TOP o Deductive reasoning

General specific
o Inductive reasoning
Specific to general
Personality
Taxonomy
A pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique
characteristics that give both consistency and o Classification of things according to their natural
individuality to a persons behavior relationship
Traits o Essential to the development of a science
Contribute to individual differences in behavior, X taxonomy X growth of a science
consistency of behavior overtime, and stability of
behavior across situations Why different theories?
Characteristics Must be as objective as possible

Unique qualities of an individual that include such Theories

attributes as temperament, physique, and intelligence
o Reflection of the authors background and
Theory perspective

A set of related assumptions that allows scientists to o Divergent theories can be useful
use logical reasoning to formulate testable hypotheses
o Usefulness of a theory depends on its ability
Need not be tested immediately to generate research and to explain research
data and other observation
Theory and its relatives
Theorist personalities and their theories of personality
Philosophy
Psychology of science
o Love of wisdom
o To look at scientist personality traits
o People who pursue wisdom through thinking and
reasoning o Studies both the science and behavior of
scientist
o Philosophers are not scientist
o Examines how the scientists personality,
o Epistemology thinking, history, and social experience affect
their theory
Nature of knowledge
o Theorists personality does not solely
o Theories determine the theory
do not deal with oughts and shoulds o Process and product of science must be
deals with broad sets of if-then statements evaluated independently
What makes a theory useful?
Speculation
o Theory Generates research
o Stimulate and guide further research
Closely tied to empirically gathered data and to
science o Useful theory will generate kinds of research
Useful tools employed by scientist to give Descriptive research
meaning and organization to observations
Concerned with the measurement,
Practical
labeling, and categorization of the units
Rely on speculation but are more than armchair employed in theory building
speculation
Hypothesis testing
Do not rely on speculation alone
Indirect verification
o Science
Falsifiable
Is the branch of study concerned with
observation and classification of data and with o Ability to be confirmed or disconfirmed
the verification of general laws through the o Be proven
testing of hypothesis
o Farce the theorist to discard or modify the theory
Hypothesis
Organizes data
o Educated guess/prediction specific enough for its
validity to be tested through the use of the o Should be able to organize data that are not
scientific method compatible with each other
o Theory Guides action
Broader than hypothesis Internally consistent
Good theory many hypothesis Parsimonious