Chapter 2 Flashcards
prefrontal lobotomy
surgical procedure that severs fibers connecting the frontal lobes of the brain from the underlying thalamus
heuristic
mental shortcut or rule of thumb that helps us to streamline our thinking and make sense of our world
naturalistic observation
watching behavior in real-world settings without trying to manipulate the situation
external validity
extend to which we can generalize findings to real-world settings
internal validity
extent to which we can draw cause-and-effect interferences from a study
case study
research design that examines one person or a small number of people in depth, often over an extended period of time
existence proof
demonstration that a given psychological phenomenon can occur
random selection
procedure that ensures every person in a populations has an equal chance of being chosen to participate
reliability
consistency of measurement
validity
extent to which a measure assesses what it purports to measure
response set
tendency of research participants to distort their responses to questionnaire items
malingering
the tendency to make ourselves appear psychologically disturbed to achieve some goal
halo effect
the tendency of ratings of one positive characteristic to influence the ratings of other positive characteristics
horns effect
opposite of halo effect
correlational design
research design that examines the extent to which two variables are associated
correlation coefficients
the statistics that psychologists use to measure correlations ranging from -1.0 to 1.0
scatterplot
grouping of points on a two dimensional graph in which each dot represents a single persons data
illusory correlation
perception of a statistical association between two variables where none exists
experiment
research design characterized by random assignment of participants to conditions and manipulation of an independent variable
random assignment
randomly sorting participants into two groups
experimental group
in an experiment, the group of participants that receives the manipulation
control group
in an experiment, the group of participants that does not receive the manipulation
independent variable
variable that an experimenter manipulates
dependent variable
variable that an experimenter measures to see whether the manipulation produces an effect
operational definition
a working definition of what a researcher is measuring
placebo effect
improvement resulting from the mere expectation of improvement
blind
unaware of whether one is in the experimental or control group
nocebo effect
harm resulting from the mere expectation of harm
experimenter expectancy effect
phenomenon in which researchers hypothesis lead them to unintentionally bias the outcome of a study
double-blind
when neither researchers nor participants are aware of who’s in the experimental or control group
demand characteristics
cues that participants pick up from a study that allow them to generate guesses regarding the researcher’s hypothesis
informed consent
informing research participants of what’s involved in a study before asking them to participate
statistics
application of mathematics to describing and analyzing data
descriptive statistics
numerical characterizations that describe data
central tendency
measure of the central scores in a data set, or where the group tends to cluster
mean
average; a measure of central tendency
median
middle score in a data set; a measure of central tendency
mode
most frequent score in a data set; a measure of central tendency
variability
measure of how loosely or tightly bunched scores are
range
measure of variability that consists of the difference between the highest and lowest scores
standard deviation
measure of variability that takes into account how far each data point is from the mean
inferential statistics
mathematical methods that allow us to determine whether we can generalize findings from our sample to the full population
