Psych Ch 2

Front 1

5 characteristics of an ideal scientist

Back 1

percision, skepticism, reliance on empirical evidence, willingness to make risky predictions, openness

Front 2

percision

Back 2

begin with a theory, develop a hypothesis, make a prediction, test through observational definition

Front 3

example of theory, hypothesis, and prediction as related to observational learning and child violence

Back 3

theory: observational learning, you learn through observing

hypothesis: child sees parents being violent, child is more likely to be violent

Front 4

skepticism

Back 4

do not accept explanations based on faith/authority

Front 5

reliance on empirical evidence

Back 5

theories must be backed by evidence

Front 6

willingness to make risky predictions

Back 6

state the idea in a way that it can be refuted

Front 7

confirmation bias

Back 7

tendency to look for something that confirms your own views

Front 8

openness

Back 8

must be willing to tell people where you got ideas, where the ideas came from, and what the results were

Front 9

participants in a study

Back 9

must be representative

Front 10

descriptive methods

Back 10

allows people to describe behaviors

Front 11

case studies

Back 11

detailed description of an individual based on observation/testing

Front 12

pros of case studies

Back 12

good sources of hypothesis

in depth info on an induvidual

unusual cases shed light on unethical situations

Front 13

cons of case studies

Back 13

individual may not be typical/representative

memories may be selective/inaccurate

Front 14

naturalistic observation

Back 14

observes behavior in real life

Front 15

pros of naturalistic observation

Back 15

alows description of behavior as it occurs in its natural state

useful in first stages of research

Front 16

cons of naturalistic observation

Back 16

researchers have little/no control over situation

biased observations

doesn't allow firm conclusions

Front 17

labratory observation

Back 17

studies done in a labratory

Front 18

pros of labratory observation

Back 18

more control over situation

sophisticated equipment

Front 19

cons of laboratory observation

Back 19

biased observations

impacts decision making of subjects

Front 20

test

Back 20

procedure for measuring answers to questions

Front 21

pros of tests

Back 21

yields info on a lot of different traits/habits

Front 22

cons of tests

Back 22

difficult to construct reliable tests

Front 23

how can you tell which tests are good?

Back 23

reliability and validity

Front 24

reliability

Back 24

producing the same results from one time and place to another

tests are not helpful if they're not consistient

Front 25

validity

Back 25

the extent to which it measures what it sets out to measure

psychology involves constructs-things that can't be directly measured

size of feet not valid measure of depresiion

Front 26

questionnaires and interviews

Back 26

gather info by asking people about their experiences/opinions

Front 27

pros of questionnaires and interviews

Back 27

large amount of information on a large amount of people

Front 28

cons of questionnaires and interviews

Back 28

if sample is non-representative/biased, you can't generalize

responses could be inaccurate

Front 29

correlational studies

Back 29

interested in whether 2 things are related to each other and the strength in which they are related

Front 30

negative correlation

Back 30

variables related in opposite direction

as X increases, Y decreases

Front 31

positive correlation

Back 31

variables related in same direction

as X increases, Y increases

Front 32

significance tests

Back 32

how likely it is that something occurred by chance (cutoff of 5%, anything less that 5% is signif.)

Front 33

cross sectional study

Back 33

compare people of different ages at the same time

Front 34

longitudinal study

Back 34

study of the same people reassessed over periods of time

Front 35

correlation coefficient

Back 35

represents the size/direction of a correlation.

0=no correlation

1=perfect correlation

-1=perfect negative correlation

Front 36

pros of correlations

Back 36

shows whether 2 variables are related

allows for general predictions

Front 37

cons of correlations

Back 37

usually doesn't permit identification of cause and effect

correlation does not mean causation

Front 38

independednt variable

Back 38

manipulated variable

Front 39

dependent variable

Back 39

outcome

Front 40

random assignment

Back 40

equally as likely to be a control group or experiment group

Front 41

placebo effect

Back 41

when people's symptoms change just because they expect them to change

Front 42

single blind study

Back 42

experimenter knows who is in which group

Front 43

double blind study

Back 43

experimenter doesn't know and parcipant doesn't know

Front 44

pros of experiments

Back 44

allows researchers to control the situation

permits researcher to identify cause and effect and placebo effects

Front 45

cons of experiments

Back 45

situation is artificial so it may not generalize to the real world