2.2 Observation: What Do People Do? Flashcards
What’s an Operational Definition?
A description of a property in concrete, measurable terms.
What’s an instrument?
Anything that can detect the condition to which an operational definition refers.
What are the two essential steps in order to conduct “Measurement”?
Defining
Detecting
Define “Validity”
The extent to which a concrete event defines a property.
Define “Reliability”
The tendency for an instrument to produce the same measurement whenever it is used to measure the same thing.
Define “Power”; in terms of instrumentation…
An instrument’s ability to detect small magnitudes of the property
Define “Demand characteristics”
Those aspects of an observational setting that cause people to behave as they think someone else wants or expects
What is Naturalistic Observation?
A technique for gathering scientific information by unobtrusively observing people in their natural environments
Why is Naturalistic Observation not always possible?
Some things scientists want to observe don’t occur naturally.
Some information can’t be gathered from someone without interacting with them.
What are some things scientists use when Naturalistic Observation isn’t possible?
Privacy - people are less likely to be influenced by demand characteristics when they cannot be identified as the originators of their actions, and psychologists often take advantage of this fact by allowing people to respond privately
Control - a person’s behaviour can’t be influenced by demand characteristics if that behaviour isn’t under the person’s voluntary control
Unawareness - one of the best ways to avoid demand characteristics is simply to make sure that the people who are being observed are unaware of the true purpose of the observation
What are the two components of “Observer Bias”?
- Expectations can influence observations
2. Expectations can influence reality
What’s a “double blind” observation?
A technique whose true purpose is hidden from both the observer and the person being observed
What is “Frequency Distribution”?
A graphical representation of measurements arranged by the number of times each measurement was made.
What is “Normal Distribution”?
A mathematically defined distribution in which the frequency of measurements is highest in the middle and decreases symmetrically in both directions.
Normal distribution is symmetrical
What are the two types of Descriptive Statistics?
Central Tendency - Regards the “y” axis of a graph
Variability - Regards the “x” axis of a graph
