Formulating Hypothesis

HYPOTHESIS- Is the thesis or main idea, of an experiment it is a statement about a predicted relationship between at least two variables.

Non Experimental hypothesis

Is a statement of your predictions of how events, traits or behaviors might be related, not a statement about cause and effect. Experimental hypothesis

Is a tentative explanation of an event or behavior, it is a statement that explains the effect of specified antecedent conditions or a measured behavior. Synthetic Statements

Synthetic Statements are those that can be either true or false.

TWO CATEGORIES OF NON SYNTHETIC STATEMENTS:

1. Analytic Statements:

- Is one that is always true.

2. Contradictory Statements:

- Statements with elements that oppose each other because contradictory statements are always false.

Testable Statements:

An Experimental hypothesis must be also be testable, that is means for manipulating antecedent conditions and measuring the resulting behavior must exist.

Falsifiable Statements

Parsimonious Statements

Fruitful Statements

THE INDUCTIVE MODEL

The inductive model of formulating hypothesis, the process of reasoning from specific cases to more general principles, is often used in science and mathematics.

Research hypotheses often come from the use of inductive reasoning.

B.F Skinner was a convincing advocate for inductive research in psychology. Skinner studied operant conditioning in rats and pigeons. In operant conditioning, the organism is reinforced or rewarded when it produces a particular response, such as bar pressing, which has been selected by the experimenter for reinforcement.

DEDUCTIVE MODEL

The deductive model of formulating a hypothesis is the reverse of the inductive model. Deduction is the process of reasoning from general principles to make predictions about specific instances. The deductive model is most useful when we have a well-developed theory with clearly stated basic premises. Then it is possible to deduce predictions about what should happen in new situations in which the theory would apply. Testing such predictions provides a test of the value of the theory.

The most useful way of finding hypotheses is by working from research that has already been done

Ex: The research on cigarette smoking and cancer

Prior experimental research is an excellent source of hypotheses

SERENDIPITY

The word comes from the 18th century tale “Three Principles of Serendip” by Horace Walpole

It is knack of finding things that are not being sought

IVAN PAVLOV (1927)

Russian physiologist whose main interest was the digestive glands

His studies involved feeding dogs and observing the changes that occurred in their stomach secretion

Salivation

“Psychic Secretions”

Classical Conditioning

Won the Nobel prize for his work on digestion but also made unplanned contribution to the psychological study of learning

He was able to distinguish between a commonplace incident and something of great importance

He continued his research, performing many new experiments and offering unique interpretations of his findings

SERENDIPITY

Can be useful in generating new hypotheses only when we are open to new possibilities

Is not just a matter of luck; it is also a matter of knowing enough to use an opportunity

IN PSYCHOLOGY…

Intuition is not discussed in most experimental texts.

But using intuition is not necessarily unscientific.

INTUITION

Defined as knowing without reasoning.

Guides what we choose to study.

Most accurate if it comes from expert, according to Herbert Simon.

May have a tentative explanation for behavior and events.

Should not destroy the objectivity.

INTUITION

WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS…

If you feel completely lost, here are some suggestions that have helped other students.One method is to pick a Psychological Journal from your library’s shelves and just read through an issue.

• Perhaps you like learning and memory. If so, that is the place to start. Once you select some broad areas interest, reread the sections on these areas in an introductory psychology text. You may now be able to narrow the number of possible topics even further.

• Perhaps you are most interested in the work on learning lists of words. Now locate the latest research that has been done in this area. You might have to do quite a bit of reading before you can derive a hypothesis of your own.

Here is another suggestion:

Try Observation. Some very good hypotheses come from observing how people behave in public places.• Causal Attributions – Causal attributions are suspected or inferred causes of behavior. Even though our causal attributions tend to be self-serving and are often invalid, it is important to understand how people formulate attributions because they profoundly affect organizational behavior. We search for a cause to which we can attribute someone’s behavior.

• Dispositional- In an internal, or dispositional, attribution, people infer that an event or a person’s behavior is due to personal factors such as traits, abilities, or feelings.

• Situational- In an external, or situational, attribution, people infer that a person’s

behavior is due to situational factors.

Example: Maria’s car breaks down on the freeway. If she believes the breakdown happened

because of her ignorance about cars, she is making an internal attribution. If she believes that the breakdown happened because her car is old, she is making an external attribution.

Finally, if all else fails,

• Turn your attention to a real-world problem and try to figure out what causes it. An added benefit of this approach is that once the cause can be determined, a solution often suggests itself.

The effects of stereotyping have been studied more by psychologists than by researchers in any other discipline.

Stereotype researchers Spencer, Steele, and Quinn conducted an interesting experiment to find out. They hypothesized that women would perform more poorly on this test than men did. The research sample consisted of male and female college students (who had received grades of B or better in calculus).

COUNTERSTEREOTYPIC PERFORMANCE

Searching the Research Literature

Getting Started:

Once you have decided on a hypothesis, you will want to become familiar with other published studies in your topic.

Another particular good source of information is META- ANALYSIS.

META-ANALYSIS is a statistical reviewing procedure that uses data from many similar studies to summarize research findings about individual topics.

Writing the Report

The Introduction section of a research report consists of a selective review of relevant, recent research.

Discussion section

Finding the Articles You Need

Fortunately, many library and Web-based aids can help you find the journal articles you need.

Summary

Most psychological research is designed to test a hypothesis.

Hypothesis is a tentative explanation of behavior, is the thesis main idea of the research

Non-Experimental hypothesis is a statement of your predictions about the association between the variables under study.

For true experiments, the experimental hypothesis predicts the effects of specified antecedents on behavior.

It has several characteristics:

First, it must be a synthetic statement. Second, the experimental hypothesis must be testable and it must also be parsimonious.

Thank You for Listening!

GROUP 4