The 6 concepts CARB CHAMP: causality, responsibility, bias and change, measurement and perspective

Inthinking page for students that outlines the concepts

IB Psychology has 6 concepts which make up the template for critical thinking in Psychology. Psychology is the scientific study of human behaviour and thought processes and as such we rely on research and theory to inform us about human behaviour. Human behaviour extremely complex and affected by a multitude of factors and when we use scientific methods such as experiments to investigate human behaviour it is essential that we acknowledge the many ways that research can go wrong and that the theories we are testing are just that THEORIES and not facts.

When evaluating research and theory we can look more closely and 6 different concepts:

Causality, Responsibility, Bias, Change, Measurement and Perspective.

When we are studying human behaviour in the different real world contexts (Human relationship, Human development, Health and well-being, Learning and cognition) we must always be critical and evaluative of how the studies and theories for each context reflect real human behaviour.

Causality

Causality is concerned with whether we can establish cause and effect by studying how variables affect each other. The only method which can study causality is the experiment since it is the controlled and standardised investigation of cause and effect by manipulating one variable (the independent variable) to measure its effect on another variable (the dependent variable).

Questions to ask when discussing CAUSALITY:

Does the study have a control group which can be used for comparison?

Is the study a true experiment?

What can be said to be cause and effect in the study or theory?

Can causality be effected by other variables that what the researcher intends to study? (this is bias or a lack of internal valdity)?

Causality is linked to measurement and bias.

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What does the language sound like for CAUSALITY?

One issue of causality is…

Causality is concerned with measuring if cause and effect occurs, in other words…

One factor that might affect causality in the study of…

Causality can be established using the experimental method…..

In the study of cognition, such as the perception of similarity, it can be difficult to establish causality since…

When studying communication it might not be relevant to establish causality since…

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