Chapter 1

Question 1

Three cognitive biases

Answer 1

Hindsight bias: Tendency to believe we could’ve predicted the outcome of a situation after we learned it.

Overconfidence: Tendency to be more confident than correct in ou abilities.

Tendency to perceived patterns in random events.

Question 2

Post-truth

Answer 2

Where people’s emotions and personal beliefs often override their acceptance of objective facts.

Question 3

Scientific method

Answer 3

1. Make an observation
2. Form a theory
3. Construct hypothesis
4. Conduct experiment (experimental and control group; IV and DV).
5. If results don’t support hypothesis: revise theory. If results support hypothesis: try to replicate results.
6. Results can’t be replicated: reject theory. If results can be replicated: theory established.

Question 4

What is the purpose of a control?

Answer 4

To establish a standard for comparison, so that the outcome is due only to variable tested.

Question 5

What is replication?

Answer 5

Performing a test more than once to ensure initial results are repeatable

Question 6

When to use operational definitions?

Answer 6

In hypothesis, to outline the exact procedures used.

Question 7

Examples of descriptive research. State pitfalls of each one.

Answer 7

Case study, naturalistic observation, and surveys and interviews.

Question 8

What is the purpose of correlational research?

Answer 8

A measure of how well you can predict a change in one variable from observing a change in the another variable.

Question 9

Correlation coefficient

Answer 9

r = +1.00 (positive relationship), r = 0.00, r=-1.00 (negative relationship).

Question 10

Regression toward the mean

Answer 10

Tendency of extreme scores to fall back toward the average.

Question 11

Illusory correlation

Answer 11

Perceiving a relationship when there is none.

Question 12

Adavantages and disadvantages of experimental research

Answer 12

Can determine cause. Results may not be generalizable to other contexts.

Question 13

Independent vs depenedent variable

Answer 13

IV: variable manipulated and studied.
DV: variable measured, outcome; variable that may change when IV is manipulated.

Question 14

Control vs experimental group

Answer 14

Control: don’t receive treatment (placebo)
Experimental: receives treatment

Question 15

Random sampling

Answer 15

Every person in the population has an equal chance of being included in the sample group.

Question 16

Double-blind procedure. What does it control for?

Answer 16

When neither the researcher nor the participants know which group is receiving treatment. Controls for placebo effect.

Question 17

Random assignment. What does it control for?

Answer 17

Participants have a random chanvce of being assigned to experimental or control group. Controls for confounding variables (e.g. placebo effect).

Question 18

When is an observed difference significant?

Answer 18

• Representative sample.
• Less variable observations.
• More cases.

Question 19

Measures of central tendency

Answer 19

Mode: score that occurs most frequently in a data set.
Median: Middle score in a distribution (midpoint/50th percentile).
Mean (arithmetic average): add all scores and divide by number of scores.

Question 20

How to find median

Answer 20

Rank scores from lowest to highest. When there are an even number of values, take the average of the middle 2 values.

Question 21

Measures of variability

Answer 21

Range: difference between lowest and highest scores in the distribution.
Standard deviation: measure of how much scores deviate from the mean.

Question 22

Normal distribution

see notebook

Answer 22

Bell-shaped curve. Mean, median, and mode are the same value.

Question 23

When is a difference considered statistically significant?

Answer 23

When the samples are small and the difference between them is relatively large.

Question 24

What does the P-value tell us?

Answer 24

A value of 0.05 or lower means that the odds of an outcome occuring by chance is less than 5% and therefore statistically significant.

Question 25

What does effect size tell us?

Answer 25

How meaningful the relationship between variables or the difference between groups is.