Psychology as a Science

• Empiricism


  Factual knowledge can only come from our experiences with the world
• Emperical Method


  Collecting data from direct experience / observation
• Objectivity


  Collected and interpreted in ways to avoid bias, not influenced by opinions and expectations

  • Systematic data collection
  • Double-blind
  • Peer review
• Control


  Reducing EVs to demonstrate a cause and effect relationship
• Replicability


  Recording methods with stanardised procedure so others can repeat
• Falsifiability


  Collecting supporting eveidence for a theory through emperical testing
• Paradigm Shift


  Scientific fields develop in a series of "Scientific Revolutions", sharing a set of established assumptions

  • Enough evidence for a new paradigm creates a shift from the old assumption