Chapter 2

Question 1

Prefrontal lobotomy

Answer 1

Surgical procedure that several fibers connecting the frontal lobes of the brain from the underlying thalamus

Question 2

Heuristic

Answer 2

Mental shortcut or rule of thumb that helps us to streamline our thinking and make sense of our world

Question 3

Naturalistic observation

Answer 3

Watching behavior in real-world settings without trying to manipulate the situation

Question 4

External validity

Answer 4

Extent to which we can generalize findings to real-world settings

Question 5

Internal validity

Answer 5

Extent to which we can draw cause-and-effect inferences from a study

Question 6

Case study

Answer 6

Research design that examines one person or a small number of people in depth, often over an extended time period

Question 7

Existence proof

Answer 7

Demonstration that a given psychological phenomenon can occur

Question 8

Random selection

Answer 8

Procedure that ensures every person and a population has an equal chance of being chosen to participate

Question 9

Reliability

Answer 9

Consistency of measurement

Question 10

Validity

Answer 10

Extent to which a measure assesses what it purports to measure

Question 11

Response set

Answer 11

Tendency of research participants to distort their responses to questionnaire items

Question 12

Correlation design

Answer 12

Research design that examines the extent to which two variables are associated

Question 13

Scatter plot

Answer 13

Grouping of points on a two-dimensional graph in which each dot represents a single person’s data

Question 14

Illusory correlation

Answer 14

Perception of a statistical association between two variables were nonexist

Question 15

Experiment

Answer 15

Research design at characterized by random assignment of participants to conditions and manipulation of an independent variable

Question 16

Random assignment

Answer 16

Randomly sorting participants into two groups

Question 17

Experimental group

Answer 17

An in an experiment, the group of participants that receives the manipulation

Question 18

Control group

Answer 18

In an experiment, the group of participants that does not receive the manipulation

Question 19

Independent variable

Answer 19

Variable that an examiner manipulates

Question 20

Dependent variable

Answer 20

Variable that an experimenter measures to see whether the manipulation produces an effect

Question 21

Operational definition

Answer 21

A working definition of what a researcher is measuring

Question 22

Placebo effect

Answer 22

Improvement resulting from the mere expectation of improvement

Question 23

Blind

Answer 23

Unaware of whether one is in the experimental or control group

Question 24

Experimenter expectancy effect

Answer 24

Phenomenon in which researchers hypotheses lead them to unintentionally biased outcome of a study

Question 25

Double blind

Answer 25

When neither the researcher is not participants are aware of who is in the experimental or control group

Question 26

Demand characteristics

Answer 26

Cues that participants pick up from a study that allow them to generate gases regarding the researchers hypotheses

Question 27

Informed contestant

Answer 27

Informing research participants of what's involved in a study before asking them to participate

Question 28

Statistics

Answer 28

Application of mathematics to describing and analyzing data

Question 29

Descriptive statistics

Answer 29

Numerical characterizations that describe data

Question 30

Central tendency

Answer 30

Measure of the central scores in a data set, or where the group tends to cluster

Question 31

Mean

Answer 31

Average; a measure of the central tendency

Question 32

Median

Answer 32

Middle score in a data set; a measure of central tendency

Question 33

Mode

Answer 33

Most frequent score in a data set; a measure of central tendency

Question 34

Variability

Answer 34

Measure of how loosely or tightly bunched scores are

Question 35

Range

Answer 35

Measure of variability that consists of the difference between the highest and lowest scores

Question 36

Standard deviation

Answer 36

Measure of variability that takes into account how far each data point is from the mean

Question 37

Inferential statistics

Answer 37

Mathematical methods that allow us to determine whether we can generalize findings from our sample to the full population