Chapter 2 Flashcards
T/F people that stutter have more activation in the left hemisphere of the brain
false
right hemi
what is the complete explanation for people who stutter using all perspectives of psychology
resulting from genetics and biology with developmental, emotional and social factors - such as feeling embarrassed or anxious about speaking in public
contrast faith and science
Faith does not require proof but it is based on on belief
science requires proof and systematic observations and analysis
what does objectivity mean
conclusions are based on facts without influence from personal, emotions or biases
what does subjectivity mean
conclusions reflect personal POVs
- drawing from memories or our perspectives
- prone to error and biases
- scientists try to be as objective as possible but any observation made is subjective - this is why scientists cannot rely on their introspections to maintain objectivity
what does “hit or miss” mean in terms of science vs everyday observations
making conclusions based on whatever is happening around us
- to get a more accurate observation we need to move beyond biases and experiment on people beyond the people we see in our everyday lives
what is confirmation bias
the tendency to notice and remember instances that support your beliefs more than instances that contradict them
- “women talk more than men” but when the study occurred, there was no evidence and it was just a highly publicised stereotype
what is critical thinking
ability to think clearly, rationally and independently = foundations for scientific reasoning
- good thinkers = identify mistakes, logic
- bad thinkers = academic failure, patient deaths, financial mismanagement
- not born with critical thinking but it develops over time
what are 5 questions to ask yourself about new information
what am i being asked to believe or accept
what evidence supports this position
are there other ways that this can be interpreted
what other evidence would I need to evaluate these alternatives
what is the most reasonable conclusion
what is an example of confirmation bias
when you drink lots of coffee and search is coffee bad for you, you get lots of opposing sides on the internet, but you pick the one that you want to be true = confirmation bias
what are the steps of the scientific method
research question
hypothesis
methods
results
conclusions
- never-ending cycle
what are theories
they are a set of facts and relationships that can be used to explain and predict something
- using the best models
- gets confused with the many other English definitions for the word theory
- but it generates new predictions
- scientific theories are not the same as the theory of evolution which is a large guess
the steps on how to develop and test a theory
- systematic observation whether it is experimental or nonexperimental
- hypothesis
- testable prediction
what is the definition of a hypothesis
a type of interference or an educated guess based on prior evidence and logical possibilities
- a good hypothesis links concrete variables based on your theory and makes specific predictions
-EX: people that are shown a video for stress is good for you vs stress is bad for you have different work performances
- scientists can never prove a hypothesis because there will always be a future experiment that might prove the hypothesis false
what happens when a study fails to replicate the same result as it originally did?
scientists usually want to double-check or see if they can get the same result
- it gives them a reason to reflect on their results and tweak it
- it is also important everything is done in the exact order
- if it replicated the study is accepted quickly
what are the types of research methods that psychological scientists use
descriptive methods (surveys, case studies)
correlational methods (see how 2 variables of interest relate, ex, social media and depression)
experimental methods (used to test their hypothesis and determine the cause of behaviour)
what are constructs
internal attributes that cannot be directly observed but are useful for describing and explaining behaviour
- EX: anxiety, intelligence, extraversion
- when scientists examine a construct, they need to figure out how to measure things that are not objects, such as anxiety
what is operationalization
it is the process of taking an abstract construct and defining it in a way that is concrete and measurable
- to measure anxiety - they might measure fidgeting, a self-report system of participants, using galvanic skin response to measure sweat
what are descriptive methods (expand)
using case studies, natural observations, surveys, focus groups, interviews
- vulnerable to bias
- but it can make careful systematic real-world observations - it can show the associations between variables
what is a case study
provides an in-depth analysis of the behaviour of one person or a small number of people
- medicine, law, business = case study method
- often used when there is not a lot of people to experiment, or one person has a unique feature
explain the most productive case studies in psych with Henry Molasion
he had brain surgery to control his seizures but had memory deficits
- after lots of tests they learned a lot about brain structures and memories
- Brenda Milner spent lots of time working with the patient
- she found that there is more than one long-term memory system
what is the naturalistic observation
in-depth study of a phenomenon in its natural setting
- EX: chimpanzees - study conducted in their habitat - Jane Goodall - now we have a good understanding of the behaviour of animals in the wild
- sometimes they are conducted with people knowing or not knowing they are being watched (without knowing = ethical issues, with knowing = act differently)
what is a survey
questionnaires that allow us to ask a lot of people about attitudes and behaviours
-quick information, little expense, commercial online survey = easier
- A good survey should have a proper sample size or subset that is being studied
- the total participants = population
- trying to get the variation of the global population in ur sample size to get the best results
- self-reporting systems may let people pick to be more socially accepted
what are focus groups
small, chosen group of people who engage in a structured discussion on a single topic
what are interviews
an interaction where a person is asked a set of questions by the researcher and are allowed to respond however they like
explain the investigation of cyberbullying done by UofT
descriptive study, accessing the victimization, perpetration and witness of bullying
- 1300 students did an online survey talking about experiences with bullying and its impact on mental health
- 28% of women and people of colour were sent threatening messages
- and that people who were already experiencing mental health challenges were likely to experience more acute levels of distress after cyberbullying
what does correlation mean
measures the direction and strength of the relationship between 2 variables
- begins with a measure of how much a variable can be observe
what are the 3 outcomes when using correlational methods and comparing 2 variables
positive, negative, zero correlation
positive: high levels of one variable being associated with the other = positive slope on the graph
negative: high values of one variable are associated with low values of another (high alcohol consumption = low gpa) = negative slope on the graph
zero: the 2 variables do not have any relationship with each other = no slope = random clusters
what is the significance in a third variable in a correctional study
the third variable would be responsible for the correlation between 2 variables of interest
EX: video games are positively correlated with bullying but it does not cause it, perhaps playing video games - aggressive online behaviour = cyber bullying
- might be that kids who are victims of aggression are more likely to want violent video games and = cyber bullying
what are the steps to a good experiment
random assignment of participants to groups
appropriate control groups
control of situational variables
carefully selected independent and dependent variables
what is the independent variable
the variable is controlled and manipulated by an experimenter
“if ___ happens, then”
what is the dependent variable
defined as the measure used to assess the effects of the manipulation of the independent variable
what is a control group
a group that experiences all the experimental procedures except being exposed to the manipulation (independent variables)
- that is why we randomly assign participants to the experimental or control groups by random assignment
what confounding variables
individual differences among participants are an example of confounding variables
- irrelevant to the hypothesis being tested, and can alter or distort our conclusions
what are situational confounding variables
such as time of day, and noise level = affect the interpretation of an experiment
- they run the experiments in the most constant circumstances possible to rule out these variables
what is the bystander effect in psych terms
people are less likely to help if there are a lot of individuals walking rather than there being a few because they feel less personally responsible for assisting when there are more people around
what are some limitations to the experimental method
- people know they are in a research study and may act differently = artificial situation
- raises ethical concerns if they make the experiment more realistic
- EX: the presence of military guns = danger and panic, so they brought it in to observe the real panic - this was before ethics was brought into play, but most people would not want to be put in this situation - differences in choices of independent and dependent variables - in psych, it involves the investigation of constructs that require operationalization
what is a meta-analysis
also called statistical analysis of many previous experiments on the same topic
- it often provides a clearer picture than a single experiment observed in isolation
- if the publication bias is present, it may result in any meta-analysis to be misleading
what is the double-blind procedure
a research design that controls for placebo effects in which neither the participants nor the experimenter observing the participant knows whether the participant was given an active substance or treatment, or a placebo
- the placebo is an inactive substance that cannot be distinguished from the real active substance
what is the significance of giving someone a placebo in an experiment
not letting subjects know whether they received a real substance or the placebo helps to offset these misleading effects
what do double-blind placebo-controlled studies have to say about their effects on child behaviour after eating sugar/food additives
kids were given the option to have drinks with no additives (placebo) or a combination of colouring and preservation
- bc it was a double-blind study, the children did not know which of the 2 options they received and neither did the researchers
- the results showed that the kids who got the colouring and additives = had higher movement = ADHD
what is a cross-sectional study
an experiment design for assessing age-related changes in which data are obtained simultaneously from people of differing ages
what are the 3 specific techniques that psychologists use to asses normal behaviour with age
CROSS-SECTIONAL
- gather varying age groups and expose them to violent video games to see their aggression
- this method = cohort effect which is the generational effects of being born in different parts of history (younger kids don’t live life without the internet and the older generation has experienced life without the internet)
LONGITUDINAL
- an experimental design for assessing age-related changes that is obtained from the same individual at intervals of their life
- group of infants to see their exposure to violent video games, and their aggression into adulthood
- it is expensive and time-consuming
MIXED LONGITUDINAL DESIGN
- combines cross-sectional and longitudinal methods
- ppl of a range of ages are observed for a limited time - 5 years
- faster, cost-effective
strengths and weaknesses of a case study
+ can explore new and unusual phenomena - can falsify a hypothesis
(-) has limited generalization
strengths and weaknesses of naturalistic observations
(+) provides insight into natural, real-world behaviours
(-) people act differently when watched, and = ethical issues
strengths and weaknesses of surveys
(+) provides large amounts of data quickly and cheap
(-) needs a lot of people to represent, some people will change their answer to appear socially appropriate
strengths and weaknesses of focus groups and interviews
(+) provides in-depth qualitative information on a topic
(-) can be time consuming
strengths and weaknesses of correlations
(+) allows us to predict behaviour, stimulate the development of hypotheses, address some difficult ethical situations
(-) cannot be used to discuss the cause of a situation
strengths and weaknesses of experiments
(+) allows control of situations, strong hypothesis testing, judgment of causality of the topic
(-) raises artificial situations when people know that they are being monitored, raises ethical concerns
- time consuming
strengths and weaknesses of cross-sectional study
(+) quick and cheap
(-) has cohort effects - everyone experienced different things when they were born in different times of history
strengths and weaknesses of longitudinal study
(+) reduces the impact of cohort effects
(-) expensive and time consuming, people drop out and get tired
strengths and weaknesses of mixed longitudinal study
(+) less expensive and time consuming than longitudinal, has some control of cohort effects
(-) still expensive, time consuming, drop outs
what are the 2 standards that a measure must meet
reliability and validity
what is reliability
refers to the consistency of a measure
- EX: firefighters must pass a fitness test every year
- good measures also show high interrater reliability = the consistency in the interpretation of a measure across different observers
what is inter-method reliability
describes the positive correlation of several approaches to measure a feature in an individual
- the correlations support the reliability of the measure
what is validity
means that a measure leads to correct conclusions or evaluates the concept that it is designed to do
-EX: your bathroom scale is supposed to measure how much you weigh (this can lead you to have a valid conclusion or an invalid conclusion because different scales can measure differently)
T/F you can have a consistent result that lacks meaning
true
you can have reliability without validity
T/F a measure cannot be reliable without being valid
false
a measure cannot be valid without being reliable
what is descriptive statistics
help us organize individual bits of data into meaningful patterns and summaries
- to determine the number of females in STEM over time - use a frequency distribution - which is created by figuring out how many students are enrolled in each field of study and then break it up into gender
what are the 3 types of measures for central tendency
- mean
- the average of a set of scores - median
- represents the halfway mark in the data set, less affected by extreme scores or outliers than the mean - mode
- the score that is the most frequent - easiest to see on a histogram
- when there is more than one mode for a set of data
what is the traditional way to look at the variance of scores
to find the standard deviation
- this tells us how tightly clustered around the average a score is
- the smaller STD = near the mean = good
- the larger STD = further from the mean = bad
what is a normal distribution
a symmetrical probability function
- the most scores near the middle and fewer scores near the bottom halves because it is less likely = outlines
- the further from the middle = larger standard deviation
what is the correlation coefficient?
coefficient is between -1 and +1
- the closer the coefficient is to either -1 or +1 the stronger the correlation between the 2 variables
- when the coefficient is exactly -1 or +1, the correlation is perfect
what is inferential statistics
permit us to draw inferences or conclusions from data
- to reach conclusions about how observations of a sample might fit the bigger picture of groups of people
what are generalizations
to extend conclusions to larger populations outside of your research sample
what is the null hypothesis
a hypothesis stating the default position that there is no real difference between 2 measures
- rejecting the null hypothesis suggests that the alternative hypothesis is false
what is statistical significance
a standard for deciding whether an observed result is because of chance
- we can check the likelihood of observing a result due to chance by repeating a study like throwing a dice multiple times
T/F participants that are willingly volunteering, they must pay them with reasonable incentives
true
incentives such as extra credit for participation, pay, etc
what is informed consent
permission obtained from a research participant after the risks and benefits of an experimental procedure have been thoroughly explained
can you obtain informed consent from a person with hallucinations, Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, etc
no, you must ask a qualified guardian
T/F researchers should not do any irreversible harm to the participants and should be clear about what they are looking for
true
although some researchers might say they are investigating one factor when they are interested in another
- usually they are mild factors like being told the study is about memory when it is about social behaviour
explain privacy and confidentiality in terms of human participants in an experiment
privacy = participant control over sharing of their personal information with others - stated in paperwork
- ex: if medical records are needed, they need to agree to share them with the researchers
confidentiality = participants’ right to have their data revealed to others with their permission only
- not using real names, storing data in locked areas, collecting anonymously
90% of animals used in experiments are ___ and ___
rodents and birds
in Canada, what are the “Three R’s” when using animals for research
REPLACEMENT- refers to the research methods that avoid or replace the use of animals in an area of research where they would have been used otherwise
REDUCTION
- refers to any strategy that will result in fewer animals being used
REFINEMENT
- the modification of animal care or experiment procedures to minimize pain and distress
what is field experiments
an experiment conducted outside of a laboratory setting
- instead of relying on surveys or laboratory experiments, a majority of research on conservation campaigns is conducted using field experiments
- involves the manipulation of independent variables and measuring dependent variables
- done in the field, such as residential homes
