Chapter 1 - Research Methods

Question 1

what is the nonconscious mind?

Answer 1

intuitive backstage mind, that guides our thoughts and behaviours

Question 2

what are some examples of how culture defines your situation?

Answer 2

preference on body types, being expressive or reserved, focusing mostly on yourself or others

Question 3

what are the two things that create us?

Answer 3

biology and experiences

Question 4

what are social neuroscientists trying to understand?

Answer 4

understand social behaviour, both in terms of biology and social influences

Question 5

what are different ways that we can apply social psych into our everyday lives?

Answer 5

health and well-being, judicial prodcedures, and encouraging behaviour

Question 6

what is the importance of values?

Answer 6

In social psychology, they investigate how values form, why they change and how they can influence our behaviours and attitudes. But we never determine if a value is right!

Question 7

define culture

Answer 7

enduring behaviours, ideas, attitudes, etcs, shared between a large group and passed on to generations after them.

Question 8

what are some examples of when values of a psychologists are integrated into their theories?

Answer 8

• forming concepts: hidden values seep into research based concepts
• labeling: value judgement is hidden in our everyday language (terrorist, hero, welfare)
• naturalistic fallacy: error from changing what is to what ought to be

Question 9

relationship between money and well-being

Answer 9

they have found that there is a slight correlational between having more money and being happier. but overall, people who strive for goals and growth are more likely to experience a happier life

Question 10

define hindsight bias

Answer 10

after seeing the outcome, its the tendency to exaggerate their ability to have see how something would have turned out in advance. also called the i knew it all along phenomenon. any event can seem like common sense after you know the result.

Question 11

define theory

Answer 11

integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed events. they are scientific shorthand

Question 12

differnce between fact and theory

Answer 12

fact: agred-upon statements that we observe
theory: ideas that summarize and explain facts

Question 13

define hypothesis

Answer 13

allow us to test, theories, a direction for the research, predictive features to help make it more practical

Question 14

define operationalization

Answer 14

translating variables that are described at the theoretical level into variables that are going to be observed. Defining the varaibles

Question 15

what does a good theory do?

Answer 15

• summarizes observations
• clear predictions to confirm/modify, generate new exploration, create practical applications

Question 16

define correlation research

Answer 16

asking whether two or more variables are naturally associated

Question 17

define experimental research

Answer 17

manipulation some factour to see its effect on another

Question 18

define r

Answer 18

it is the coefficeint for correlations going from -1.0 (one goes up and the other falls) to +1.0 (both rise together)

Question 19

define longitudinal research

Answer 19

research that is extended over a long period of time, can be used for cause and effect relationships.

Question 20

define random sample

Answer 20

everyone in the population has an equal chance of participating

Question 21

define hypothesis

Answer 21

a testable prediction that describes the relationship that may exist between variables

Question 22

explain the difference between independent and dependent variable

Answer 22

independent: on the x-axis, has an effect of the dependent, variable that is manipulated

dependent: on the y-axis, variable that is normally measured

Question 23

what is a concept/psychological construct?

Answer 23

• a concept is the general idea that is used as a variable, variables at the conceptual level (abstract of an article)
• qualities or processes that cannot be seen or directly observed

Question 24

define operationalization

Answer 24

• creating a definition for your variable from the concept to be able to measure it, variables at the operational level (body of an article)
• specific procedure or operation that is used to measure/manipulate a variable (ex. verbal behaviour)

Question 25

define correlational research

Answer 25

study of naturally occurring associations among two variables can be positively or negatively correlated (-1.0 to +1.0 = r values)

Question 26

what is a positive correlation

Answer 26

when both x and y increase

Question 27

what is a negative correlation

Answer 27

when x increases, it causes y to decrease

Question 28

what are the limits of correlational research?

Answer 28

• it cannot be used to make cause and effect claims
• always get 3 answers

Question 29

what are the 3 possible explanations for correlational research?

Answer 29

1. x may cause y (reverse directionality)
2. y may cause x
3. a third variable, z, may cause both x and y independently

Question 30

what are the 2 main features of experiments?

Answer 30

• can manipulate the independent variable (x) (researcher takes control of the “cause” variable)
• random assignment to several conditions to rule out all third variables issues

Question 31

what is the purpose of manipulating the x variable in experiments?

Answer 31

to overcome the reverse directionality problem, so we are only looking in one direction.

Question 32

what is the purpose of random assignment in experiments?

Answer 32

to overcome the third variable problem, distributing any other variables equally among all experimental groups to make groups equal

• cannot always do random assigning due to certain variables and ethical considerations (ex. race and unhealthy behaviour)

Question 33

explain what inferring causality means?

Answer 33

from manipulating and having random assignment, we are pretty sure that any differences between the variables are cause from manipulating the x variable.

Changes in the IV produce changes in the DV - creating cause and effect relationships

Question 34

how does comparison group alter the way we answer our questions?

Answer 34

depending on what controls you have and the data shown, this can alter how data is interpreted and how the question is answered.

Question 35

define internal validity

Answer 35

research has clear causal information (cause-effect relationship). high in experimental research.

Question 36

define external validity

Answer 36

how results can be generalized to different people, situations, settings and measures, that are different from the research (applying it to the real world). high is correlational research

Question 37

define social psych

Answer 37

the science that studies the influences of our situations, with attention to how we view and affect one another. study of how people think about, influence and relate to one another

Question 38

what are the 3 major themes of social psych

Answer 38

social thinking, influences and realtions

Question 39

define observational research methods

Answer 39

when individuals are observed in natural settings, without awareness, in order to provide accurate analysis of their behaviuor

Question 40

define mundane realsim

Answer 40

the degree to which an experiment is superficially similar to everyday situations

Question 41

define demand characteristics

Answer 41

cures in an experiment that tells the participant what behaviour is expected (deception tries to eliminate this)