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93 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
- 3rd side (hint)
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A priori method |
- what came before - use of reason and a developing consensus among those debating the merits of one belief over another - logic is used by both sides to come to opposite conclusions, but the logic in both cases is correct |
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Empiricism |
the process of learning through direct observation or experience, and reflection on those experiences |
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Belief perseverance |
motivated by a desire to be certain about one's knowledge, it is a tendency to hold on to a belief even in the face of evidence to the contrary |
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Confirmation Bias |
a tendency to search out and pay special attention to information that supports one's beliefs, while ignoring information that contradicts a belief |
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Availability Heuristic |
occurs when we experience unusual, emotional, or memorable events, and then overestimate how often such events typically occur |
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Determinism |
Events (including psychological ones) have causes |
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Statistical Determinism |
an assumption made by research psychologist that behavioral events can be predicted with a probability greater than chance |
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Strict determinism |
enables prediction of events with 100% certainty |
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Discoverability |
The causes of events can be known, through scientific methods, with some degree of confidence |
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Objective Observations |
One that can be verified by more than one observer |
One that can be verified by more than one observer
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Introspection |
- precise self-report - part of everyday cognition of early psychologists - problem: subjective |
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data-driven |
- it is expected that conclusions about behaviors will be supported by the evidence of the objective info gathered through some systematic procedure |
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Empirical Questions |
answerable questions: questions that can be answered through objective, systematic observations, together with scientific techniques and methods |
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Hypothesis |
a prediction about the study's outcome; often it is a logical deduction from a theory |
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Theory |
a set of statements that summarize what is known about some phenomena and propose working explanations for those phenomena - a good theory must be precise enough so that it can be disproven |
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Falsification |
-research strategy that emphasizes putting theories to the test by trying to disprove or falsify them |
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pseudoscience |
any form of inquiry that appears to use scientific methods and tries hard to give that impression, but is actually based on inadequate, unscientific methods and makes claims that are generally false |
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anecdotal evidence |
- has immediate appeal to the uncritical reader - problem: it is selective: examples that don't fit are ignored |
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effort justification |
the idea that after people expend significant effort, they feel compelled to convince themselves that the effort was worthwhile |
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Laws |
regular and predictable relationships existing between variables |
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prediction |
behavior follows laws |
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explanation |
to explain some behavior is to know what caused it to happen |
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application |
various ways of applying psychological principles to change people's lives for the better |
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critical incidence |
method, used by ethics committees, that surveys psychologists and asks for examples of unethical behavior by psychologists |
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ethics |
a set of standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession |
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IRB |
- Institutional Review Board - reviews and approves research from the standpoint of research |
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debriefing |
a post-experimental session in which the researcher explains the study's purpose, reduces any discomfort felt by participants, and answers any questions posed by participants |
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leakage |
- participants talking to other potential participants |
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dehoaxing |
that portion of a debriefing in which the true purpose of the study is explained to the participants |
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desensitization |
that part of the debriefing during which the researcher tries to reduce any distress felt by participants as a result of their research experience and are informed that they may have their data removed from the data set, if they so desire |
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risk |
depends on the degree to which people being studied find themselves in situations similar to those ordinarily encountered in daily life or during the performance of routine physical or psychological examinations or tests |
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informed consent |
the idea that persons should be given sufficient information about a study to make their decision to participate as a research subject an informed and voluntary one |
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assent |
if the participants are children, informed consent must be provided by their parents, but the researchers are also required to explain the research to the child and to obtain their agreement to participate |
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plagiarism |
claiming as your own another's words, language, ideas or work |
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basic research |
- investigates the fundamental principles of behavior and mental processes - designed to understand fundamental psychological phenomena |
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applied research |
- has direct and immediate relevance to the solution of real-world problems - designed to shed light on the solution to real-world problems |
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laboratory research |
- research that occurs within the controlled confines of a research laboratory - minimal mundane reallism - often basic research
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field research |
- research that occurs in any location outside the laboratory - maximum mundane realism - often applied research |
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mundane realism |
how closely an experiment mirrors real-life experiences |
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experimental realism |
the extent to which a research study has an impact on the subjects, forces them to take the matter seriously and involves them in the procedures |
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quantitative research |
data are collected and presented in the form of numbers |
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qualitative research |
results presented as analytical narratives that summarize the findings |
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operational definitions |
procedures that define and measure a construct |
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converging operations |
series of investigations using slightly different operational definitions all support the same conclusions, increasing understanding and confidence |
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serendipity |
act of discovering something while looking for something else entirely |
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construct |
a hypothetical factor that is not directly observed, but is inferred from certain behaviors and assumed to follow from certain circumstances |
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deduction |
reasoning from a set of general statements toward the prediction of some specific event (reasoning from general to specific) (theory to data) |
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induction |
the logical process of reasoning from specific events to the general (reasoning from specific to general) (data to theory) |
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productivity |
good theories advance knowledge by generating a great deal of research |
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parsimony |
theories should include the minimum number of constructs and assumptions that are necessary to explain the phenomena adequately and predict future research outcomes - simplest explanation is generally preferred |
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pilot studies |
trial runs of a possible idea for an experiment |
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replication |
a study that duplicated some or all of a precious study, hoping to confirm or fail to confirm the previous findings |
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extension |
resembles a prior study and usually replicated part of it, but goes father and adds at least one new feature |
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creative thinking |
a process of making an innovative connection between seemingly unrelated ideas or events |
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reliability |
a measure of behavior is said to be reliable if its results are repeatable when the behaviors are remeasured |
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validity |
a behavioral measure is said to be valid if it measures what it has been designed to measure |
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content validity |
whether or not the actual content of the items on a test matches the content of the text |
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face validity |
whether a measure seems to be valid to those who are taking it |
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criterion validity |
whether a measure is meaningfully related to some other (concurrent) measure of behavior |
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construct validity |
whether a test adequately measures some construct - directly concerned with operational definition |
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convergent validity |
scores on a test measuring some construct should relate to scores on other tests of constructs that are theoretically related to it |
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Divergent/ Discriminant Validity |
scores on a test measuring some construct should be unrelated to scores on other tests of constructs that are theoretically unrelated to it |
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nominal scales |
measurement scale in which the numbers have no quantitative value, but rather serve to identify categories into which events can be placed |
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ordinal scale |
measureent scale in which assigned numbers stand for relative standing or ranking |
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interval scale |
measurement scale in which numbers refer to quantities, and intervals are assumed to be of equal size; a score of zero is just one of many points on the scale and does not denote the absence of the phenomenon being measured |
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ratio scale |
mesurement scale in which numbers refer to quantities and intervals are assumed to be of equal size; a score of zero denotes the absence of the phenomenon being measured |
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measurement error |
produced by any factor that introduces inaccuracies into the measurement of some varibale |
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poplation |
consists of all members of some defined group |
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sample |
some subset of the defined group (population) |
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descriptive statistics |
summarizes the data collected from the sample of participants in your study |
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mean |
arithmetic average of a data set, found by adding the scores and dividing by the total number of scores in the set |
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median |
the middle score of a data set; an equal number of scores are both above and below the median |
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mode |
the most frequently appearing score in a data set |
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range |
in a set of scores, the difference between the score with the largest value and the one with the smallest value |
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standard deviation |
an estimate of the average amount by which the scores in the sample distribution deviate from the mean score |
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variance |
the number produced during the standard deviation calculation just prior to taking the square root |
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interquartile range |
useful when there are outliers; the rang of scores between the bottom 25% of scores and the top 25% of scores |
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histogram |
shows the number of times each score occurs or how often scores within a defined range occur |
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frequency distribution |
a table that records the number of times that each score occurs |
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symmetrical distribution |
normal bell-curve |
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stem and leaf display |
used when there is such a wide range of scores that a simple frequency distribution and histogram would be cumbersome |
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inferenatial statistics |
allows you to draw conclusions about your data that can be applied to the wider population |
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null hypothesis |
make the assumption that there is no difference in performance between two different conditions that you are studying |
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alternative hypothesis |
the outcome you are hoping to find |
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type I error |
rejecting the null hypothesis when it is in fact true |
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type II error |
occurs when you fail to reject the null hypothesis but you are wrong |
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systematic variance |
the result of some identifiable factor, either the variable of interest or some factor that you've failed to control adequately |
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error variance |
nonsystematic variability due to individual differences between the subjects in the two groups and any number of random, unpredictable effects that might have occurred during the study |
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file-drawer effect |
studies finding no differences were less likely to be published and wind up being stored away in one's files |
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effect size |
provides an estimate of the magnitude of the difference among sets of scores, while at the same time taking into account the amount of variability in the score |
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meta-analysis |
uses effect size analysis to combine the results from several experiments that use the same variables, even though these variables are likely to have different operational definitions |
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confidence interval |
a range of values that is expected to include a population value with a certain degree of confidence |
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power |
a test has high power if it results in a high probability that a difference that exists in reality will be found in a particular study |
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