Psychology 1000 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Confounding, External Variable, Social Desirability Bias

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Laura Fazakas

Document Summary

Initial observation/question identify question of interest: form hypothesis. Theory set of formal statements that explain how &why certain events are related to one another: new hypothesis derived from theory. Theory used to develop new hypotheses, which are then tested by conducting additional research &gathering evidence. Hindsight understanding arrive at explanations after-the-fact: major limitation is due to various explanations for behavior with no sure way to determine correct alternative. Theory development is the strongest test of scientific understanding, because good theories generate an integrated network of predictions. Incorporate existing facts &observations w/in single broad framework. Testable, generating new hypotheses whose accuracy can be evaluated by gathering new evidence. Conforms to law of parsimony if 2 theories can explain &predict the same phenomena equally well, the simpler is preferred o o. Theory never regarded as absolute truth, as future observation can contradict it. Certain variable can cause problems due to different meanings in different cases.