Concept ReviewResearch in Psych, 7e: Study Guide, Chapter 11-1
After you finish reading and studying each main section of the chapter, answer the following questions to test your comprehension.
- Why Take This Course?
- Why is the methods course believed to provide a “foundation” for other psychology courses? Hint: process vs. content.
- Why will a research methods course help (a) the student hoping to go to graduate school in psychology, and (b) the student planning to work right after college?
- Ways of Knowing
- As a way of arriving at truth, what are the advantages and disadvantages with Peirce’s method of authority?
- As a way of arriving at truth, what are the advantages and disadvantages with Peirce’s a priori method?
- There is some truth in the saying that experience is the best teacher, but what are some the problems with this old adage? Hint: think of two social cognition biases.
- How might a belief in UFOs illustrate the social cognition biases of belief perseverance, confirmation bias, and the availability heuristic?
- Scientists sometimes cling to theories obstinately. In what sense can this be a good thing?
- Science as a Way of Knowing
- How do research psychologists use the term determinism?
- How do scientific observations differ from everyday observations?
- How does the modern view of objectivity differ from Peirce’s view of the concept?
- How does objectivity relate to replication and why was objectivity a problem for early introspective psychologists? Hint: think of the quotes in Box 1.1.
- How does Sir Francis Galton illustrate the tendency for researchers to be data-driven?
- The general public often seems frustrated with science, especially when it seems that one result is reported on Monday and the opposite result from a different study appears on Tuesday. Explain how this frustration reflects a misunderstanding of the nature of scientific inquiry and scientific thinking.
- Why isn’t this an empirical question? “Are people basically good or evil?” Create an empirical question that would relate to the issue of good and bad behavior.
- What is the difference between a hypothesis and a theory?
- What is meant by the concept of falsification?
- What are the features of scientific thinking that go into making someone a “skeptical optimist?”
- Psychological Science and Pseudoscience
- What is the point of the Harris cartoon on page -?
- Consider phrenology and graphology. How has each been associated with legitimate science?
- What is the problem with using anecdotal data to draw firm conclusions?
- How did phrenologists get around the problem that not all killers had bumps in their “destructiveness” area? What’s wrong with this strategy?
- In what way does graphology illustrate the fourth and final attribute of pseudoscientific thinking (complexity reduced to simplicity)?
- The Goals of Research in Psychology
- Describe the four main goals of scientific psychology.
- A Passion for Research in Psychology (Part I)
- What does the work of Eleanor Gibson and B. F. Skinner have in common?
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