FEATURES OF SCIENCE

• What is a paradigm?

  A shared set of assumptions and method
• what is a paradigm shift?

  when members of a scientific community change from one established paradigm to another due to new or contradictory evidence
• why is psychology a pre science?

  Argued by Kuhn. it doesn’t have a shared set of assumptions, everyone argues different things
• what is a theory?

  set of laws that can explain particular events or behaviour
• what is meant by induction?

  start by observing events or behaviours and looking for patterns, based on this they create a hypothesis
• what is meant by deduction?

  deriving a new hypothesis from an existing theory
• what does it mean if something is falsifiable?

  must be possible to prove it wrong
• who argued falsifiability was a key criteria?

  Popper
• why can scientific theories never be proven?

  because it has not been proven wrong yet
• what are pseudosciences?

  practices that claim to be scientific but can’t be falsified
• what does it mean is a research method is replicable?

  the results can be tested for reliability
• why is it important that research is replicable?

  to see if they are reliable, if not then the study lacks validity
• what is objectivity?

  not allowing personal opinions to influence the behaviour of participants, reducing bias in results
• what methods are the most objective?

  highly controlled studies such as lab experiments
• what does it mean if research is empirical?

  it is based on direct observation and experience
• which methods are the most empirical?

  experiments and observations
• what does empiricism mean?

  experience