Concept information
Preferred term
scientific law
Definition
- Empirical regularity or functional relationship established between variables, ideally universal (i.e., independent of time and space, culture), linked to more general principles and thus having explanatory power, preferably expressible in quantitative terms (Roediger, 2008; Teigen, 2002). A law must also support counterfactuals (Goodman, 1955).
Broader concept
Narrower concepts
Synonym(s)
- law of nature
Scope note
- The existence of laws in psychology, and in particular in the field of memory, is controversial (Kahana et al., 2024 ; Roediger, 2008).
Belongs to group
Bibliographic citation(s)
-
• Goodman, N. (1955). Facts, fictions, and forecasts. Harvard University Press.
• Document type: literature review
• Access: closed
- • Hildebrand, T. (2023). Laws of nature. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009109949
{{#each properties}}• Document type: literature review
• Access: closed
- • Kahana, M. J., Diamond, N. B., & Aka, A. (2024). Laws of human memory. In M. J. Kahana & A. D. Wagner (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of human memory (Vol. 1, pp. 29–63). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190917982.013.2
• Document type: literature review
• Access: closed
- • Roediger, III, H. L. (2008). Relativity of remembering: Why the laws of memory vanished. Annual Review of Psychology, 59(1), 225-254. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.57.102904.190139
• Document type: literature review
• Access: closed
- • Teigen, K. H. (2002). One hundred years of laws in psychology. The American Journal of Psychology, 115(1), 103-118. https://doi.org/10.2307/1423676
• Document type: historical study
• Access: closed
- • Tricard, J. (2023). Qu’est-ce qu’une loi de la nature ? Vrin.
• Document type: literature review
• Access: closed
Creator
- Frank Arnould
In other languages
-
French
-
loi de la nature
-
loi naturelle
URI
http://data.loterre.fr/ark:/67375/P66-BM3DGWC3-L{{/each}}{{label}}
{{#each values }} {{! loop through ConceptPropertyValue objects }} {{#if prefLabel }}{{/if}} {{/each}}{{#if notation }}{{ notation }} {{/if}}{{ prefLabel }} {{#ifDifferentLabelLang lang }} ({{ lang }}){{/ifDifferentLabelLang}}{{#if vocabName }} {{ vocabName }} {{/if}} - • Hildebrand, T. (2023). Laws of nature. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009109949