Ch 1 Module 3: Research in Psychology Flashcards
True or false: a major undertaking for the field of psychology is developing suppositions about behaviour and to determine which of those suppositions are accurate
True
What are the 3 main steps of the scientific method?
1) Identifying Questions of Interest
2) Formulating an explanation
3) Carrying out research designed to support or refute the explanation.
What is a theory?
Plausible explanations for existing and true facts.
What theory says that the greater number of bystanders or witnesses to an event that calls for help, the the more the responsibility for helping is perceived to be shared by all the bystanders.
Diffusion of responsibility
Latane & Darley, 1970
What is a hypothesis?
A prediction stated in a way that allows it to be tested.
Analyzing crime data from the past few years wold be called ______ research.
Archival
What is “research”?
Systematic inquiry aimed at the discovery of new knowledge
What do you call the translation of the hypothesis into specific, testable procedures that can be measured and observed?
Operational definition
eg. “feeling apathy” —> Not calling the police
In what type of descriptive research does the investigator just record what happens, and makes no modifications to the situation they are observing?
Naturalistic observation
What is a drawback of naturalistic observation?
- You don’t get to control any factors of interest.
- You have to wait for appropriate conditions to occur
> may not be able to get enough information to draw conclusions
> researcher may have to keep waiting at the same spot, and if people know they are being watched it may alter their behaviour
What are three types of descriptive research?
Naturalistic observation
Survey Research
Case studies
In Survey research, what is the group of interest called?
A population
In survey research, what is a portion of the population used for the study called?
Sample
What are the benefits of survey research?
- collect huge amount of data quickly and cheaply
- study information that might not be easily studied in a lab, like sexual behaviour
What are drawbacks of survey research?
- people may respond if the survey is biased
- respondents may lie
What kind of questions does a good survey contain?
- “lie items”
[my thought: sometimes people aren’t actually lying, so if that data is just not counted then the sample has just been biased.]
What is a “case study”?
An in-depth, intensive investigation on an individual or small group of people
What are benefits of case studies?
- rich and detailed information
- allows study of rare or unusual situations
- allows study of phenomena that wouldnt be possible to study in a lab; eg. serial killers
What is a drawback of case studies?
If individuals examined are too unique, it’s impossible to make valid generalizations about a larger population.
What are variables?
Behaviours, events, or other characteristics that can change, or vary, in some way.
In correlational research, how many sets of variables are examined to determine whether they are associated?
Two
In correlational research, the relationship between the two variables is represented by a correlation/correlational coefficient within what range?
+1.0 to -1.0
What kind of correlation is it when when one variable increases, so does the other?
positive correlation
What kind of correlation is it when one variable increases, the other decreases?
negative correlation
eg. more friends, less stress
