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In science and philosophy, an ad hoc hypothesis is a hypothesis added to a theory in order to save it from being falsified.. For example, a person that wants to believe in leprechauns can avoid ever being proven wrong by using ad hoc hypotheses (e.g., by adding "they are invisible", then "their motives are complex", and so on).
Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning literally ' for this '. In English , it typically signifies a solution designed for a specific purpose, problem, or task rather than a generalized solution adaptable to collateral instances (compare with a priori ).
Perhaps Barsalou’s most notable contribution to the field of cognitive psychology is his research on ad hoc, or goal-derived, categories. Prior to this work, the vast majority of research on the cognitive representation of categories dealt solely with taxonomic categories, in which category membership is established due to overlap in both conceptual and physical features.
Rationalization encourages irrational or unacceptable behavior, motives, or feelings and often involves ad hoc hypothesizing. This process ranges from fully conscious (e.g. to present an external defense against ridicule from others) to mostly unconscious (e.g. to create a block against internal feelings of guilt or shame).
Role theory is a concept in sociology and in social psychology that considers most of everyday activity to be the acting-out of socially defined categories (e.g., mother, manager, teacher). Each role is a set of rights, duties, expectations, norms, and behaviors that a person has to face and fulfill. [ 1 ]
Ad hoc hypotheses are justifications that prevent theories from being falsified. Possible explanations can become needlessly complex. It might be coherent, for instance, to add the involvement of leprechauns to any explanation, but Occam's razor would prevent such additions unless they were necessary.
A major criticism of the theory is that it is ad hoc: that Gardner is not expanding the definition of the word "intelligence", but rather denies the existence of intelligence as traditionally understood, and instead uses the word "intelligence" where other people have traditionally used words like "ability" and "aptitude".
The track of scientific research around employee recognition and motivation was constructed on the foundation of early theories of behavioral science and psychology. [3] The earliest scientific papers on employee recognition have tended to draw upon a combination of needs-based motivation (for example, Hertzberg 1966; Maslow 1943) theories and reinforcement theory (Mainly Pavlov 1902; B.F ...