CHAPTER 1: Experimental Psychology Flashcards
the science of behaviour based on the scientific evidences (research) specifying conditions based on systematic observations whether to accept or reject alternative explanations of behaviors.
Psychology
research about the psychological processes underlying behavior.
Psychological Science
comes from the latin word “scientia” which simply means knowledge
Science
2 Connotation of Science
- Content
- Process
what we know, such as the facts we learn from any other disciplines.
Content
activity that includes the systematic ways in which we go about gathering data, nothing relationships and offering relationship.
Process
the scientific techniques used to collect and evaluate psychological data (the facts and the figures gathered in research studies).
Methodology
non-scientific gathering of data that shapes our expectations and beliefs and direct our behaviors towards others.
Commonsense Psychology
people’s tendency to process information by looking for, or interpreting information that is consistent with their existing beliefs.
We believe onto something, tends to overlook distances that might disconfirm our beliefs, we seek instead confirmatory instances of behaviors.
Confirmation Bias
also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy, occurs when an individual erroneously believes that a certain random event is less likely or more likely to happen based on the outcome of a previous event or series of events.
Gambler’s Fallacy
referring to systematic, objective and unbiased account of observed characteristics of behaviors (eg. grief - crying)
Description
capacity for knowing in advance when certain behaviors would be expected to occur.
Prediction
understanding the causes to occur, includes the knowledge that reliably reproduce the occurence of behavior.
Explanation
application of what has been learned about the behavior.
Control
research psychologists share that there are specifiable reasons for the way people behave and these reasons can be discovered through research.
Determinism
he was a philosopher of science who traced the development of science in his new classic book science and the modern world (1952).
Alfred North Whitehead
data that are observable or experienced.
Empirical Data
is in a systematic and orderly way is preferable to commonsense data collection but it cannot guarantee that the correct conclusion will be reached.
Gathering Empirical Data
general scientific principles that explains our universe and predictable events.
Law
a set of general principles that attempts to explain and predict behavior or other phenomena.
Theory
a modern philosopher of science, wrote that science progresses only through progressively better theories. Old theories are replaced by new theories with greater explanatory power.
Karl Popper
Organized and rational thought, characterized by open-mindedness, objectivity and parsimony; a principal tool of the scientific method.
- Scientist avoid letting private beliefs or expectations influences observation or conclusion.
Good Thinking
also known as “Occam’s Razor”
- an aspect of good thinking, stating that the simplest explanation is preferred until ruled out by conflicting evidence.
Parsimony
was a 14th century philosopher who cautioned us to stick to a basic premise. Proposed the principle of Parsimony sometimes called “Occam’s razor”.
- We must avoid making unnecessary assumption to support an argument or hypothesis. When two explanations are equally defensible. The simple explanation is preferred.
William Occam
modern scientist accept the uncertainty of their own conclusion.
- The content of science changes as we acquire new scientific information and old information is re-evaluated in light of new facts.
Self - Correction
the newer theory posits that observing violence triggers cognitive representation of aggressive behavior stored in memory in our own cognitive schemas.
Cognitive Priming Theory
the process of repeating research procedures to verify that the outcomes will be the same as before; a principal tool of the scientific method.
Replication
the number of scientific papers published each year in scientific journals is growing, and new journals are constantly being added in specialized disciplines.
Publicizing Results
research that is designed to solve real - world problems (like helping patterns to deal with grief or improving employee morale).
Applied Research
research designed to test theorists or to explain psychological phenomena.
Basic Research
is the systematic noting and recording of events, only events that are observable can be studied scientifically.
Observation
is assigning numerical values to objects or events or their characteristics according to conventional rules.
Measurement
process undertaken to show that certain kind of events are predictable under certain specifiable situations.
Experimentation
capable of being tested; typically used in references to a hypothesis.
Testable
a specific set of antecedent conditions create by the experiments and presented to subjects to test its effects on behavior.
Treatment
father of modern experimental psychology
- Established the 1st anthropometric lab in Leipzig, Germany. (Incorporating observation, measurement and experimentation to study human sensory experience using scientific instruments)
William Wudnt
all circumstances that occur or exist before the event or behavior to be explained; also called antecedents.
Antecedent Conditions
it means specifying the antecedents conditions of an events or behavior. These are the circumstances that come before the event or behavior that we want to explain.
Identifying Antecedent Conditions
creates specific sets of antecedents conditions that we can treat. We compare different treatment conditions so that we can test our explanations of behaviors systematically and scientifically.
Comparing Conditions
is a controlled procedure in which at least two different treatment conditions are applied to subjects.
- the subject behaviors are then measured and compared to test a hypothesis about the effect of those treatments on behavior.
The Psychology Experiment
the relation between a particular behavior and a set of antecedents that always preceds it - whereas other antecedents do not - so that the set is inferred to cause the behavior.
Cause and Effect Relationship
a type of cause and effect relationship we establish through experiments. We give subjects and various instructions then see how they behave.
Temporal Relationship
a field of study that gives the appearance of being scientific but has no true (false) scientific basis and has not been confirmed using the tools of the scientific method: observation, measurement, and experimentation.
Pseudoscience
assessing traits and disposition based on the bumps of the skull
Phrenology
study of facial features
Physiognomy
palm reading
Palmistry
penmanship; handwriting analysis;
- method of determining one’s behavior based on one’s writing.
Graphology
based on the magnetic forces embedded in the body fluids (hypnotism)
Mesmerism
purported contact with ghost and spirits of the dead.
Spiritualism
responsible for making Psych as a “science”
Herbart
