THE CHARACTERISTICS

OF MODERN SCIENCE
MA. ANDREA C. DEL ROSARIO, RPm, RGC
THE SCIENTIFIC MENTALITY
  Faith in an organized universe is essential to science
 Behavior must follow a natural order; therefore, it
can be predicted.
 Also known as determinism.

ALFRED  The “heart” of scientific mentality

NORTH
WHITEHEAD
(1861-1947)
  Gather empirical data
 Seeking general principles
Characteristics  Good thinking
of Modern  Self-Correction
Science
 Publicizing results
 Replication
  Empirical Data: Data that are observable or
experienced and can be verified/disproved thru
investigation.
 Aristotle set about describing the order in the
GATHERING
universe in a systematic way (careful) by
EMPIRICAL gathering empirical data.
DATA:
 Heavy objects falling faster than lighter ones.
ARISTOTLE
 Galileo: putting the objects in a vacuum, both
objects fall at the same rate.
  Galileo Galilei investigated falling objects
 Under the proper testing conditions, light
GATHERING objects will fall just as fast as heavy ones
EMPIRICAL (testing in a vacuum)
DATA:
GALILEO
GALILEI (1564-
1642)
 SEEKING
GENERAL
PRINCIPLES Laws: Principles that have the
generality to apply to all
conditions.
LAW OF
EFFECT  Proposed by Edward Thorndike (1905)
 Responses that produce a satisfying effect in a particular
situation become more likely to occur again in that situation.
 Responses that produce a discomforting effect become less
likely to occur again in that situation.
  Theory: an interim explanation used to explain a phenomenon
 Pull together/unify diverse sets of scientific facts into an
organizing scheme that can be used to predict new examples of
behavior.

SEEKING
GENERATING
PRINCIPLE
  Arose from the work of John Bowlby and Mary
Ainsworth
 Ainsworth's work laid the foundation for understanding
the crucial role of early attachments in shaping a child's
emotional and social development.

ATTACHMENT
THEORY
  Can explain many but not all instances of a situation
or behavior
 The more a theory can explain, the better it is.
 Karl Popper: Science progresses only through
progressively better theories.
MORE ABOUT
THEORIES
The Difference Between a Scientific Law and Theory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyN2RhbhiEU
  Approach to collection and interpretation of data
should be systematic, objective and rational.
 Avoid letting private beliefs or expectations
influence observations or conclusions.

GOOD
THINKING
WHAT DOES
GOOD  Being open to new ideas even when they contradict
THINKING our own beliefs or attitudes
INCLUDE?  Follows the rules of logic
 Conclusions will follow from data, whether they
are in agreement with our predictions or not.
  Parsimony (Occam’s Razor): Stick to the basic
premise: Entities should not be multiplied without
necessity
 Simplicity, precision, and clarity of thought.
 Avoid making unnecessary assumptions to support an
argument or explanation
GOOD
 Simplest explanation is preferred until it is ruled
THINKING out by conflicting data.
  Social Pressures in Informal Group
 Two college sororities; clear evidence of group norms
about appropriate binge-eating behavior was found.
 As friendship groups became more cohesive, a
sorority member’s binge eating grew more and more
CRANDALL’S like that of her friends.
(1988) STUDY
ON BINGE
EATING
  Comparisons of 4 explanations of binge eating
showed that the social contagion explanation
was the most parsimonious and accounted for the
results better than any of the others.
 Biological factors, psychological factors,
CRANDALL’S personality traits, etc.
(1988) STUDY
ON BINGE
EATING
  Our conclusions are uncertain
 Content of science changes as we acquire new
scientific information. Old information reevaluated
in light of new facts.
 Changes in scientific explanation or theories are an
extremely important part of scientific progress
SELF-
CORRECTION
  Link between media violence and aggressive
behavior was explained by the Social Learning
Theory
 People would perform the same kinds of aggressive
behaviors they observed from films or on TV by
SOCIAL learning to imitate the kinds of aggressive behavior of
LEARNING media models
THEORY AND
VIOLENCE
  Proved to be a better explanation.
 Observing violence triggers cognitive representations of
aggressive behavior stored in memory in our own
cognitive schemas
 It can explain more varied behaviors
COGNITIVE
PRIMING
THEORY
PUBLICIZING  Number of published scientific papers published each year

RESULTS  Frequent meetings at professional conferences that allow

scientists to exchange information about current work
 Continuous exchange of information vital to scientific
process.
  Important part of the scientific approach
 We should be able to repeat our procedure and
get the same results again if we gathered data
objectively and if we have followed good
thinking

REPLICATION
 DREAMS THAT PREDICT FUTURE
 A woman who dreams of a stranger and meets him the
following day.
 A man dreams of a car accident and then hears of a friend’s
fatal crash.

WHICH ONE IS
REPLICABLE? CHANCES TO HIT A DOLL AFTER OBSERVING IT
 A child hits a doll after seeing an adult hit a small child on
television.
FOUR MAJOR OBJECTIVES OF RESEARCH
CONDUCTED IN PSYCHOLOGY

DESCRIPTION PREDICTION EXPLANATION CONTROL

  Initial step toward understanding any
phenomenon.
 Description: Systematic and unbiased
account of the observed characteristics of
behaviors
1.  Example: A description of grief would be
DESCRIPTIO Very likely to be sad and depressed and
N even, perhaps, to be crying.
  Investigates phenomena in depth and
within its real-life context
 outside observer records the behaviors or
experiences, or both of a single individual
 Common in clinical, organizational, and
CASE STUDY forensic psychology to make inferences about
METHODS the origins of disorders, developmental
processes & influence of life events
OBSERVATION
AL METHODS  Method under which data from the field
is collected with the help of observation
by the observer or by personally going
to the field
  Observational studies of group of
people (or animals) in real-life
settings.
 Gather descriptive data about many kinds
of social and cultural experience
FIELD STUDIES
 Questioning individuals on a
topic or topics and then
describing their responses
SURVEY
METHODS Develop questionnaires
  Capacity for knowing in advance when
certain behaviors would be expected to
occur
 We have identified other conditions with
which the behaviors are linked or associated
 Example: We know that a death of
grandparent is associated with grief,
2. PREDICTION
and we can predict that a person will
feel grief if a grandparent has died
recently.
  Correlational Designs – statistical
relationship b/wn diff. events, behaviors or
experiences
PREDICTION  Quasi Experimental design – look for
METHODS systematic differences among groups of
people and use the results to make predictions
  Explanation: Includes knowledge of what
conditions reliably reproduce the occurrence of a
behavior
 Cause and effect
 Experimental Design: we systematically
3. manipulate the aspects of the setting with the
intention of producing the specific behavior, also
EXPLANATIO control other factors that might also influence this
N behavior during the experiment.
 Application of what has been
learned about behavior.
Use knowledge to effect change
4. CONTROL or improve behavior.
 Clinical researcher might conduct an experiment to test
whether cognitive-behavioral therapy ameliorates grief to a
greater extent than another type of therapy (or no therapy at
all).

 An organizational psychologist might compare the

effects of flexible hours versus 9-to-5 on employee
morale.

 The intention of these types of experiments:

 To test the effect of specified conditions on behavior
4.CONTROL
 Changing behavior
BASIC RESEARCH

 Designed to test theories or to explain

psychological phenomena in humans
and animals.

APPLIED RESEARCH

 Designed to solve real-world problems

(helping patients to deal with grief or
improving employee morale)
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD:
TOOLS OF
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
SCIENTIFIC METHOD: TOOLS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL
SCIENCE

 Observation: systematic noting or recording of

events
 Measurement: assignment of numerical values
to objects or events or their characteristics
according to conventional rules
 Experimentation: Process undertaken to test a
hypothesis that particular behavioral events will
occur reliably in certain, specifiable conditions.
  Observation: systematic noting or
recording of events
 Only events that are OBSERVABLE
SCIENTIFIC can be studied scientifically*
METHOD:
TOOLS OF
PSYCHOLOGICA  The key to studying internal processes
L SCIENCE is defining them as events that can be
observed: the time it takes a person to
solve a problem, a person’s answers to
a mood questionnaire.
 How to observe systematically?
Same questionnaire is given to each person in the
study and of equal importance

SCIENTIFIC Must be made objectively (excluding non-rational

factors such as: emotions or feelings)
METHOD:
TOOLS OF Be able to obtain the same record of these events and
PSYCHOLOGICA must avoid distorting data by allowing preconceived
L SCIENCE notions of the nature of events to alter records.
When our research goal is to describe behavior, we
might observe it under specified conditions and record
our observations.
How much did they talk with strangers in a stressful situation?
How depressed did they feel after stressful situation?
How depressed did they feel after a stressful situation?

 MEASUREMENT - Systematic estimation of the quantity size, or quality

of an observable event.
 Assignment of numerical values to objects or events or their
characteristics according to conventional rules (sizes, quantities,
SCIENTIFIC qualities).
METHOD:  Rather than relying on global impressions (“It was really big”), we use
TOOLS OF standardized units --- determined by the context of a particular study.
PSYCHOLOGICA  Standardized Intelligence Tests and Personality Measures

L SCIENCE ✓ In questionnaires, we should use numbered scales.

✓ Consistent across each set of conditions.
✓ Same unit of measurement and procedures
We most often use STATISTICS to evaluate research
findings, we need numbers, or scores, to represent different
levels or amounts of the behavior of interest.
  MEASUREMENT - Systematic estimation of the quantity size, or quality
of an observable event.
 Assignment of numerical values to objects or events or their
characteristics according to conventional rules (sizes, quantities,
SCIENTIFIC qualities).
METHOD:  Rather than relying on global impressions (“It was really big”), we use
TOOLS OF standardized units --- determined by the context of a particular study.
PSYCHOLOGICA  Standardized Intelligence Tests and Personality Measures

L SCIENCE
  Identifying Antecedent Conditions
 Comparing treatment conditions
SCIENTIFIC  The Psychology Experiment
EXPLANATION
IN
PSYCHOLOGI
CAL SCIENCE
  Controlled procedure in which at least two different
treatment conditions are applied to subjects.
 Two different treatment conditions to compare behavior
under varied conditions

PSYCHOLOG  Random assignment of subjects as control

Y
EXPERIMENT
  Random assignment of subjects in different
treatment conditions (within subjects designs also)
 Presenting a treatment condition in an identical
HOW manner to all subjects
CONTROL  Keeping the environment, procedures and
CAN BE measuring instruments constant so that the
ACHIEVED treatment conditions are the only things that are
allowed to change
ESTABLISHIN
G CAUSE AND
EFFECT  We infer a cause-and-effect relationship
between antecedent conditions and the subjects’
behaviors
 Which treatments are better
  Necessary Conditions
 Sufficient Conditions

NECESSARY
VS
SUFFICIENT
CONDITIONS
  Condition must be present for a good outcome
 Having the condition does not guarantee a good outcome, can
still have a bad outcome

NECESSARY
CONDITIONS
  Condition(s) alone or in combination will result in a good
outcome
 Can combine conditions together to create best coverage –
combination of conditions that best align with good outcome

SUFFICIENT
CONDITIONS
  Reference: APA Style
 Introduction (general findings from previous studies,
participants, measures of previous studies, same procedures);
Summarize in your own words, the hypotheses being tested in
the research study you are reading. What are the authors trying
ACTIVITY: to show? What are the IVs and DVs?
TEACHING YOU
HOW TO
SUMMARIZE
RESEARCH
ARTICLES
  Journal articles are an important part of your research
paper. These help you support your claims throughout
your research paper. For example, if you were to say,
“Children who are sexually abused typically end up as
alcoholics.” Before you would consider putting this on
GROUP ACTIVITY: your paper, you must find a journal article that would
FINDING JOURNAL support this claim. Then, you can say, “Previous research
ARTICLES ONLINE has shown that children who are sexually abused typically
end up as alcoholics (put your citation here).”

GROUP ACTIVITY:
FINDING JOURNAL
ARTICLES ONLINE
 Using Google, the search terms that were entered were
“sexually abused children” and “alcoholism” the following
is the first few results that came up on the list.
  To get a feel of how it would be to find articles online, work with your
groups to find at least 10 journal articles for the topic assigned to you.

GROUP TOPIC
1 Mothers, daughters, and dieting
2 Psychological Treatments for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
3 Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
GROUP ACTIVITY: 4 Borderline personality disorder
FINDING JOURNAL 5 Culture, stigma, and depression
ARTICLES ONLINE 6
7
Sleep terrors
Oppositional defiant disorders, conduct disorders, and psychopathic
features
8 Cognitive Vulnerability
There are basic rules of thumb that are used when using resources for your
research paper.

 Do not use references that are more than 10 years old

unless these are considered to be groundbreaking studies
or unless they contain origins of theories and concepts.
 Newspaper articles may be used to prove an example, but
these are not be preferred.
 Do not believe everything you read. Peer reviewed
scientific journals are typically widely accepted for research
papers.
 You may want to consider articles suggested by Google
Scholar, Wiley, Ebscohost, and a wide range of academic
databases available to you.
 Blogs are not acceptable to be used as a resource for your
research paper.
 Wikipedia is not an acceptable resource to use for your
research paper.
 Questions:
1. What articles did you find? Submit the articles and put the titles in APA Format.
GROUP
2. How did youACTIVITY:
find the articles?
FINDING
3. Using GoogleJOURNAL
Search, what kinds of articles did you find?
ARTICLES ONLINE
4. How about Google Scholar?
5. Is there a difference in the articles you found on Google Search or Google
Scholar?
6. Which ones, if any, would you use as part of your research paper?
  Method:
 Participants-appropriate characteristics
 Measures-what tests, scales, or instruments were used to
operationally define each DV
ACTIVITY:  Procedure-what was done to collect data? How were
TEACHING YOU confounds or extraneous variables controlled?
HOW TO
SUMMARIZE
RESEARCH
ARTICLES
  Results
 What were the major results?
 Did the findings support the hypotheses?
 How do the results relate to other studies cited?

ACTIVITY:  How did researchers interpret results; what are their overall conclusions?

TEACHING YOU  What were their suggestions for future research?

HOW TO
SUMMARIZE
RESEARCH
ARTICLES
  Conclusion:
 In 2-3 sentences, what did this study tell you?
 What important conclusions might you use later?
 What else was important about the research?
ACTIVITY:
TEACHING YOU
HOW TO
SUMMARIZE
RESEARCH
ARTICLES
 Scientific vs. Nonscientific
approach

RECAP OF
PREVIOUS
LESSON