The Characteristics of an Experimental Hypothesis

The Inductive Model

The Deductive Model
Combining Induction and Deduction
Building on Prior Research
Serendipity and the Windfall Hypothesis
Intuition
When All Else Fails
Searching the Research Literature
 Objectives

• Understand the components

of good experimental
hypothesis.
• Explore where hypothesis
come from.
• Learn how to conduct a
literature search.
 Good or Bad Hypothesis?
1. In our justice system, a poor defendant will be more
likely convicted with crime rather than a rich
defendant.
2. There is bias in a zero-based grading system.
3. As the number of hours in a computer game
increases, the number of hours spent with love
ones decreases.
4. College students should not work so hard so they
would not feel discouraged when they fail.
 Good or Bad Hypothesis?
5. Employers will work differently under different
circumstances.
6. Students will be more likely to behave when they
know that they are being watched than when they
are on their own.
7. In detecting enemy aircraft, a fighter pilot will react
more quickly to an auditory warning signal than a
visual warning signal.
8. Will a compost make a good leafy vegetables?
 Good or Bad Hypothesis?

9. Milktea is better than a frappe coffee.

10.Making good choices will make a better
student.
11.If a child is exposed to parents who utter
foul language, then they will most likely bad
mouth others as well.
12.Our universe is surrounded by another big
universe with which we have no absolute
control.
 Good or Bad Hypothesis?

13.Girls will score higher in language tests

than boys.
14.Eating healthy foods will make depressed
people feel okay.
15.Children who write their own stories score
higher on their reading comprehension test
rather than those who only listen in story-
telling.
The Characteristics of an Experimental Hypothesis
The Inductive Model
The Deductive Model
Combining Induction and Deduction
Building on Prior Research
Serendipity and the Windfall Hypothesis
Intuition
When All Else Fails
Searching the Research Literature
 What is a hypothesis?

Hypothesis is the thesis, or main idea of an

experiment.

It is an explanation of a relationship between two

or more variables.

Nonscientific synonyms: speculation, guess,

hunch.

The Characteristics of an Experimental Hypothesis

 What is a hypothesis?

Nonexperimental hypothesis is a statement of

your predictions on how events, traits, or
behaviors might be related.

For example, red-haired patients receive less

relief from pain medication than blonde patients.

In true experiment, the hypothesis predicts the

effects of specific antecedent conditions on
some behavior than is to be measured.
The Characteristics of an Experimental Hypothesis
 What is an experimental hypothesis?

An experimental hypothesis is a tentative

explanation of an event or a behavior. It is a
statement that predicts the effect of an
independent variable on a dependent variable.
For example, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT)
produces less relapse than antidepressants.

The Characteristics of an Experimental Hypothesis

 Why must a hypothesis be a synthetic statement?

When we state a hypothesis, we then gather

data that either support or contradict it.

For this reason, a hypothesis must be capable

of being true or false, which is a property of
synthetic statements.

e.g. hungry students read slowly

The Characteristics of an Experimental Hypothesis

 Why must a hypothesis be a synthetic statement?

Nonsynthetic statements should be avoided at

all cost. It has 2 categories – analytic and
contradictory.
•Analytic statement is one that is always true.
E.g. I am pregnant or I am not pregnant.
•Contradictory statement – statements with
elements that oppose each other – because
contradictory statements are always false.

The Characteristics of an Experimental Hypothesis

 Why must a hypothesis be a synthetic statement?

To ensure that a hypothesis is a synthetic

statement, we must evaluate its form.

It must be stated in what is known as “If …

then” form.

This form is another way of expressing the

potential relationship between a particular
antecedent and the behavior to be measured.

The Characteristics of an Experimental Hypothesis

 What is testability and why is it important?

An experimental hypothesis is testable when

it can be assessed by manipulating an IV and
measuring the results on the DV.
Without testability, we cannot evaluate the
validity of a hypothesis.
e.g. If dogs display muscle twitches and
vocalizations during sleep, then they must be
dreaming.

The Characteristics of an Experimental Hypothesis

 What about falsifiability?

Statements of research hypotheses must also be

falsifiable (disprovable) by the research
findings.

Hypotheses need to be worded so that failures to

find the predicted effect must be considered
evidence that the hypothesis is indeed false.

The Characteristics of an Experimental Hypothesis

 Why should hypotheses be parsimonious?

Parsimony means that we prefer a simple

hypothesis over one requiring many supporting
assumptions.
A simple hypothesis allows us to focus our
attention on the main factors that influence
our dependent variable.

The Characteristics of an Experimental Hypothesis

Fruitful Statements

• Hypothesis should
also be fruitful,
meaning, it should
lead to new studies.
• There is some
indication that a
hypothesis is fruitful
when we can think of
new studies that will
become important if
the hypothesis is
supported.
The Characteristics of an Experimental Hypothesis
 INDUCTIVE MODEL

Induction is reasoning from specific cases

to general principles to form a hypothesis.
By examining individual instances, we may be
able to construct an overall explanatory scheme
to describe them.

Research hypotheses often come from the use

of inductive reasoning.

The Inductive Model

 How can we build a theory using induction?

BF Skinner: advocate for inductive

research in psychology.

He studied different variations of the

basic operant procedures, keeping
records of what happened to behavior
under various conditions.

He tried new reinforcement

contingencies based solely on the
number of responses emitted or on the
elapsed time, etc.
The Inductive Model
 How can we build a theory using induction?

Induction is the basic tool of theory building.

Scientists can use the results of extensive

experiments designed to test hypotheses to
construct a theory that unifies their findings.

A theory is a set of general principles that can

be used to explain and predict behavior.

The Inductive Model

 DEDUCTIVE MODEL

Deduction is reasoning from general principles

to specific predictions.

This approach is used to test the assumptions of

a well-developed theory.

Develop propositions using induction by

examining specific cases. Then, make
predictions using deduction.

The Deductive Model

 How can researchers combine induction and
deduction?

Walster et al. formulated equity theory based

on specific observations (induction) and then tested
predictions from this theory (deduction).

They proposed that the behavior of individuals could be

predicted by 3 simple propositions:
1.Individuals will try to optimize their outcomes (outcomes = rewards
minus costs)
2.When individuals believe they are in an inequitable relationship,
they will feel distress in direct proportion to the perceived degree of
inequity.
3.The more distress they feel, the harder they will work to restore
equity.

Combining Induction and Deduction

 How can researchers combine induction and
deduction?

Equity theory has been used to predict behavior

in great numbers of interpersonal circumstances:
•Victimization
•Helping behavior
•Employment
•Love
•Care of older parents

Combining Induction and Deduction

 How can researchers combine induction and
deduction?

Both induction and deduction are important in

research, and both are useful in formulating
hypotheses for the study.

Through induction, we devise general principles and

theories that can be used to organize, optimize,
explain, and predict behavior until more satisfactory
principles are found.

Through deduction we rigorously test the

implications of those theories.
Combining Induction and Deduction
 What is the most useful way to develop a
hypothesis?

Researcher narrows down the field of

possibilities enough to formulate a single
hypothesis.

The most useful way is to review research that

has already been published.

Both experimental and nonexperimental studies

can prove helpful.

Building on Prior Research

 What is the most useful way to develop a
hypothesis?

e.g. nonexperimental study (ex post facto): smokers

had higher rates of lung cancer than nonsmokers
did.

Create different antecedent conditions – groups of

rats are exposed to varying amounts of cigarrete
smoke.

If rats that “smoke” develop higher rates of lung

cancer than rats that do not, the conclusion is that
smoking causes cancer.
Building on Prior Research
 How does a review of prior experiments help us
develop a hypothesis?

Reading prior studies will enable the researchers

to see the kinds of problems others have had in
researching a topic.

This will help them to anticipate difficulties they

might not have thought alone.

Building on Prior Research

 How does a review of prior experiments help us
develop a hypothesis?

A review of prior experiments helps in five ways:

 Identifies questions that have not been conclusively
answered or addressed at all

 Suggests new hypotheses

 Identifies additional variables that could mediate an
effect
 Identifies problems other researchers have
experienced
 Helps avoid duplication of prior research when
replication is not intended
Building on Prior Research
 How does serendipity help develop fruitful
hypotheses?

At times, a discovery has been made where non

was intended; such discoveries may be
attributed to serendipity.

Serendipity is the knack of finding things that

are not being sought.

Discoveries through serendipity have been made

in the physical sciences as well as in
psychology.
Serendipity and the Windfall Hypothesis
 How does serendipity help develop fruitful
hypotheses?

Ivan Pavlov (1927): a Russian

physiologist whose main interest was
the digestive glands.

His observations led him to study the

“psychic secretions”, which he
hypothesized to be the result of the
dogs’ mental activity.

What Pavlov observed was the

phenomenon of classical conditioning.

Serendipity and the Windfall Hypothesis

 How does serendipity help develop fruitful
hypotheses?

What distinguishes a scientist like Pavlov from

another person is that he was able to distinguish
between commonplace incident and something
of great importance.

Pavlov continued his research, performing many

new experiments and offering unique
interpretations of his findings.

Serendipity and the Windfall Hypothesis

 How does serendipity help develop fruitful
hypotheses?

A scientist who is open to unexpected results

and who is sufficiently informed can understand
the significance of unexpected findings.

However, a dogmatic scientist would be less

likely to “see” or appreciate the significance of
serendipitous events.

Serendipity is not just a matter of luck; it is also a

matter of knowing enough to use an opportunity.
Serendipity and the Windfall Hypothesis
 What is intuition?

Intuition is knowing without reasoning, or

unconscious problem-solving. As such, it is
probably closest to phenomenology. We acquire
phenomenological knowledge simply by
attending to our own experience.

Intuition guides what we choose to study in an

experiment. Intuition must be directed by our
literature review.

Intuition
 What is intuition?

Herbert Simon (1967): a psychologist and

computer scientist; intuition is the most accurate
if it comes from experts.

Good hunches are really an unconscious result

of our own expertise in an area. The more we
know about the topic, the better our intuition
hypotheses are likely to be.

Intuition
 What are helpful strategies for developing
experimental hypotheses?

Three promising strategies are:

(1) Read an issue of a psychology journal
(2) Observe how people behave in public places
(3) Choose a real-world problem and try to
identify its cause.

When All Else Fails

 What is the purpose of the Introduction section of an
APA-format paper?

The Introduction section provides a selective

review of research findings related to the
research hypothesis.
This section identifies which questions have not
been definitively answered by previous studies
and helps show how your experiment advances
knowledge in this area.

Searching the Research Literature

 Explain the value of a meta-analysis?

A meta-analysis can provide helpful information

about your topic.
A meta-analysis is not an experiment, but rather
a statistical analysis of many similar studies.

Searching the Research Literature

 Explain the value of a meta-analysis?

A meta-analysis measures the average effect

size of an independent variable across studies
that share similar methodologies.
This statistical procedure helps establish
the strength and external validity of a causal
relationship.

Searching the Research Literature

 Assignment:
Turn bad hypothesis to good
Bad Hypotheses Good Hypotheses
1. There is bias in a zero-based
grading system.
2. College students should not work
so hard so they would not feel
discouraged when they fail.
3. Employers will work differently
under different circumstances.
4. Will a compost make a good leafy
vegetables?
5. Milktea is better than a frappe
coffee.
6. Our universe is surrounded by
another big universe with which we
have no absolute control.
Questions?