Ch. 1 - Research in Behavioural Sciences

Question 1

Who has been credited as the first individual to address basic questions about human nature and their behaviour?

Answer 1

Aristotle

Question 2

What are the two primary types of research?

Answer 2

Basic and applied.

Question 3

What is basic research?

Answer 3

Conducted to understand psychological processes without regard for whether or not the knowledge is immediately applicable. Goal of increasing knowledge.

Question 4

What is applied research?

Answer 4

Research with the goal of finding solutions to certain problems.

Question 5

How are the two types of research connected?

Answer 5

Applied research requires basic research. Applied research also provides new ideas and new questions.

Question 6

What ar the three goals of researchers?

Answer 6

The description, prediction, or explanation of behaviour.

Question 7

Which of the three goals is considered the most important?

Answer 7

Explanation.

Question 8

Why is a background in research valuable? (4)

Answer 8

Allows you to comprehend research relevant to your profession, makes one a more intelligent and effective “research consumer,” aids in the development of critical thinking, and helps one become an authority on topics.

Question 9

What are the three criteria required for an investigation to be considered scientific?

Answer 9

Systematic empiricism, public verification, and solvable problems.

Question 10

What is empiricism?

Answer 10

The practice of relying on observation to draw conclusions about the world.

Question 11

What distinguishes scientific observation from regular observation?

Answer 11

Scientific observation is systematic.

Question 12

What is the purpose of public verification?

Answer 12

To ensure that findings can be observed, replicated, and verified. It makes science self-correcting.

Question 13

What is pseudoscience?

Answer 13

Claims of evidence that masquerade as science but in fact violate the basic criteria of scientific investigation.

Question 14

What are the two jobs of the scientist?

Answer 14

Detecting and explaining phenomena.

Question 15

What are 6 characteristics of a good theory?

Answer 15

Proposes causal relationships, coherent, parsimonious, generates a testable hypothesis, stimulates new research, and solves an existing theoretical question.

Question 16

What is the difference between a model and a theory?

Answer 16

A theory explains (how and why), a model describes (how).

Question 17

What are post-hoc explanations?

Answer 17

Explanations that are made after the fact.

Question 18

How are theories tested?

Answer 18

Indirectly by testing one or more hypotheses derived from that theory.

Question 19

What is deduction?

Answer 19

A process of reasoning from a general proposition (the theory) to specific implications of that proposition (the hypothesis).

Question 20

What is the format of a hypothesis?

Answer 20

“If A then B”

Question 21

What is induction?

Answer 21

Abstracting a hypothesis from a collection of facts.

Question 22

What is often regarded as the central hallmark of science?

Answer 22

Empirical falsification.

Question 23

What does support for a theory depend on?

Answer 23

The number of times supported as well as the stringency of the tests it has survived.

Question 24

What is methodological pluralism?

Answer 24

Using many different methods and designs in testing theories.

Question 25

What is the strategy of strong inference?

Answer 25

Pitting theories head-to-head to confirm one while disconfirming another.

Question 26

What are the two types of definitions?

Answer 26

Conceptual and operational.

Question 27

What is a conceptual definition?

Answer 27

Much like a dictionary definition; seldom used for research purposes.

Question 28

What is an operational definition?

Answer 28

Defines a concept by specifying precisely how the concept is measured, or induced in a particular study.

Question 29

Proof is…

Answer 29

Logically impossible.

Question 30

Disproof is…

Answer 30

Logically valid but practically impossible.

Question 31

How is disproof practically impossible to determine?

Answer 31

Multiple practical difficulties in the real world can lead a true theory to be disconfirmed.

Question 32

What ar enull findings?

Answer 32

Results showing that certain variables are not related to behaviour.

Question 33

What is the file-drawer problem?

Answer 33

A nickname for the failure to publish studies that obtain null findings.

Question 34

What are the four filters in the scientific filter? What do they filter out?

Answer 34

All ideas, filters out nonsense; initial research projects, filters out dead ends and fringe topics; research programs filters out methodological biases and errors; published research, filters out non-replication, uninteresting, and non-useful information.

Question 35

What are the four categories of behavioural research?

Answer 35

Descriptive, correlational, experimental, and quasi-experimental.

Question 36

What is descriptive research?

Answer 36

Describers the behaviour, thoughts, or feelings of a particular group of individuals.

Question 37

What is correlational research?

Answer 37

Investigates the relationships among various psychological variables; looks for correlations but cannot prove causation.

Question 38

What is experimental research?

Answer 38

When independent variables are manipulated to see whether changes in behaviour occur as a consequence. Can determine cause.

Question 39

What is quasi-experimental research?

Answer 39

When research is done with less control over variables. Done to study the effects of some naturally occurring variables.