Chapter 1: Quiz Flashcards
the science of behavior and mental processes.
psychology
a research perspective whose major explanatory focus is how the brain, nervous system, and other physiological mechanisms produce behavior and mental processes.
biological perspective
A research perspective whose major explanatory focus is how mental processes, such as perception, memory, and problem solving, work and impact behavior.
cognitive perspective
A research perspective whose major explanatory focus is how external environmental events condition observable behavior.
behavioral perspective
A research perspective whose major explanatory focus is how other people and the cultural context impact behavior and mental processes.
sociocultural perspective
The tendency, after learning about an outcome, to be overconfident in one’s ability to have predicted it.
hindsight bias
Research methods whose main purpose is to provide objective and detailed descriptions of behavior and mental processes.
descriptive methods
A descriptive research method in which the behavior of interest is observed in its natural setting, and the researcher does not intervene in the behavior being observed.
naturalistic observation
A descriptive research method in which the observer becomes part of the group being observed.
participant observation
A descriptive research method in which the researcher studies an individual in depth over an extended period of time.
case study
A descriptive research method in which the researcher uses questionnaires and interviews to collect information about the behavior, beliefs, and attitudes of particular groups of people.
survey research
The entire group of people that a researcher is studying.
population
The subset of a population that actually participates in a research study.
sample
A sampling technique that obtains a representative sample of a population by ensuring that each individual in a population has an equal opportunity to be in the sample.
random sampling
A research study in which to variables are measured to determine if they are related (how well either one predicts the other.)
correlational study
Any factor that can take on more than one value.
variable
A statistic that tells us the type and the strength of the relationship between the two variables.
correlation coefficient
A direct relationship between two variables.
positive correlation
An inverse relationship between two variables.
negative correlation
A visual depiction of correlational data in which each data point represents the scores on the two variables for each participant.
scatterplot
An explanation of a correlation between two variables in terms of another variable that could possibly be responsible for the observed relationship between the two variables.
third-variable problem
A control measure in which participants are randomly assigned to groups in order to equalize participant characteristics across the various groups in an experiment.
random assignment
In an experiment, the variable that is a hypothesized cause and thus is manipulated by the experimenter.
Independent variable
In an experiment, a variable that is hypothesized to be affected by the independent variable and thus is measured by the experimenter.
Dependent variable