Weiten Ch 2

Front 1

anecdotal evidence

Back 1

personal stories about specific incidents and experiences

Front 2

case study

Back 2

an in-depth investigation of an individual subject

Front 3

confounding of variables

Back 3

a condition that exists whenever two variables are linked together in a way that makes it difficult to sort out their independent effects

Front 4

control group

Back 4

subjects in a study who do notrecieve the special treatment given to the experimental group

Front 5

correlation

Back 5

the extent to which two variables are related to each other

Front 6

correlation coefficient

Back 6

a numerical index of the degree of relationship between two variables

Front 7

data collection techniques

Back 7

procedures for making empirical observations and measurements

Front 8

dependent variable

Back 8

in an experiment, the variable that is thought to be affected by the manipulation of the independent variable

Front 9

descriptive statistics

Back 9

statistics that are used to organize and summarize data

Front 10

double-blind procedure

Back 10

a research strategy in which neither subjects nor experimenters know which subjects are in the experimental or control groups

Front 11

experiment

Back 11

a research method in which the investigatormanipulates a variable under carefully controlled conditions and observes whether any changes occur in a second variableas a result

Front 12

experimental group

Back 12

the subjects in a study who recieve some special treatment in regard to the independent variable

Front 13

experimenter bias

Back 13

a phenomenon that occurs when a researcher's expectations or preferences about the outcome of a study influence the results obtained

Front 14

extraneous variables

Back 14

any variables other than the independent variable that seen likely to influence the dependent variable in a specific study

Front 15

hypothesis

Back 15

a tentative statement about the relationship between two or more variables

Front 16

independent variable

Back 16

in an experiment, a condition or event that an experimenter varies in order to see its impact on another variable

Front 17

inferential statistics

Back 17

statistics that are used to interpret data and draw conculsions

Front 18

journal

Back 18

a periodical that publishes technical and scholarly material, usually in a narrowly defined area of inquiry

Front 19

mean

Back 19

the arithmetic average of the scores in a distribution

Front 20

median

Back 20

the score that falls exactly in the center of a distribution of scores

Front 21

mode

Back 21

the score that occurs most frequently in a distribution

Front 22

naturalistic observation

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a descriptive research method in which the researcher engages in careful, usually prolonged, ovservation of behavior without intervening directly with the subjects

Front 23

operational definition

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a definition that describes the actions or observationd that will be made to measure or control a variable

Front 24

participants

Back 24

the persons or animals whose behavior is systematically observed in a study

Front 25

placebo effects

Back 25

the fact that subjects' expectations can lead them to experience some change even though they recieve an an empty, fake, or ineffectual treatment

Front 26

population

Back 26

the larger collection of animals or people from which a sample is drawn and that researchers want to generalize about

Front 27

random assignment

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the constitution of groups in a study such that all subjects have an equal chance of being assigned to any group or condition

Front 28

replication

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the reptition of a study to see whether the earlier results are duplicated

Front 29

research methods

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differing approaches to the manipulation and control of variables in empirical studies

Front 30

response set

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a tendency to respond ti questions in a particular way that is unrekated to the content of the questions

Front 31

sample

Back 31

the collection of subjects selected for observation in an emprical study

Front 32

sampling bias

Back 32

a problem that occurs when a sample is not representative of the population from which it is drawn

Front 33

social desirability bias

Back 33

a tendency to give socially approved answers to questions about oneself

Front 34

standard deviation

Back 34

an index of the amount of variability in a set of data

Front 35

statistical significance

Back 35

the condition that exists when the probability that the observed findings are due to chance is very low

Front 36

statistics

Back 36

the use of mathematics to organize, summarize, and interpret numerical data

Front 37

survey

Back 37

a descriptive research method in which researchers use questionnaires or interviews to gather info about specific aspects of subjects' behavior

Front 38

theory

Back 38

a system of interrelated ideas that is used to explain a set of observations

Front 39

variability

Back 39

the extent to which the scores in a data set tend to vary from each other and from the mean

Front 40

variables

Back 40

any measurable conditions, events, characteristics, or behaviors that are controlled or observed in a study

Front 41

meta-analysis

Back 41

combining the statistical results of many studies of the same question, yielding an estimate of the size and consistency of a variable's effects