Psyc 215 Chapter 2

Front 1

research process

Back 1

* coming up with ideas, refining them, testing them, and interpreting the results obtained

Front 2

hypothesis

Back 2

* explicit, testable prediction about the conditions under which an event will occur

Front 3

theory

Back 3

* simplicity
* comprehensiveness
* ability to generate new hypotheses

Front 4

self-perception theory

Back 4

* when people’s internal states, such as a feeling or attitude, are difficult to interpret, they infer this feeling or attitude by observing their own behavior and the situation in which it takes place
* Daryl Bem

Front 5

basic research

Back 5

* seeks to increase our understanding of human behavior and is designed to test a specific hypothesis from a specific theory

Front 6

applied research

Back 6

* make use of social psychology’s theories or methods to enlarge our understanding of naturally occurring events and to contribute to the solution of social problems

Front 7

conceptual variables

Back 7

* ex: attraction, love, violence

Front 8

operational definition

Back 8

* have to transform conceptual variables into operational variables

Front 9

construct validity

Back 9

* extent to which 1) the manipulations in an experiment really manipulate the conceptual variables they were designed to manipulate and 2) the measures used in a study really measure the conceptual variables they were designed to measure

Front 10

self-reports

Back 10

* can consist of individual questions or sets of questions

Front 11

Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale

Back 11

* consists of a set of questions that measures individuals’ overall self-esteem

Front 12

bogus pipeline

Back 12

* indicates that participants who are led to believe that their responses will be verified by an infallible lie-detector report true facts about themselves more frequently

Front 13

interrate reliability

Back 13

* level of agreement among multiple observers of the same behavior

Front 14

archival studies

Back 14

* involves examining existing records of past events and behaviors
* advantage: researchers can be sure that they did not influence the behavior by their presence
* valuable for examining cultural and historical trends

Front 15

surveys

Back 15

* can be conducted in person, over the phone, by mail, or via the Internet
* many social psychological questions can be addressed only with surveys because they involve variables that are impossible or unethical to observe directly or manipulate
* can be affected strongly by subtle aspects of the wording and context of questions
* important issue is how to select people to take survey
* must first identify the population in which they are interested
* from general population -> sample that is representative
* best way to achieve representativeness is to use random sampling (method of selection in which everyone in a population has an equal chance of being selected for the sample
* use randomizing procedures

Front 16

correlation coefficient

Back 16

* statistic that measures the strength and direction of the relationship between the variables

Front 17

concurrent

Back 17

* correlations obtained at a single point in time across a number of individuals
* ex: physically attractive people make more money than less attractive people

Front 18

prospective

Back 18

* correlations obtained at different times from the same individuals
* ex: whether certain behaviors at a particular age are associated with other behaviors at a later age

Front 19

experiment

Back 19

* researcher has control over the experimental procedures
* participants are randomly assigned (means participants are not assigned to a condition on the basis of their personal or behavioral characteristics)

Front 20

subject variables

Back 20

* ex: gender, ethnicity

Front 21

internal validity

Back 21

* results of a properly conducted experiment, reasonable certainty that the independent variable did cause the effects obtained on the dependent variable

Front 22

external validity

Back 22

* extent to which the results obtained under one set of circumstances would also occur in a different set of circumstances
* when an experiment has external validity, its findings can be assumed to generalize to other people and to other situations
* external validity is affected by sample population and setting in which the research is conducted

Front 23

meta-analysis

Back 23

* use a set of statistical procedures to examine, in a new way, relevant research that has already been conducted and reported