Features of science

• Empiricism is the belief that factual knowledge can only come from experience with the world , this means factual knowledge does not come from speculation or logical argument
• Empirical method is the process of collecting data from direct observation or experience in psychological research this includes observation but also experimentation, self report , case studies and content analysis
• Objectivity

  Data should be collected and interpreted in a way that avoids bias meaning data is not influenced by the researchers opinions or expectations. Research that is affected by bias produces subjective conclusions
• Improving objectivity

  Systematic data collection - data collected in research is gathered in a way that is carefully planned out and consistent for each participant . The data collection measure like questionnaire questions or experimental procedures should be carefully designed or the researcher should use established questions or tests
• Double blind technique can be used by the researcher that does not know the research aims to collect the data
• Peer review identifies biased research such as researchers making conclusions that are not supported by the data and stop it from being published.

  If scientist don't collect their findings objectively there is no way of knowing if the data is a true reflection of the world (valid) or what they have measured if a result of their own bias (invalid )
• Control

  In a experiment we assume the change measured in the DV is a result of the difference in the levels of the IV . But this may not be true if the experiment is not controlled resulting in extraneous variables

  Without sufficient control cause and effect relationships cannot be established
• Replicability

  Scientists are required to carefully record their methods and produce standardised procedures so that other scientists can repeat their experiments and observation
• Positive results could have been the result of fraud , an unknown variable in the participants or a feature of the experimental environment or the positive result could have happened by chance
• A replication by scientists using the same methods and finding the same results increases confidence in the validity of the original experiment as well as the validity of the theory the first experiment set out to test
• Falsifiability

  Karl Popper argued that the ability to collect supporting evidence for a theory is NOT enough for the theory to be genuinely scientific .

  For a theory to be scientific if needs to be constructed in a way that can be empirically tested this means the theory can be tested in a way that demonstrates it is not true
• Freud's ideas of the ID, EGO , SUPEREGO are classified as unscientific because the way freud explains the concepts means they are not open to observation or empirical experimentation so they can't be falsified
• Paradigm shift

  Thomas Kuhn suggests scientific fields develop in a series of scientific revolutions known as paradigm shift

  Scientists within each scientific field share a set of established assumptions known as paradigms and scientists gather evidence to support these shared views however sometimes new contradictory evidence and theories are generated that don't fit into the old paradigm as most scientists are committed to the old paradigm the old way of thinking this conflicting evidence is initially rejected
• However eventually sufficient evidence to support the new paradigm is collected and at this point the majority of the scientific community feels they can no longer support the old paradigm and move at once to the new paradigm in a paradigm shift
• Early psychologists used introspection to develop theories of the mind, Freud used case studies, and Wundt used controlled scientific experimentation. This was a paradigm shift away from earlier religious and philosophical explanations that explained human behaviour as the result of concepts like "sin."
• The movement from psychoanalytic approaches to behaviourism is another paradigm shift. Researchers rejected the study of internal mental processes, seeing them as unscientific as they were not directly observable, and Behaviourists instead focused on fully observable stimulus-response mechanisms. The behaviourists used large-scale and highly controlled studies that provided strong evidence to support their theories.
• The next paradigm shift to cognitive neuroscience happened in the 1970s. Psychologists developed theories and techniques that included internal mental processes again. Highly controlled experiments back up these new theories along with scientific devices such as fMRI. FMRI scanners allow researchers to directly observe the functional brain, mapping mental processes onto brain regions
• Stages of scientific theory construction

  Observation - psychologist start by observing naturalistic behavior in the real world

  From this observation psychologist construct a testable hypothesis to allow the observed behavior to be tested under controlled conditions
• This produces data experimental data this is gained empirically using controlled conditions . If the data is significant using statistical test the researcher can claim there is a cause and effect relationships between the variables
• The researcher then constructs a theory that can explain the significant results gained in the experiment
• Top down

  Start with a established theory and develop a hypothesis that tests one of theories assumptions the result of this study can support the existing theory , add to the theory or even discredit the current view

  Hypothesis testing - the more a theory can with stand testing it's assumptions with hypothesis testing the greater confidence there should be in the validity of that scientific theory