Ch. 1 Research Methods Flashcards
Define psychology
the science of behavior and mental processes
Counseling psychology
branch that assists people w problems in living & achieving greater well being
Clinical psychology
branch that studies, assesses, & treats people w psychological disorders
Psychiatry
branch of medicine dealing w psychological disorders; practiced by physicians who sometimes provide medical treatments and psychological therapy
5 types of Evidence
- Common Sense
- Anecdote
- Authority
- Reason or Rationality
- Science
Common Sense
people’s opinion of how to interpret ordinary, unsystematic observations/ experiences
Strength: opinion of many people
Weaknesses: majority can be wrong, cultural biases, easy to convince yourself & difficult to correct
Dangers of Common Sense
- Perceiving order in random events
- Post hoc, ergo propter hoc reasoning (correlation does NOT equal causation)
- Confirmation Bias
- Placebo Effect
Anecdote
based on examples, cases or stories to illustrate a claim
Strength: gives an example
Weakness: not generalizable, memory biases, 1 ex. doesnt negate the general rule, hard to compare to other ex.
Authority
someone w authority says so
Strength: experts can be informed by reason & science
Weakness: can be biased by personal beliefs, experts can disagree, expertise can be limited to a certain area
Reason/ Rationality
use of a reason to explain phenomenon
Strength: logical, consistent, systematic
Weakness: not corrected by experience, makes assumptions, premise can be false
Science
using critical thinking to examine evidence relevant to a claim or hypothesis and then drawing a conclusion from the evidence
Strength: self correcting through reason & experience over many observations, carefully controlled conditions, attempts to avoid common sense biases
Weakness: has to be measurable
Types of Descriptive Research Methods
Case Studies, Survey Methods, Naturalistic Observation
Case Studies
in depth analyses of individuals/ groups
- can be hard to generalize (unrepresentative info= mistaken conclusions)
- reveal universal principles
Survey Method
self-reports in which people answer questions about behavior/ attitudes
- can be influenced by sampling bias
- large random sample
Naturalistic Observation
recording individual’s behavior w/o manipulating enviro
Correlational Methods
observing/ measuring relationship between 2 variables
-shows what is related
Experimental Methods
manipulating something and measuring effects on behavior
-shows what causes what
What conclusions can we draw from correlational methods?
if 2 variables are related; make predictions
What conclusions can we NOT draw from correlational methods?
causal conclusions
Problems associated with correlational methods
Reverse Causality
Third Variable
Reverse Causality Problem
switch direction of cause
Third Variable Problem
is there another factor causing the relationship?
-NOT a reason for the correlation, something that causes both to happen
Independent Variable
what is manipulated
-at least 2 levels (control & experimental; diff. levels of experimentation)
Dependent Variable
what is measured
Operational definitions!!
4 Requirements for a Good Experiment
- IV
- DV
- Random Assignment
- Avoid Confounds
Confounds
something that also varies across conditions
Random Assignment vs. Random Sampling
RA: -equal chance of being assigned to any condition
-whos in each condition
-necessary to have good experiment, draw causal conclusion
RS: -chance of being chosen for sample
-whos in the study
-necessary to draw inferences from sample & generalize to a pop.
-relevant to all research studies
