Post by michellespencer on Sept 13, 2017 23:44:58 GMT
Sorry for the double post i definitely didn't sign in before posting!
Now that i THINK i have a grasp of normative vs causal approaches to psychology i think i would take a normative approach. I am very scientific and like to work with straight facts and data HOWEVER humans are very complex. I believe, depending on the phenomenon, it might be difficult to try to make a cause-effect study and have it be relevant to how people react emotionally to a situation. For example, my group and i were discussing premarital sex in different countries, specifically north america vs middle east for simplicity sake. By sending out a survey with different questions regarding social aspects of the individuals life (culture, religion, upbringing etc) we would be able to have enough information to prove or disprove a hypothesis or question as to why individuals would chose to have or not have premarital sex. I believe in these types of situations there would be more then one possible reason as to why someone would or would not have premarital sex- this is a specific example. Human reasoning and thought processes may not necessarily be only from within- much of the time the why involves outside forces and influences. To try and break this down into a casual approach- attempting to control the independent variables to prove or disprove the hypothesis- would be near impossible because there are way too many possible variables to create an experiment that would create valid results. A person can have a reaction to a situation- whether it is appropriate or not- but there can be many factors effecting the way they react and for this reason human thought and emotion might be best studied socially (social norms, beliefs etc).
Michelle
Now that i THINK i have a grasp of normative vs causal approaches to psychology i think i would take a normative approach. I am very scientific and like to work with straight facts and data HOWEVER humans are very complex. I believe, depending on the phenomenon, it might be difficult to try to make a cause-effect study and have it be relevant to how people react emotionally to a situation. For example, my group and i were discussing premarital sex in different countries, specifically north america vs middle east for simplicity sake. By sending out a survey with different questions regarding social aspects of the individuals life (culture, religion, upbringing etc) we would be able to have enough information to prove or disprove a hypothesis or question as to why individuals would chose to have or not have premarital sex. I believe in these types of situations there would be more then one possible reason as to why someone would or would not have premarital sex- this is a specific example. Human reasoning and thought processes may not necessarily be only from within- much of the time the why involves outside forces and influences. To try and break this down into a casual approach- attempting to control the independent variables to prove or disprove the hypothesis- would be near impossible because there are way too many possible variables to create an experiment that would create valid results. A person can have a reaction to a situation- whether it is appropriate or not- but there can be many factors effecting the way they react and for this reason human thought and emotion might be best studied socially (social norms, beliefs etc).
Michelle