Chapter 2 Flashcards
Prefrontal Lobotomy
Surgical procedure that severs fibres connecting the frontal lobes of the brain from the underlying thalamus.
Heuristic
Mental shortcut or “rule of thumb” that helps us simplify our thinking and make sense of the world.
Random Selection
Procedure that ensures every person in a population has an equal chance of being chosen to participate.
Reliability
Consistency of measurement.
Validity
How well something measures what it’s supposed to measure.
Naturalistic Observation
Watching behaviour in real-world settings without manipulating the situation.
External Validity
How well the results of a study can apply to the real-world (naturalistic observation is very high in External Validity).
Internal Validity
Whether we can draw cause-and-effect interferences from a study.
Case Study
Research design that studies one person or a small number of people in depth over an extended period of time (provides lots of details).
Existence Proof
Showing that something in psychology (phenomenon) can happen.
Response Set
Tendencies to distort their answers to make themselves look better.
Correlational Design
Research design that examines the extent to which 2 variables are associated.
(Negative and Positive Correlation)
Scatterplot
Grouping of points on a graph, each dot represents a single persons data.
Illusory Correlation
When people mistakenly think 2 things are connected/related when they’re not.
(Illusory Correlation forms the basis of superstition).
Experimental Design
Research design
1. Using random participants.
2. Manipulation of an independent variable.
Random Assignment
Randomly sorting participants into groups.
Experimental Group
In an experiment, this is the group of participants that receives the manipulation.
Control Group
In an experiment, this is the group of participants that don’t receive the manipulation.
Between-Subjects Design
In an experiment, when researchers assign different groups to the control or experimental condition.
Within-Subject Design
In an experiment, each participant act as their own control.
Independent Variable
Variable that an experimenter manipulates.
Dependant Variable
Variable that the experimenter measures to see whether the manipulation has had an effect.
Operational Definition
A working definition of what a researcher is measuring.
Placebo Effect
When you feel better because you believe something (like a treatment) will work, power of belief.
Blind
Being unaware of whether one is in the experimental or or control group.
Experimenter Expectancy Effect
Researchers UNINTENTIONALLY influencing the result of an experiment because of their own biases.
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 allows them to generate guesses regarding the researchers hypotheses.
Informed Consent
Informing research participants of what is involved in a study before asking them to participate.
Statistics
Use of math to describe and analyze data.
Descriptive Statistics
Numerical characterizations that describe data (describe data).
Central Tendency
First type of descriptive statistics. Measure of the “central” scores in a dataset, or where the group tends to cluster (mean, median, mode).
Mean
The average.
Median
Middle score in a data set.
Mode
Most frequent score in a data set.
Variability
Second type of descriptive statistics. Measure of how loosely or tightly bunched the scores are.
Range
Difference between the highest and lowest scores, measure of variability.
Standard Deviation
Measure of variability that takes into account how far each data point is from the mean.
Inferential Statistics
Math methods that allow them to determine how confident we are that we can generalize findings from our sample to the full population.
Meta-Analysis
Analysis of a set of studies on a particular topic that statistically evaluates the strength of patterns across different studies.
Base rate
How common a characteristic or behaviour is in the general population.
