PPE 3003 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Pessimism, Operational Definition, Falsifiability
25 May 2017
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Document Summary
Persona: a theatrical mask worn by roman actors in greek dramas. Personality: a pattern of relatively permanent traits and characteristics that give both consistency and individuality to a person"s behavior. Characteristics: unique qualities of an individual that include such attributes as temperament, physique, and intelligence. Theories are not the same as philosophy, or speculation, or hypotheses, or taxonomy. What makes a theory useful: generates research: a theory must be able to stimulate and guide further research. Descriptive research: can expand an existing theory. It is concerned with the measurement, labeling, and categorization of the units employed in theory building. The more useful the theory, the more research generates, the more research, the more complete the theory. Hypothesis testing: leads to an indirect verification of the usefulness of the theory. When these hypotheses are tested, they can add a database that may reshape and enlarge the theory: is falsifiable: a theory must have the ability to be confirmed or disconfirmed.
