Oh class and welcome to psych 74 research methods in psychology and the behavioral sciences this is our first lecture for week 1 and it's entitled ways of knowing in this lecture we're going to be reviewing the various ways in which people know something to be true and we're going to be comparing and contrasting those ways with what is implemented in research methods in psychology and behavioral sciences in general so the goals of science make it different from other human activities these goals include the description and discovery of regularities but the main goal is developing a theory to explain facts and laws science may be considered a problem-solving activity experimental psychology as a science is essentially like any other between psychology biology chemistry or anthropology there are considerable differences in subject matter but the essentials are common to all on the one hand these differences are fairly obvious but the similarities might not be as easy to grasp for this reason today we're going to be discussing how science and general addresses problem solving first though we should put psychology in context by talking about the various ways of looking at behavior so when we're talking about behavior one thing is clear that there is more than one way to learn about behavior whether we're talking about human or even animal behavior every day all of us use several methods to learn about behavior we can divide these methods into two broad categories empirical methods and non empirical methods empirical simply means based on experience whereas non-empirical is not based on experience so when discussing non empirical methods as a starting point we can consider two types a thority and logic so what is Authority essentially when we discuss Authority in the context of ways of knowing we are talking about believing something because someone respected or revered told us it is true or not true religious authorities proclaim the will of God to us about various matters the government tells us that we shouldn't drive faster than 65 miles per hour on the freeway because these authorities often disagree among themselves we're inclined to reject Authority as a way of knowing however we will discuss one caveat to that statement a little bit later in this lecture Authority has major limitations as a way of knowing and that's because authorities are often wrong even when they assert their beliefs most forcefully that being said if you didn't have any faith in authority you probably wouldn't be taking a research methods course or going to college in the first place logic is an important way of helping us know about behavior take the following statements for example the behavior of all animals is subject to the laws of Natural Science humans are animals therefore human behavior is subject to the laws of Natural Science now these statements are clearly logical we're essentially saying that the first two are true then the third follows logically and truly the use of logic is often critical in drawing correct conclusions about the world yet as important as reasoning and logic is logic has its limitations as a way of knowing logic can tell you that a statement is false because it draws an improper conclusion a statement can be logically valid but still not be true because it assumes something to not there to be the case that is not actually the case an example of this might be if it rains the Dodgers won't play today then if you look out the window and you see it's raining it would be valid for you to say it's raining and there will be no baseball game today but in reality the truth of the statement depends on the fact that it's raining and if in fact it's not raining the statement is false if it's an away game and the Dodgers are playing in a city where it's sunny even if it's raining in Los Angeles it's also inaccurate so that is to say that it may be logically true but factually false now logic is really important to science I don't want you all to get it the wrong way but it cannot be a substitute for making the observation that it's raining or proving that the next time the Dodgers play the weather will be sunny this is another way of saying that there is no subject or no alternative for empirical evidence which brings us to empirical ways of knowing so just like we divided ways of knowing into empirical and not empirical on the way on the basis of whether they depended on experience we can divide the empirical methods into two categories intuitive and scientific intuition is a way of knowing based on spontaneous or instinctive processes rather than logical reasonable think about it we size up strangers within the first few seconds of meeting them intuition has a powerful effect on our beliefs about other people we may distrust a person who seems too sincere to be true or inauthentic in some way if someone gives us bad vibes versus good vibes we would judge them based on that as well we use intuition continuously in making the vast amount of decisions necessary during the course of the day common sense is a kind of intuition because of its dependence on informal methods it has the additional characteristic of emphasis the agreement of a person's judgment with the shared attitudes and experiences of a larger group of people common sense as a way of knowing has two basic limitations first standards of common sense differ from time to time and from place to place according to the attitudes and experiences of culture second common sense is as a way of knowing lies in the fact that the only criteria common sense recognizes for judging the truth of a belief or practice is whether it works so if common sense says a causes B whenever a happens and eventually B happens this would be enough information now a and B very well might be linked in some way but this doesn't tell us how they might be linked or prove that they are indeed linked given that common sense has these two basic limitations we may speak of scientific results as being counterintuitive that is it goes against our notions of common sense at times to attempt to define science we often refer to the scientific method but in reality there are multiple scientific methods for the purpose of this course we'll begin by addressing the most common and most basic steps of the scientific method as it's often presented the scientific method has four broad sweeping steps first observing and defining the problem second forming a hypothesis third collecting data from the relevant population and fourth drawing conclusions after an analysis now this recipe is usable but it is greatly simplified the more we discuss this the more you will see the need to modify by this and add details that will grow more apparent so likely a better starting point for discussing science is by looking at the characteristics of science so what are these characteristics well the first one is that science is empirical the scientific attitude is to rely on experience more than Authority common sense or even logic at times although empiricism is an essential characteristic of science it is important to note that not all empirical ways of knowing are scientific the second characteristic is that science is objective the most important characteristic of science is that it is a way of obtaining knowledge based on objective observations the key word in this is objective objective observations are those made in such a way that any person having normal perception and being in the same place at the same time would arrive at the same observation objectivity in science is a concept that's often misunderstood it does not mean that scientists are coldly detached from their subject matter it does mean that they treat people it also does not mean that they treat people as objects rather than persons objectivity does mean that other people would have seen the same things had they been looking over the shoulder of the scientist who made the initial observation it's about consistency and uniformity of observations across observers and the pursuit of a true and honest answer to a question the third characteristic is that science is self-correcting because science is an empirical enterprise it follows that new evidence is constantly being discovered that contradicts previous knowledge science is characterized by a willingness to let new evidence contradict previous beliefs this makes science different perhaps every other human enterprise imagine a politician or a religious leader saying I was wrong based on this evidence now that happens but it's rare science is characterized by a commitment to change based on empirical evidence this means that science is inherently progressive and when we say progressive we're not saying that in the political sense necessarily but whereas other areas of human activity may change with time it's hard to consistently argue that that change equates to progress with science it's driven by tested knowledge therefore it progresses with the amount of knowledge that fulfills or that fills in information gaps and because our knowledge progresses with more information science is also therefore tentative science never claims to have the whole truth on any question because new information makes current knowledge obsolete all the time because of the progressive nature of science however we can be reasonably confident that we're increasingly approaching the truth rather than changing our ideas according to what's popular on a whim now that's not to say that we're again and again inaccurate per se it's more to say that as time goes on we get more and more accurate with time the principle of parsimony holds that we should use the simplest explanation possible to account for a given phenomena a good scientist will always prefer a simpler explanation to a complex one all things being equal that is and that's not to say that there aren't complex explanations to certain phenomena but it is to say that when seeking out an explanation the simplest answer usually is the most accurate because you're limiting the amount of confounding variables from interfering in your conclusion science is also concerned with theory and that's what this all points in the direction of the theory is the development of how something works or how something came to be or how a behavior functions now there are a lot of similarities and differences between science and other ways of knowing however when we look at what really makes science significantly different than other non-scientific ways of knowing we see that Authority has a reduced role any people who follow scientific methodology be them a student with no degree or a professor with an advanced degree can contribute equally to scientific knowledge this knowledge can change accepted conventions and can impact and redirect the course of understanding of the topic of inquiry now it's true that an illustrious scientist paper might garner more attention there have been numerous examples of student papers and research projects leading the way in scientific communities to not only change paradigms but to encourage further study in a subject area most scientists agree that one of science the sciences fundamental assumptions is the reality of the world philosophers call this assumption the doctrine of realism the notion that the objects of scientific study in the world exist apart from their being perceived by us we assume that there is a unified reality with which we all live and that there is a truth out there that can be discovered another critical assumption of science is rationality that the world is understandable by way of logical thinking if the world were irrational it could not be understood and there would be no point in trying to understand it at all now this may seem like a bit of a contradiction because we just got through saying that logical thinking in and of itself isn't scientific however it's important to understand that logic is integrally used by science it is a format for a way of knowing but in and of itself logic is not enough now the reality and rationality of the world would not be much too much use to science without the assumption of regularity this means that we assume the world follows the same laws at all times and on and all places now it's true that despite our quest for parsimony some answers to questions may be complex but science assumes that nothing about human behavior falls outside the laws of nature wherever or however that behavior occurs now not only do scientists assume that the world is real rational and regular but they also believe that it's possible to find out how it works the belief in the discoverability of an answer to questions about behavior is the difference between a puzzle and a mystery a puzzle can be solved by a person using ordinary means science treats each question as a puzzle to be solved in a systematic way the belief in discoverability is one of the characteristics of science that motivates people to make the effort nest is necessary to carry on experimental work for large portions of their lifetime the idea that the question is a puzzle and that the puzzle can be solved to it do science or to engage in science it is necessary to assume that events do not just happen by themselves for no reason thus the idea that every event has a cause is a basic tenet of science in fact some have identified science as a search for causes of events the belief that all events are caused by antecedents is called determinism a strict determinist holds that if it were possible to know all of the laws of behavior at all the exact conditions of the persons together with everything that was influencing them at a particular time it would be possible to predict exactly what they would do next but whether one is hardcore with this belief or not determinism holds that behavior can be predicted and largely understood scientifically so we also look at discovering laws and in research psychology a law and in science a law is simply a statement that certain events are regularly associated so when we search for causes to certain behaviors we have key questions what do the cases have in common how do the cases differ from some similar cases and does the magnitude of the effect that we're seeing vary with the magnitude of some other event what we're trying to get at there is is there just a relationship between a and B or is there some sort of intervening event that's either affecting whether the relationship exists at all between a and B or the magnitude or direction of the relationship between a and B so some things to keep in mind in our search we often overlook the real cause of a behavior sometimes were redirected by our own biases or our own incomplete hypotheses some events are just coincidences while we may feel very strongly that two events are related in some way sometimes they just co-occur remember correlation is not causation sometimes the real cause is another event that's correlated with the suspected cause so one thing to keep in mind is something that you might be familiar with from your statistics classes the relationship between ice cream sales and the murder so for those of you who aren't familiar with that the as ice cream sales go up in this country so does the murder rate this is a correlation so does that mean that ice cream causes people to fly into murderous rages know what the intervening variable here is is heat ice cream sales go up as the weather gets warmer and as the weather gets warmer people get more irritable and aggressive which increases the likelihood that they'll engage in aggressive acts so that's something keep in mind when we're looking at correlation it's easy for us to fall into the trap that when two events co-occur we assume causality when in fact there may be no causality at all and speaking of causes it's important to keep in mind what seems like a simple statement but trips up a lot of people causes cannot happen after their effects there is a cause and then there is an effect not the other way around and sometimes when people see the relationship between variables they're more fixated on that fact that the relationship exists than the direction of the relationship so we talked a lot about science driving theory what is a theory a theory is a statement or a set of statements about relationships among variables that includes at least one concept that is not directly observed but that is necessary to explain the relationships now in order for a theory to be scientific it must be falsifiable one example are Freudian theories which get a lot of flack in the research community and the reason why is you can always attribute a behavior to an unconscious or non conscious motivation which makes it impossible to study and always seems to confirm the Theory's validity by saying it's unconscious or non conscious now one thing that's important to know is that's not the only way to study psychodynamic theory but it is important to say that when conceptualizing a theory you must have a strategy for seeing how that theory could be falsified in order to test it otherwise you can't support it theories play three crucial roles in the development of science they organize knowledge and they explain laws they predict new laws and they guide research a hypothesis is a statement that is assumed to be true for the purpose of testing its validity it can be put into the form of an if-then statement if a is true then B should follow a scientific hypothesis must be capable of empirical testing and as a result empirical confirmation or dis confirmation so when we look at defining theoretical concepts we also need to look at operational ISM now operational ISM which is associated with physicist percy Bridgman states that scientific concepts must be public in the same way that scientific data are public according to Bridgman a theoretical concept must be tied to observable operations that any person can observe or perform if a concept cannot be tied to particular operations than it's not a scientific concept take the concept of the will of God if we say that everything happened that happens is the will of God then the concept is without operational meaning if it should rain tomorrow we might say the rain was God's will then again if it should not rain tomorrow we likewise conclude that it's not raining was God's will we have no way to define which future events would be according to God's will and which would not few people would say God's will is a scientific concept as such now operational ISM then strictly limits the kinds of concepts with which science can deal if there is no way to defining the concept according to observable operations the concept has to be barred from science because we can't study it it's not to say that there isn't a new way down the road of studying it and making it scientific it's just to say that based on our current knowledge and understanding we can't make it scientific now we also have operational definitions and when we're looking to study something an operational definition is a is to state a procedure or operation that specifies the meaning of a concept your operationalizing what you're trying to study using different ways of honing in on a concept the different operational definitions is called convergent operations another thing to keep in mind is that certain concepts become not only common knowledge but widely accepted and a paradigm is an example of this it's a pervasive way of thinking about a branch of science that includes all assumptions and theories that are accepted by a group of scientists now this is not to say that paradigms are static paradigms do shift and one popular example of this is within the experimental psychology community that has focused on clinical psychology interventions for years cognitive behavioral therapy has been sitting considered the gold standard of empirically supported psycho therapies today since there have been new studies that have come up the pike in particular the dodo bird article as it's called by Jonathan Shetler we have found that when comparing CBT cognitive behavioral therapy versus other types of psychotherapy or modalities there are just as many benefits that have been found to these varying psychotherapeutic interventions mainly because instead of the most powerful vehicle for change in therapy being the way the therapy has been modeled to take place or the agent of change within therapy it has been in actuality according to more recent research based on the therapeutic relationship that is to say that these various forms of therapy that when held constant are not as significant as the quality of the relationship between therapist and client this was a very powerful and paradigm-shifting discovery another example is the idea of eyewitness testimony Oh Elizabeth Loftus a famous forensic psychologist had debunked some of the previous schools of thought around eyewitness testimony being consistent and reliable in her research on false memories that receiving information after the fact can pollute one's recall of an event and actually create false memories in the eyewitness that had never actually occurred both of these studies represented dramatic paradigm shifts within experimental clinical and forensic psychology well that's it for this week's lecture I'll look forward to chatting with you online to seeing your responses to discussion posts and to interacting with you should you have any questions please be aware of not only the comments of your peers and engage in discussions as discussions are the disguise and questions are not only required but your responses and replies to peers are part of your participation grade and please let me know if there are any questions or concerns about the course as you move through take care