PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE AND SOCIETY

evidence can make a claim - anecdotal but it does not account for all experiences

After you finish this module, you will be able to:

  • Explain how science is relevant to everyday life.

  • Identify the major elements of a scientific study from its abstract.

  • Apply the steps of the scientific method.

  • Distinguish between basic and applied research.

  • Explain how scientific knowledge progresses.

  • Identify the characteristics of scientific practices.

  • Distinguish pseudoscientific claims from scientific findings.

How science is relevant to everyday life + Major elements of scientific study

Science relevance- impacts personal decisions or schools, employers, and communities decisions (along with education, healthcare, commerce, studies)

Science impacts not only personal decisions, but also decisions made by the healthcare, educational, and trading systems that people interact with in day to day life.

Abstract - nearly every scientific research article contains it

Sections of abstracts:

  • Background - authors describe why the conducted the study (goal, objective, justification)

  • Methods - how the study was conducted (pop studied, sample method, stats)

    • review art - how articles were selected

  • Results - what was found from study (description not a interpretation)

  • Conclusion - describe results and how findings would be relevant to society or the theory they tested

Research Skills for Scientific Method

Research - process of collecting info to answer a question

  • Critical thinking - heart of all skills listed below, identifies good questions, examines info from question, design a study for hypothesis. EXAMINES weaknesses and strengths of your study

    • consider whether there are alternate explanations that explain the study

  • Data tracking - develop a systematic way to store, organize, and retrieve data

  • Preparation and delivery of presentations - tailor presentation to needs of audience

  • Problem solving - account for problems that arise during research

  • Data analysis -stats based on data (mean, median, mode) t-test for more complex

  • Application of ethics - no harm, consult others to make sure of

  • Location, organizing, evaluating, info from various sources

  • Report writing - intro, methods, results, conclusion - clearly and succinctly communicate

  • Teamwork

Everyday ex. of research methods knowledge and skills

  • assessment of situations -objectively observe and record situations events, document reasonable causes and decisions to address situations

    • complaints sent to transportation dept, head of dept

  • evidence-based decision making -locating, critically, reviewing, and synthesizing evidence in scholarly journals - knowledge study designs (descriptive, correlational, experimental) and the claims for results of each

    • A toy manufacturer wants to apply concepts related to physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development to determine the age ranges appropriate for new games it is developing. 

  • Evaluation of outcomes -how to get permission to conduct a study, recruit participants, what and how to measure.

    • hospital admin asks if family of patients are less anxious with a sort of invention

Scientific Method

  1. Observe a Phenomenon

  2. Ask a question - what is causing it’s occurrence

  3. Review the Literature - what is already know about the study

  4. Form a hypothesis - testable prediction

  5. test hypothesis - what research design best fits the study

  6. analyze the data - what does the data show

  7. draw conclusion - what’s concluded and how should the finding’s be shared - researcher propose a revision to an established theory

  8. revise theory

Applied research - designed to address problems “how can we use this knowledge to help solve problems

  • built on finding from basic research

    • uses that knowledge to develop and asses treatment plans for the disease.

  • partial problem - generate a solution for society to use

Basic research - is designed to gain to a better understanding with “why or how does this work“

  • how cells respond to diet, exercise. Certain rewards increase behaviors

Basic Research

Applied Research

Aims to expand knowledge

Aims to solve real-world problems

Driven by curiosity and theory

Driven by practical needs

Not immediately useful for application

Directly useful for application

Example: Understanding how stress affects the brain

Example: Creating stress-management programs for workplaces

Characteristics of Science

deterministic - phenomena are caused by natural cause, can be discovered and explain. Believed information that is from the natural world

empirical - science is measurable, objective, reproducible evidence and not pure reason, emotion, or subjective experiences

testable and falsifiable - theory or hypothesis is not scientific unless it can be tested and shown to be false

provisional - a scientific theory is always open for revision based on new evidence. current theories are not always correct, good to know how much evidence there is for a theory

public -public good that benefits societies

value claims - describe the value from a variable (freq or amount)

association claims (correlations)

  • identify relationships from measured variable

  • make predicitons from one vari to another

    • strength of relationships lead to degree of confidence in prediction

causal claims - isolate the effect of one variable

  •    manipulated

Characteristics of Pseudoscience

  • claims based on consensus often guided by the collective “full moon - strange behavior = opinion not research”

  • anecdotal evidence - astrology is based off personal anecdotes not scientific data

  • claims not open to falsification - claim cannot be proven wrong = cannot be tested - freud’s claim about the unconscious cannot be proven right or wrong as unconscious beings are unaware

  • attempts to prove something to be true -conversion thearpy

  • lacks openness - if past studies, evidence, or methods are not public’

Summary

Abstract: Short summary of a research study typically found at the beginning of a journal article.

Applied research: Research designed to solve a practical problem.

Basic research: Research designed to expand the body of knowledge on a topic.

Deterministic: All natural, social, and psychological phenomena are causally determined by preceding events or natural laws.

Empirical: Science is based on objective, reproducible evidence and not on pure reason, emotion, or subjective experiences.

Falsifiable: A theory or hypothesis is not scientific unless it can be proven false.

Hypothesis: A specific, testable prediction.

Literature review: The process of investigating existing research related to a topic of interest.

Provisional: All scientific knowledge is open to further testing and revision.

Pseudoscience: Non-scientific claims that may sound scientific, but fail to meet key criteria of scientific research.

Research: The process of collecting information to answer a specific question using the scientific method. 

Scientific method: The process of observing a phenomenon, asking a question, determining what is already known about that question, constructing a hypothesis, collecting data, analyzing data, interpreting data and reporting results, then revising a theory and circling back to ask a new question or create a new hypothesis. 

Theory: A related group of empirical findings that help explain a specific phenomenon.