PSYC 203 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Experimental Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Graphology
24 Mar 2018
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Why take this course: foundation for understanding other psychology courses, which are based on research, become a critical consumer of scientific information, essential for graduate school. Ways of knowing: authority, use of reason, direct experience. Must be careful not to base logical reasoning on false premises. Empiricism - the process of learning things through direct observation or experience. But must be careful to avoid relying just on direct experience. Our interpretations of our experiences can be influenced by social cognition biases. Science as a way of knowing: science assumes determinism and discoverability. Determinism: the fact that every event is caused by something. We cannot predict anything for certain but we can use past behaviour in situations to predict future actions. A system of logic for drawing conclusions and fitting those conclusions in to general theories. Eliminating human factors (expectations and bias) objectivity criterion: science produces public knowledge, science produces data based conclusions.
