HYPOTHESIS

V M SALIMA HABEEB
1ST MSc. CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
MEANING OF HYPOTHESIS
• The word hypothesis is made up of two Greek roots which mean that it is some sort of ‘sub-
statements’,
• For it is the presumptive statement of a proposition, which the investigation seeks to prove.
• The word hypothesis consists of two words:
Hypo + thesis = Hypothesis
• ‘Hypo’ meanstentative or subject to the verification and ‘Thesis’ meansstatement about
solution of a problem .
• The world meaning of the term hypothesis is a tentative statement about the solution of the
problem.
• It is a statement temporarily accepted as true in the light of what is known at the time about
the phenomena.
DEFINITIONS OF HYPOTHESIS
• The term hypothesis has been defined in several ways. Some important definitions have
been given in the following :
Hypothesis
• “It is a tentative supposition or provisional guess which seems to explain the situation under
observation.” – James E. Greighton.
• According to John W. Best, “It is a shrewd guess or inference that is formulated and
provisionally adopted to explain observed facts or conditions and to guide in further
investigation.”
• Goode and Han, “A hypothesis states what we are looking for. A hypothesis looks forward.
It is a proposition which can be put to a test to determine its validity. It may prove to be
correct or incorrect.
• Bruce W. Tuckman, “A hypothesis then could be defined as an expectation about events
based on generalization of the assumed relationship between variables.”
• M. Verma, “A theory when stated as a testable proposition formally and clearly and
subjected to empirical or experimental verification is known as a hypothesis.”
CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD HYPOTHESIS
Hulley says a hypothesis could be called as a good hypothesis if it possesses the following
characteristics:
• Hypothesis should be simple so that it is easily understood by everyone.
• Hypothesis should be clear, specific and precise. If the hypothesis is not clear and precise, the
inferences drawn on its basis cannot be taken as reliable.
• Hypothesis should be capable of being tested.
• Hypothesis should state relationship between variables.
• Hypothesis should be consistent with most known facts. i.e. it must be consistent with a
substantial body of established facts.
• The hypothesis must explain the facts that gave rise to the need for explanation. It must
actually explain what it claims to explain.
There are several other criteria or characteristics of a good research hypothesis. Some of these
characteristics are enumerated below.
• 1. The hypothesis should be conceptually clear: A good research hypothesis is based upon
operationally defined concepts. Not only this, the definitions must be given commonly-accepted
and communicable words so that the complete hypothesis is conceptually clear to any
investigator.
• 2. The hypothesis must be testable: It should be formulated in a way that can be tested
directly and found to be probably true or probably false. A hypothesis like, "Democratic
atmosphere in an educational institution improves the creative thinking of the pupils," is an
example of a hypothesis, which is too broad and hence, cannot be tested directly. Such a
hypothesis, however, is potentially testable.
• 3. The hypothesis should be economical and parsimonious: if several hypotheses are
offered to test a research problem, the more economical and parsimonious ones should be
preferred to hypotheses involving higher monetary expenses.
• 4. The hypothesis should be related to the existing body of theory and fact: If the
investigator advances a hypothesis, which seems to him of interest but which is not related
to the existing.
FORMULATING A HYPOTHESIS
It is difficult to tell precisely how a scientist formulates a hypothesis because the process of
formulation itself is vague and idiosyncratic. Goode & Hatt (1952) have pointed out three major
possible difficulties in formulation of a good research hypothesis.
• First, the absence of knowledge of a theoretical framework is a major difficulty in formulating a
good research hypothesis. If detailed theoretical evidences are not available or if the
investigator is not aware of the availability of those theoretical evidences, a research
hypothesis cannot be formulated.
• Second, when the investigator lacks the ability to utilize the knowledge of the theoretical
framework, a hypothesis cannot be formulated.
• Third, when the investigator is not aware of the important scientific research techniques, he
will not be able to frame a good research hypothesis.
Despite these difficulties, the investigator attempts in his research to formulate a hypothesis.
• Usually the hypothesis is derived from the problem statement. The hypothesis should be
formulated in a positive and substantive form before data is collected.
• In some cases additional hypotheses may be formulated after data has been collected, but
they should be tested on set of data and not on the old set which has suggested it. The
formulation of a hypothesis is a relative task and involves a lot of thinking, imagination and the
like.
• Reichenbach (1938) has made a distinction between the two processes found commonly in any
hypothesis formulation task.
• One is the context of discovery and another is the context of justification.
• The manner or the process through which a scientist arrives at a hypothesis illustrates the
context of discovery, and the presentation of evidence or proof in support of the truth of the
hypothesis illustrates the context of justification.
 WAYS OF STATING A HYPOTHESIS
• A hypothesis is a testable statement of the relationship between the variables under study.
• Since it is testable, it can be shown whether a hypothesis is either true or false.
• When we are aware of these characteristics of a hypothesis, we must know how to state a
hypothesis.
• According to the suggestion given by L Russell (see Reichenbach, 1947) the hypothesis
should be stated in the logical form of the general implication.
• A hypothesis in form of a general implication may be expressed in terms of an "lf... then.."
relationship or "If a then b'. In other words, if a condition holds true then some other
conditions also hold true.
• For example, if the reward is given for learning a task then the learning is improved.
• In general implication the a condition is referred to as the antecedent condition and the b
condition is referred to as the consequent condition.
• The antecedent condition as well as the consequent condition is expressed in the form of
propositions and therefore, the hypothesis expresses the relationship between the above
two types of propositional statements.
• In stating the hypothesis as general implications there occur two common
misunderstandings regarding the antecedent condition and the consequent condition.
• First, it is generally misunderstood that the antecedent condition causes the consequent
condition. This is not always true. The general implication only says that if the hypothesis is
probably true then the antecedent condition and the consequent condition will occur
together and not that one causes the other.
• Second, it is commonly misunderstood that the consequent conditions are always true, But
in reality the general implication does not say so. It only states that if the antecedent
conditions are true then the consequent conditions are also true.
• Now the question is: Are we following Russell's standard general implication in stating the
hypothesis?
• The answer is probably `no'. Recent publications of scientists have clearly shown that they
are not following the "lf the hypothesis in the form of a statement, which is direct and does
not contain the "If... then ..“ form.
• For example: (i) Reward improves learning. (i) The onset of fatigue reduces the efficiency of
workers.
• If we are not conforming to the advice of Russell, we are not necessarily committing a
serious error in stating the hypothesis because the above type of hypothesis can be
restated in the "If ..., then." form of Russell also.
• For example, "If a reward is given, learning is improved" and "if fatigue occurs, the
efficiency of the worker is reduced."
• It is obvious that the hypothesis can be formulated in different ways.
TYPES OF HYPOTHESES
• On the basis of the degree of generality, research hypothesis can be divided into two types:
(a) Universal hypothesis (b) Existential hypothesis
• A universal hypothesis is one in which the stated relationship holds good for all the levels or
values of variables which are specified for all time at all places.
• `Adequate level of light increase reading efficiency' is an example of universal hypothesis.
• Existential hypothesis is one which states that the relationship stated holds good for at least
one particular case.
• For example, there is at least one schizophrenic who does not have either delusion or
hallucination' is an example of existential hypothesis.
• Of these two types of hypotheses, the universal hypothesis is preferred because such a
hypothesis has a greater predicative power than the existential hypothesis.
• As we know, hypothesis is a formally stated expectation about a behaviour that defines the
purpose and goals of the study being conducted.
• Based upon the goals of explaining and controlling the causes of behaviour, there are two
types of hypothesis: 1. Causal hypothesis 2. Descriptive hypothesis
• A causal hypothesis postulates a particular causal influence or behaviour. In other words. it
tentatively explains a particular influence on, or a cause for, a particular behaviour.
• For example, if the researcher hypothesizes that boring contents of commercial
advertisements is the cause of channel changing by TV viewers it becomes the example of
causal hypothesis.
• Although it is a fact that boring contents may not be the only causal influence of the
channel-changing behaviour, it is the probable cause we are investigating at the moment.
• Descriptive hypothesis is one that postulates particular characteristics of a behaviour or
provides some specific goal for the observation.
• In fact, such hypothesis tentatively describes a behaviour in terms of the characteristics or
the situation in which it occurs.
• Such hypothesis identifies the various characteristics or attributes of behaviour and allows
us to predict when it occurs.
• For example, if the researcher hypothesizes that channel changing during TV viewing
occurs more frequently when the person is alone than when he is watching with others.
• The reality may be that even the number of people present might partially cause channel
changing and the researcher has not stated that.
• In this way, it can be said that a descriptive hypothesis simply describes the behaviour in
terms of the various characteristics of the situation and it does not attempt to identify the
causes of a behaviour.
• Apart from these, the other type of hypotheses that we commonly use in behavioral
researches are simple hypothesis, complex hypothesis, research hypothesis, null
hypothesis and statistical hypothesis.
• These may be described as under:
• 3. Simple hypothesis: Simple hypothesis contains only one or two variables.
• For example, hypotheses like children from broken homes tend to become delinquent,
reward improve learning, aggression is associated with frustration are all examples of
simple hypotheses.
• In all these hypotheses the relationship between only two variables have been postulated.
Hence, they are examples of simple hypotheses.
• 4. Complex hypothesis: Complex hypotheses are hypotheses which contain more than two
complex because the interrelatedness of more than two variables acting simultaneously is more
variables and therefore, require complex statistical calculation too.
• Such hypotheses are called difficult to assess quantitatively and theoretically.
• A hypothesis like children from upper and lower socio-economic status have larger adult
adjustment problems than children from middle socioeconomic status is an example of a
relatively complex hypotheses.
• 5. Research hypothesis: A hypothesis derived from the researcher's theory about some
aspects of behaviour is called a research hypothesis or is also known as a working
hypothesis.
• The researcher believes that his research hypotheses are true or that they are accurate
statements about the conditions of things he is investigating.
• He also believes that these hypotheses are true to the extent that the theory from which
they were derived is adequate. In this perspective, Siegel and Castell (1988) have defined
research hypothesis as, "the prediction derived from the theory under test."
• 6. Null hypothesis: A null hypothesis (H,) is, in a sense, the reverse of a research
hypothesis. It is, in fact, a no-effect or difference hypothesis or negation hypothesis that
tends to refuse or deny what is explicitly indicated in a given research hypothesis.
• Generally, the experimenter or researcher's aim is to refuse this hypothesis on the basis of
the obtained results so that its reverse, that is, the research hypothesis can be supported
or confirmed.
• 7. Statistical hypothesis: A statistical hypothesis, also known as alternative hypothesis (H),
is one that makes numerical expressions of null hypotheses and of research hypotheses. In
other words, it is the operational statement of the investigator's research hypothesis.
7) A hypothesis can be directional or non-directional.

• A directional hypothesis states the kind of difference or

relationship between two conditions or two groups of participants
• For example: Students who do homework without the television
switched on in their room whilst working produce better results
than those who do homework with the television switched on.

• By contrast, a non-directional hypothesis simply predicts that

there will be a difference or relationship between two
conditions or two groups of participants, but it does not state
the direction of the difference (e.g. ‘more than’, ‘less than,
‘better than’, ‘worse than’),
• For example: Students who do homework without the
television switched on in their room whilst working produce
different results from those who do homework with the
television switched on.
 Errors in Testing of Hypothesis:
• There are basically two types of errors we make in the context of testing of Hypothesis.
• These are called as Type-I error and the Type-II error.
• In type-I error, we may reject Null hypothesis when Null hypothesis is true.
• Type-II error is when we accept Null hypothesis when the Null Hypothesis is not true.
• In other words, Type-I error means rejection of hypothesis which should have been
accepted and Type-II error means accepting the hypothesis which should have been
rejected.
• Type-I error is denoted by alpha known as alpha error, also called the level of significance
of test and Type-II error is denoted by beta known as beta error.
 Accept Null hypothesis Reject Null hypothesis
Null hypothesis (true) Correct decision Type-I error (alpha error)

Null hypothesis (false) Type-II error (beta error) Correct decision

• The probability of Type-I error is usually determined in advance and is understood as the
level of significance of testing the hypothesis.
• If Type-I error is fixed at 5%, it means that there are about 5 chance in
• 100 that we will reject Null hypothesis when Null hypothesis is true. We can control Type-I
error just by fixing at a lower level.
• For instance, if we fix it at 1%, we will say that the maximum probability of committing
Type-I error would only be 0.01.
• But with the fixed sample size, when we try to reduce Type-I error, the probability of
committing Type-II error increases.
• Both types of errors cannot be reduced simultaneously.
• There is trade off between two types of errors which means that the probability of making
one type error can only be reduced if we are willing to increase the probability of making
the other type of error.
• One must set a very high level for Type-I error in one’s testing technique of a given
hypothesis.
• Hence, in the testing of hypothesis, one must make all possible efforts to strike an
adequate balance between Type-I and Type-II errors.
THANK YOU