Formulating the Hypothesis M&H: Chapter 6 Anthropomorphism?

Formulating the Hypothesis Anthropomorphism? I think not! Tolyman’s control of playing hide-and-seek Objective observation High-pitch meow High-pitch meow Dig claws into carpet and crouch down at doorway Dig claws into carpet and crouch down at doorway Dart off and hide Dart off and hide Jump out and meow when seeker gets close. Jump out and meow when seeker gets close. Named after Edward Chace Tolman who wrote Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men (1960)

Bertrand Russell (1945)… “As a rule, the framing of hypotheses is the most difficult part of scientific work and the part where great ability is indispensable. So far, no method has been found which would make it possible to invent hypotheses by rule” (p. 545).

Hypothesis…  Nonscientific synonyms  The thesis or main idea of a study  Definition -a statement about a predicted relationship between at least two variables  Should fit the design of a study

Hypothesis…  Some nonexperimental designs that do not restrict a subjects responses do not typically include a hypothesis.  Phenomenology  Case studies  Naturalistic observation  Surveys

Hypothesis…  Nonexperimental hypothesis – a statement of your prediction about how events, traits or behaviors are related  Not a statement about cause and effect  Designs – correlational and ex post facto studies

Examples of Nonexperimental Hypothesis…  Variable X will be directly related to variable Y  Variable X will be inversely related to variable Y  Subject variable – Males will score higher than females on variable X

Experimental Hypothesis…  Predicts the effects of specific antecedent conditions on some behavior that will be measured  Every experiment has at least one hypothesis  Complicated experimental designs that compare several treatments at the same time may test multiple hypotheses

Experimental Hypotheses…

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Plausible versus Improbable Explanations of behavior…  Reading speed is affected by  Style of text  Average reading speed  Outside noise  Room lighting  Whether a person has eaten  Number of shrimp in the ocean  Number of people singing in Tibet

Experimental Hypothesis…  Things far removed from the situation are not likely to be causally related  So forget  Number of shrimp in the ocean  Number of people singing in Tibet

Experimental Hypothesis…  After limiting the number of possible factors affecting the behavior it is time to state a hypothesis  Each hypothesis should meet certain basic criteria

Hypotheses must be:  Synthetic statements  Testable  Falsifiable  Parsimonious  Fruitful

Synthetic statements…  Some chance it is true or false  “Hungry students read slowly”  Can be stated in the “If…then”  If a student is hungry then… or  If a student has eaten then…

Nonsynthetic statements… Avoid at all costs:  Analytical statements – always true  Contradictory statements – always false I am not pregnant or I am pregnant, again Yes means no and no means yes Yes sometimes means no, and sometimes means yes.

Testable hypothesis…  The means for manipulating the antecedent conditions and measuring the resulting behavior must exist  Do dogs dream?  If dogs display muscle twitches and vocalizations during sleep then they must be dreaming  No way to measure dreaming

Falsifiable statements…  Disprovable  If you eat enough then you won’t be hungry  How much is enough?  “Enough” is too ambiguous  Cannot be disproved  Any failure to produce the predicted effect can be explained away

Parsimonious statements…  A simple hypothesis is preferred to a more complex one  If you are hungry, then you will read slower on a cold Wednesday in June

Fruitful statements…  Lead to new studies  Difficult to know in advance  e.g., Watson and Rayner’s, 1920 Classical condition with little Albert  e.g., Morris, 1981

The Inductive Model…  Reasoning from specific cases to more general principles  Often used in science and mathmatics  B.F. Skinner – operant condition variations in the way reinforcement was delivered or withheld led to general principles (e.g. extinction, PREE, spontaneous recovery).

The Deductive Model…  Reasoning from general principles to make predictions about specific instances.  Basic tool of theory testing  The “hippocampus as a cognitive map” O’Keefe & Nadel’s (1978) theory has been tested extensively…

Induction or deduction???

Combining Models…  Start off with induction to build a theory  O’Keefe & Nadel’s (1978) theory was based on hundreds of studies referenced in their book  Engage in deduction to test and revise  e.g., Hippocampus works together with other brain structures to build cognitive maps

Serendipity…  The knack of finding things that are not being sought.  Pavlov was studying digestion when the dog’s “psychic secretions” started occurring before the experiments.

Intuition…  Knowing without reasoning  e.g., a hunch or guess  Not necessarily unscientific  Intuition may actually be based on past experience that is just not readily accessible to our conscious awareness.  E.g., behavior based on ‘habits’ are quite logical, although they do not produce conscious thoughts

Counterstereotypic Performance  Is there a true gender difference in math ability  Men and women college students that received a B grade in Calculus  Were told of the controversial findings and that they were selected because of their strong background in math.  Different groups were given additional infromation: the test you will take has been shown - 1) to produce gender differences or 2)not to produce gender differences

Results

How are you finding journal articles? 1. PsychInfo & Medline to RefWorks 2. Google scholar 3. ResearcGate 4. Interlibrary loan – Illiad - for books & journal articles 5. website’s of authors (e.g., for vMWM try Derek Hamilton at UNM) 6. Ask a prof, e.g., I may be able to hook you up…