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creationism

n.

1. in its most general sense, the view that the universe was created out of nothing by a higher intelligence, in contrast to the view that it came into being without any such intervention, or that it has existed forever. Although most varieties of this view are religious, all need not be.

2. in a more restricted sense, a family of views that reject evolutionary theories in favor of a literal acceptance of the biblical creation story, holding (among other things) that the world was created by God in six days (or fairly short time periods) and that each species of animal (including humans) was created by a separate act of God. See also intelligent design. —creationist adj., n.

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Psychology term of the day

May 10th 2024

power

power

n.

1. the capacity to influence others, even when they try to resist this influence. Social power derives from a number of sources: control over rewards (reward power) and punishments or other force (coercive power); a right to require and demand obedience (legitimate power); others’ identification with, attraction to, or respect for the powerholder (referent power); others’ belief that the powerholder possesses superior skills and abilities (expert power); and the powerholder’s access to and use of informational resources (informational power).

2. a measure of how effective a statistical procedure is at identifying real differences between populations: It is the probability that use of the procedure will lead to the null hypothesis of no effect being rejected when the alternative hypothesis is true. For example, if a given statistical test has a power of .70, then there is a 70% probability that its use will result in the null hypothesis correctly being rejected as false, with a corresponding 30% chance that its use will lead to a Type II error. Power ranges from 0 to 1, with values of .80 or above generally considered acceptable.

3. a mathematical notation that indicates the number of times a quantity is multiplied by itself.