Components of a Good Theory
So perhaps you have an idea. It could be based on your own observations of people (the inductive method), or perhaps it’s based on theories that you’ve heard about (the deductive method), or even more likely, it’s a little bit of both. How do we know if it’s a good or a bad hypothesis? (Your textbook covers this, so I’m going to be brief.)
Remember way back to the beginning of this lesson (I know, it seems like forever ago). I wrote out the definition of a hypothesis (“a specific and falsifiable prediction regarding the relationship between or among two or more variables”) and then told you that I’d come back to the specific and falsifiable part later. It’s later now, so hear goes. The textbook mentions three things that denote a good hypothesis. It should be general, parsimonious, and falsifiable. Let’s start with general and parsimonious, because these terms actually combine (sort of) to create the “specific” requirement from the definition. By saying that a hypothesis should be general I’m implying that it should apply to a wide variety of people and experiences. It’s not very useful to have a theory (or a hypothesis) that is only applicable on Tuesdays between 11:30 and 11:45am for left-handed people living on streets that have speed bumps. I’m being a bit facetious, but the idea is that a theory is much more useful if it applies to a greater population across a wider range of situations. So a theory that applies to people who are left-handed would be much more inclusive and useful. (By the way there are many theories in psychology related to handedness.) Parsimonious means without excess. When we talk about a parsimonious theory or hypothesis we are implying that the ideas are simple and straightforward. Imagine a hypothesis that required a long list of exceptions (“It is predicted that A will cause B, except on Tuesdays, or if the person is taller than five foot three inches and B might cause A on Thursdays after lunch…” Ok, I’m getting silly.) Combining the goal of being inclusive (being general) with the goal of being straightforward (parsimonious) a good researcher finds a balance related to specificity. Too specific, you’re probably not general enough. Too broad, then you probably will need to include too many exceptions, and thus violate the “keep it simple” idea.
Lastly, there is the notion that a good theory should be falsifiable. Here’s an example of a “bad” theory: “Eating ice cream is either healthy or it is unhealthy”. Well my theory is general and parsimonious, but it’s also completely useless. Why is it useless? Because it can never be wrong, and therefore although it can never be disproven it can’t help me to understand the world.
At this point you should complete Part 2 of the Assignment 2 Then go to the Lab folder and complete Lesson 2 Lab. After you have finished that, you should read over the requirements for your first paper, Paper Assignment #1. Paper 1 is due at the end of this week.
When you have finished with everything related to Lesson 2 you can move on and read the lesson 3 textbook reading assignment, and then read over the Lesson 3 Commentary.
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