Formulation of Hypothesis

8 Key excerpts on "Formulation of Hypothesis"

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  eBook - ePub

  Introduction to Psychology

  • Ann L. Weber, Joseph Johnson(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Collins Reference

    (Publisher)

  theory is a set of integrated principles and assumptions that organizes data, explains behaviors, and makes testable predictions. Unfortunately, the term “theory” in common usage has taken on a more imprecise meaning that often refers to a guess or hunch. In science, theories are not just educated guesses of what will happen, but systematic formalizations of how and/or why things happen. A conjecture about who committed a crime or what will happen when you microwave some random object, is not a theory. However, a coherent system for explaining differences and relationships between living organisms from today and millions of years ago (for example, evolution) is an established theory. For instance, a theory in psychology of altruistic (helping) behavior may explain such behavior by the desire to look good or give a favorable impression to others.

  Forming Hypotheses

  Psychological theories are used to form hypotheses —testable predictions about behavior, mental events, or other phenomena. A hypothesis is stated before research is conducted and formalizes what to expect based on the theoretical principles under examination. A hypothesis derived from the example theory of altruistic behavior might predict that an individual is more likely to help out when others are around to witness the act.

  Hypothesis Testing

  After formulating a hypothesis, it must be subject to empirical testing. That is, one must determine whether the hypothesis is supported by actual data (for example, real behavior). There are many methods for testing hypotheses, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Testing the hypothesis about altruistic behavior could involve conducting an experiment, or simply watching people in natural settings, and comparing behavior in the presence or absence of others.

  Reporting and Refining

  After testing hypotheses, research psychologists disseminate their findings to colleagues through journals, books, and conferences. Academic environments and the networks they comprise have always provided important avenues of communication among researchers and theorists. Researchers seldom work alone, and the very act of publishing one’s findings or theories invites others’ comments and contributions. If hypotheses are confirmed, this advances support for the theory; otherwise, it suggests the need for refining the theory in light of the new data. In this case, the cycle begins anew—the polished theory is used to derive new hypotheses, which are subsequently tested and reported.

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  Evidence in the Psychological Therapies

  A Critical Guidance for Practitioners

  • Chris Mace, Stirling Moorey, Bernard Roberts, Chris Mace, Stirling Moorey, Bernard Roberts(Authors)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  In this chapter I want to describe three major types of hypotheses which are used in cognitive-behaviour therapy and to discuss some issues that arise about the testing of these hypotheses. The three types of hypothesis I will consider are those developed within three different cognitive-behavioural models. These are (1) functional analysis, (2) traditonal Beckian cognitive therapy and (3) schema-focused cognitive-therapy. I will place this discussion in the context of a discussion of hypothesis testing in general. I will argue that one problem which can infect the discussion is the mistaken identification of the scientific method with hypothesis testing. This can have serious implications in what is considered to be evidence and can, therefore, affect our practice. I will argue that an oversimplified view of how we test our ideas has been prevelant in cognitive-behaviour therapy and in psychotherapy generally. I also argue that many of our hypotheses are maintained by non-rational factors (e.g., professional identity) and this also needs to be acknowledged. Hypotheses (that is, tentative statements) can be constructed about any matter of fact at all. Two situations in which hypotheses are tested in cognitive psychotherapy are (1) to establish that a particular causal model is true, and (2) to establish the effectiveness of a particular treatment technique. In both cases it is a valuable activity. However I want to begin by exploring the limitations of hypothesis testing. I will argue (1) that scientific method is not equivalent to hypothesis testing, and (2) hypothesis testing is part of everyday reasoning—that is, science involves a lot more than hypothesis testing and hypothesis testing is part of everyday thinking. Why particular hypotheses are seen as worth pursuing at a particular point in time relates to the background set of beliefs which are held about the world. It is not single hypotheses which are tested but a whole ‘world-view’ or a paradigm (in the terminology of Kuhn, 1962).

  Hypothesis testing is often taken as the essence of scientific method or of empirical thought. Obviously hypotheses are formulated and tested in empirical thinking. Behavioural and cognitive therapy have often been represented as closely related to the academic discipline of psychology and, hence, to the view that (1) the experimental method and (2) mechanistic models of the mind are the most scientific and (therefore) the most productive ways to increase our understanding of human behaviour. Historically this link began with the development of behaviour therapy but has continued with the use of information processing models to explicate thought processes. The promotion of hypothesis testing as the key to scientific method has also been a feature of experimental psychology, and this has carried over into cognitive and behavioural psychotherapy.

  Popper’s (1976) ‘Hypothetico-deductive’ model of scientific practice has been particularly influential. The idea here is that if one adopts a particular way of developing and testing theories (setting up hypotheses which make empirically testable predictions and then attempting to refute them), then one will be doing scientific work and will obtain scientific knowledge. It is worth pointing out that this is a theory

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  Graduate Research

  A Guide for Students in the Sciences

  • Robert V. Smith, Llewellyn D. Densmore, Edward F. Lener(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Academic Press

    (Publisher)

  A hypothesis is an imaginative preconception of a factual relationship. It comes from meaningful observations and often takes the form of statements such as, “Phenomenon A is related to phenomenon B, through variable C.” This concept of hypotheses was not always in force. The ancient Greeks, for example, believed that hypotheses were perfect and experimentation must confirm them. During the Dark Ages, a hypothesis was thought to be perfect and sufficient for gaining knowledge – as long as it was consistent with dogma and the views of the clerical authority. Experimentation was unnecessary. It was not until the nineteenth century that great scientists like Louis Pasteur recommended that hypotheses be regarded as invaluable guides to action that could be discredited only by positive experimental evidence.

  Hypotheses have also been referred to as theoretical generalizations that should be contrasted with empirical generalizations that are summary statements of fact. An example of an empirical generalization might be, “Chameleons assume the color of their environments.” This is different from a hypothesis on chameleon behavior, as indicated later in this section. The importance of the hypothesis in determining the truth should be emphasized. Without hypotheses, the scientific process can become a mere collection of data. Rosalyn Yalow, Nobel laureate in Medicine, noted [98] , “Science is not simply a collection of facts; it is a discipline of thinking about rational solutions to problems after establishing the basic facts derived from observations. It is hypothesizing from what is known to what might be, and then attempting to test the hypothesis.”

  It is important to differentiate between the research hypothesis (H), which is normally stated as a positive statement, and the null hypothesis (H0 ), which maintains that the effect and cause are unrelated, except by chance. An original research hypothesis could be that drug A is more active biologically that drug B. There are, then, two types of null hypotheses that might be employed to determine the validity of such a hypothesis. The nondirectional null hypothesis simply states that there are no differences or no relationships between two groups or variables. In the previous example, the nondirectional null hypothesis states that there is no difference in the biological activities of the two drugs (A and B), and any difference found is due to random error (chance). The second type of null hypothesis is the so-called directional

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  Health Psychology in Clinical Practice

  • Mark Forshaw, Mark J. Forshaw(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  9     Formulation in Health Psychology clinical practice Hannah Dale and Eleanor Bull

  DOI: 10.4324/9781003120469-10

  Introduction

  Assessment and formulation are two sides of the same coin; formulation is the sense making of our assessment information which helps tailor an intervention accordingly. Like assessment (see previous chapter), formulation (sometimes called case conceptualisation) is a core psychological intervention competency, taught to doctoral level and a key area of Health Psychologists’ competence (British Psychological Society, 2015 ; Health and Care Professions Council, 2015 ; Roth & Pilling, 2016 ). The history of formulation in psychology is well described elsewhere (British Psychological Society, 2011 ; Johnstone & Dallos, 2013 ). In brief, psychological formulation formally emerged in the 1950s and has increasingly become part of psychology practice (British Psychological Society, 2011 ).

  Formulation has a variety of different definitions but broadly involves summarising the client’s core difficulties in a systematic way, relating factors to one another and drawing on psychological theories and principles (Johnstone & Dallos, 2013 ). According to one all-encompassing definition,

  a formulation is the tool used by clinicians to relate theory to practice. Clinicians use theoretical as well as practical knowledge to guide their thinking about the problems and difficulties presented by the people who come to them for help, and this combination of ideas helps them decide how best to help those people.

  (Butler, 1998 , p. 2)

  This is usually a shared and ongoing process during therapy as new information comes to light and the psychologist and client work together to integrate this. Formulation skills are an essential part of Health Psychology and can be used directly with clients and more indirectly, such as working with multi-disciplinary colleagues to try to help them make sense of the difficulties a particular client is experiencing and to work in a psychologically-informed way. This work requires the Health Psychologist to gather, make sense of and communicate sensitively about a wide range of sometimes conflicting information taking a truly biopsychosocial approach (Engel, 1980 ). Formulation approaches can differ in terms of the factors that are seen as most relevant, the psychological concepts drawn upon, the emphasis placed on the extent of ‘truth’ of the formulation, the way formulation is used in therapy, and how much the approach adopts an expert versus collaborative stance (Johnstone & Dallos, 2013 ). Psychologists often integrate different models of formulation as this can serve to provide a broader perspective than one alone (British Psychological Society, 2011

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  The Trainee Handbook

  A Guide for Counselling & Psychotherapy Trainees

  • Robert Bor, Mary Watts, Robert Bor, Mary Watts(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  The tasks outlined above are easy to describe but less easy to accomplish. Often the nature and complexity of clients’ needs can feel daunting. Additionally, you may find yourself in a service where there are clear expectations about how to work (such as the need to use disorder-specific formulations in the context of delivering protocol-driven interventions) as well as clear limits to what can be offered (e.g. a limit of six sessions per client). Or you may find yourself in a service that privileges a particular therapeutic model that does not conform to your own preference. If you are to avoid feeling overwhelmed by the array of decision points with which you are confronted, you will need a conceptual ‘map’ of the psychological terrain that you and your client will be navigating during your work together. This is where a formulation can help.

  A formulation is your psychological understanding of the difficulties and concerns the client is experiencing. Tarrier and Calam (2002) suggest that the task can be understood as one that involves:

  …the elicitation of appropriate information and the application and integration of a body of theoretical psychological knowledge to a specific clinical problem in order to understand the origins, development and maintenance of that problem. (2002: 311–12)

  For Corrie and Lane (2010) it is:

  …a framework for practice [that] can be usefully understood as a particular type of story characterized by specific properties that are informed by the context in which the story is created. (2010: 21)

  Alternatively, Hallam (2015) suggests:

  The end product of the process of formulation is a provisional account that links together all the relevant observational elements and identifies causal links between them, some of which are likely to be amenable to change. (2015: 67)

  Although a formulation is built upon the client’s story it is also grounded in observation and the theoretical, therapeutic and research literatures that will be guiding your understanding of human development and functioning. A formulation is the means through which the knowledge-base of psychology and psychotherapy is translated into an understanding of a particular client’s difficulties and through which you weave together the client’s personal history, functioning and current circumstances into a psychologically coherent narrative. A good formulation will therefore convey a thorough and sensitive integration of clinical material and psychological theory and demonstrate how your therapeutic choices (including your aims, style and choice of technique) were underpinned by a theoretically sound rationale.

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  Research Methods in Education

  • Louis Cohen, Lawrence Manion, Keith Morrison(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Theory typically precedes research questions; research does not start with research questions. We assemble observations, ideas, concepts, reflections, consider what they mean, and then formulate our theories, our frameworks of related concepts and propositions. Then we construct our tests of the theories, which may utilise a hypothetico-deductive empirical method (e.g. correlational, causal analysis, difference testing, regressions, or other kinds of analysis and intervention), a hermeneutic method, an emancipatory, transformative method through ideology critique, a grounded theory approach, or others.

  Depending on the type of research and research question, we often commence with a theory and then test it, moving from theory to hypothesis generation to hypothesis testing and observation to prediction to conclusion to generalization. Alternatively, as in a grounded theory approach, we may conduct post hoc theory generation, i.e. starting with data and, through the tools of grounded theory, end up with an emergent theory which subsequently we may wish to test in other contexts and conditions.

  4.6 Questions about theory for researchers

  In considering the role of theory in educational research, researchers can address the following questions:

  • What definition of theory are you using?
  • What is your theory (state it clearly)? Is it a hypothesis, a set of related concepts, a value system, a political/ideological agenda, an explanatory framework, a possible explanation, an opinion, an approach etc.?
  • What is the theory/theoretical framework in which you are working? What are its key components, constructs, concepts and elements, and how do they relate to each other logically and coherently?
  • What is your theory seeking to describe (‘what’), explain (‘how’, ‘why’, ‘when’), predict (‘what if’), generalize, i.e. what is it a theory of, and why is this relevant for your research?

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  The Biopsychosocial Formulation Manual

  A Guide for Mental Health Professionals

  • William H. Campbell, Robert M. Rohrbaugh(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  3

  The Psychological Formulation

  The Psychological Formulation is often the most difficult for beginning clinicians. There are many reasons for this. Trainees typically have limited knowledge of the major psychological theories. Moreover, they often believe that a Psychological Formulation must be based on a specific theory in order to be meaningful. Many clinicians begin their training in busy inpatient units, where the biological and social aspects of care predominate. Even those trainees who may have acquired a basic understanding of one or more psychological theories have limited experience in applying this knowledge in a way that will illuminate a patient’s life. Even when senior clinicians articulate Psychological Formulations, they may not explicate what patient data they utilized in developing their formulations, or their formulations may be so filled with arcane jargon as to be mystifying.

  In this chapter, we will provide an overview of what we consider to be the essential elements of a Psychological Formulation and where you might find the psychological data to support a formulation. We hope to assist beginning clinicians in developing Psychological Formulations without slavish adherence to a specific psychological theory. Later in the chapter, we will provide an overview of cognitive, behavioral, and psychodynamic theories. This is in no way meant to be an exhaustive treatment of these subjects. Instead, we hope to provide the beginning clinician with sufficient theoretical overview to enhance his or her ability to develop a Psychological Formulation and to use the formulation to develop a psychologically informed comprehensive treatment plan. Moreover, we strongly believe that a psychological understanding of patients enables clinicians to explicate the genesis of problematic patient behaviors and, in doing so, to help them cope with the difficult feelings that are generated inside them when interacting with certain patients.

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  Argument and Evidence

  Critical Analysis for the Social Sciences

  • Peter J. Phelan, Peter J. Reynolds(Authors)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  16 Testing hypotheses

  A hypothesis is an idea or hunch about the world. It might concern a claim about an individual variable, such as the degree of pollution in the River Trent, or it might be concerned with the relationship between two or more variables. Examples of the latter include the claim that the incidence of childhood leukaemia is related to the proximity of nuclear installations; that the level of crime is related to the level of unemployment; and that the incidence of child mortality in Victorian Britain was related to the level of spending on sewer construction.

  Most hypotheses are prompted by a combination of inspiration and experience of the world. A hypothesis about some aspect of the world is sometimes referred to as an empirical hypothesis. The idea that nuclear installations are somehow connected with increases in the incidence of leukaemia in children is an example. This hypothesis has been suggested because people have observed an apparently high incidence around certain installations. The origin of a hypothesis does not affect its susceptibility to investigation in principle, though it may affect the way in which it is investigated. The apparently high incidence of leukaemia near Sellafield prompted the cancer-link hypothesis referred to above. The hypothesis is testable but, as pointed out by Taylor and Wilkie (1988), given that the observations near Sellafield were the origin of the hypothesis, it is methodologically unsound to use the same set of data as the basis for testing the hypothesis. Rather, the appropriate procedure, following the hypothetico-deductive method referred to in Chapter 12 , is to deduce something else which one would expect to observe, if the hypothesis were to be substantiated. In this case, one would expect to observe clusters near to other nuclear installations.

  Not all types of hypothesis are testable. For hypotheses such as ‘angels sing’ there is nothing observable, even in principle, that could, if seen, show them to be false. Other hypotheses are testable in principle but as yet no-one has managed to find a way of doing so. ‘There is life in other galaxies’ is an example. Where hypotheses are testable, testing can occur in a variety of ways. Hypotheses which involve general statements about a whole population are often tested by using information contained in a sample selected at random from that population.

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