Question

Why do psychologists always develop a hypothesis at the beginning of a research project?

A) To provide a clear research question
B) To establish cause and effect relationships
C) To guide the research and make predictions
D) To analyze data and draw conclusions

Answer 1

Psychologists create a hypothesis to direct their research and predict outcomes, which helps confirm or refute cause and effect relationships through testable and falsifiable experiments.

Step-by-step explanation:

Psychologists develop a hypothesis at the beginning of a research project to guide the research and make predictions. A hypothesis is a tentative explanation for an observation or a set of observations, essentially an informed guess based on prior knowledge and logical reasoning. It is designed to be testable and falsifiable, meaning that through experiments and data collection, it can be supported or rejected. This process helps psychologists to establish cause and effect relationships and to determine the efficacy of their theories about human behavior and psychological phenomena.