, do not change, just support/refute. A theory is global and abstract: do not test theory directly, contains many hypotheses, test those the scienti c process is continuous, unidirectional, and circular. Three areas of development: social, cognitive: how we think/process information, moral. John locke: believed you were born with a blank slate.
