Chap 1: Psychology, Science & Ethics Flashcards
What are the 6 steps of the scientific method?
Research Question
Research Hypothesis
Study Design
Data Collection
Data Analysis
Report
What are the 4 characteristics of science?
Empirical & Objective (Verifiable by direct observation or experience)
Self-Correcting, Progressive & Tentative
Parsimonious (Simplest possible explanation)
Concerned with Theory (Looking into cause-effect relationships and why they occur)
What are the 3 goals of science?
Discovery of Regularities (Describing phenomena, discovering laws, search for causes of events)
Development of Theories (Explain relationships among variables, theories must be falsifiable)
Defining Theoretical Concepts (Must be tied to observable operations that any person can observe or perform)
What is a hypothesis and what are the different types of hypotheses?
A hypothesis is a statement assumed to be true for the purposes of testing the validity of the hypothesis.
There are 2 types of hypotheses:
Null hypothesis (H0, the claim that the effect being studied does not exist)
Alternative hypothesis (Ha/H1, claims that there is an effect does exist, usually aligns with the research hypothesis depending on the study)
What is operational definition?
A statement of the precise meaning of a procedure or concept within an experiment, or “What we are measuring during the experiment”.
What are the 7 main areas of guidelines in the American Psychological Association (APA) ethics code?
Responsibility & Protection from Harm
Informed Consent
Coercion
Deception
Debriefing
Scientific Writing
Animal Experiments
What is a law?
A statement that certain events are regularly associated with one another.
What is a theory?
Broadly speaking, a set of statements about the relationships among variables.
More narrowly, a theory is a set of statements about relationships among variables that includes at least one concept that is not directly observed.
What are the 5 major working assumptions in science?
Reality (Scientists assume the world is real, but do not assume that it is just the way it appears to be)
Rationality (The world is believed to be understandable via logical thinking)
Regularity (The world is believed to follow the same laws in all times and places)
Discoverability (It is believed that it is
possible to find out how the world works)
Causality (All events are believed to have causes)
What are the 2 methods of knowing about behaviour?
Non-empirical methods:
Authority (Based on someone else’s knowledge, usually a superior)
Logic (Based on deductive or inductive reasoning)
Empirical methods:
Intuition (Spontaneous perception or judgment not based on reasoned mental steps, common sense is a kind of intuition)
Science (Way of obtaining knowledge by means of objective observations)
