- Reasons for scientifically studying psychology
Psychology covers the science of both the behavior of human and nonhuman entities. Because science is a systematized body of knowledge it adds fulfilment to the humanity as it operates in the context of observation thereby leading to a deeper understanding of how a system works.
- Falsifiability
Falsifiability is that property that a hypothesis, a theory or a law may be proven wrong or false. Thus, most scientists expressed their data in confidence interval such as 99.99% certainty about some correlations because there is still a 0.01% that scientist may be wrong with such correlation.
- Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is defined as the propensity of a researcher to interpret results that favors such initial hypothesis regardless of the truth value of the information. The researcher selectively chooses results that would coincide to his hypothesis thereby resulting to statistical errors.
- Science as publicly verifiable
Science as a publicly verifiable knowledge indicates that the findings are openly shown to the scientific community for peer-review and also extended to other community for policy making and other purposes. Scientific knowledge should not only be limited to the mind of an individual but rather it is meant to be shared for scrutiny.
- Ways of acquiring knowledge
There are four methods in which one can acquire knowledge. These methods include the use of authority, tenacity, experience and the scientific method. Trusted source are used in methods of authority while tenacity adheres to information that has always been known. Experience involves the use our own senses in processing information while the scientific method includes a series of processes such as collection and analysis of a data based on a formulated hypothesis that is being tested.
- Theory
A theory in the context of science is a summary of hypotheses based on repeated testing. Enough evidence is required for a theory to become accepted as a valid generalization of a particular event.
- Hypothesis
A hypothesis is an educated guess that proposes an explanation for the occurrence of a particular event. In the scientific community a hypothesis is only valid when it could be tested.
- Essentialism
Essentialism puts emphasis on the special attributes of a particular entity that are only specific to that entity that defines such identity and function. Thus, a word or a scientific concept should have a singular meaning.
- Operationalism
Operationalism is the idea that one does not know the meaning of a concept unless it is empirically tested. Concepts are defined as a set of operations.
- Scientific explanations as temporary
Scientific explanations are considered as temporary because the hypotheses that are formed or the inferences that are form relate to a spatio-temporal setting that is continuously occurring. Causality should not be considered as the final state in an event that continuously progress and affected by other factors.
- Why we don’t say “prove” in science
Proof is a logical exercise that cannot be equated to truth which is the foundation of being right or wrong because inferences in proving are only based on available evidences. Prove is not a scientific idea because the inferences are not based on a series of observations.
- Junk science vs. Pseudoscience
Junk science involves erroneous scientific data and analysis for political gains and other agenda such as some of those researches related to climate change. Pseudoscience is literally defined as false science because it uses evidences that do not adhere to valid scientific methods.
- Testimonials
Testimonials are statements that are very common in advertisements when validating the effectiveness of a product that was tested to an individual. It is categorized under pseudoscience because it does not contain scientific and are often made with the purpose of convincing other people to try a particularly endorsed product.
- Meaning of the sign and the absolute value in a correlation coefficient
The sign in the correlation coefficient indicates whether the correlation is inverse or direct. The absolute value in a correlation determines the strength of the relationship between two variables. The correlation is stronger when the absolute value is close to the absolute value of 1.
- Inverse versus direct correlation
A direct correlation is also known as a positive correlation where the two different variables increase or decrease together as it moves along a gradient. An inverse correlation on the other hand is also known as a negative correlation where one variable decreases while the other one increases as it moves along a gradient and vice versa.
- Reasons why we can’t infer causation from a correlation
A correlation can only be observed when there is an established causality. A correlation could only be established when the effects are very obvious and the causality cannot be challenged. Thus, one cannot simply claim that a certain chemical for instance is the only cause of environmental pollution because there are other confounding variables that should also not be discounted when establishing a correlation.
- Random assignment
Random assignment is a process in which the researchers assign the sample selected from a draw to different groups of treatment. For instance, after conducting a random sampling of 20 individuals and above to determine the effect of a particular treatment such as acupuncture, the researcher then decides to subject half of the total samples into getting an additional treatment while the rest of the sample is labelled as a control group.
- Confounded experiment
A confounded experiment involves variables that cannot be controlled or manipulated that vary along with independent variables that is being tested. Thus, when conducting an experiment, it is often difficult to infer if the variation within a dependent variable is attributable to the independent variable that is being tested or to the confounding variable.
