Chapter 2 Flashcards

1
Q

What makes Psychological research scientific?

A
  1. Precision2. Skepticism3. Reliance on empirical evidence4. Willingness to make “risky predictions” 5. Openness
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2
Q

What is a Theory?

A

An organized system of assumptions and principles that purports to explain a specified set of phenomena and their interrelations.

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3
Q

What is a Hypothesis?

A

A statement that attempts to predict or to account for a set of phenomena; scientific hypotheses specify relations among events or variables and are empirically tested.

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4
Q

What are Operational Definitions?

A

A precise definition of a term in a hypothesis, which specifies the operations for observing and measuring the process or phenomenon being defined. Used during predictions.

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5
Q

What is the Principle of Falsifiability?

A

The principle that a scientific theory must make predictions that are specific enough to expose the theory to the possibility of disconfirmation; that is, the theory must predict not only what will happen but what will not happen.

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6
Q

What is Confirmation Bias?

A

The tendency to look for or pay attention only to information that confirms one’s own belief.

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7
Q

What is an essential part of the scientific process?

A

Replication because sometimes a result will only have been a fluke.

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8
Q

What ensures that work lives up to scientific standards?

A

Peer reviewing.

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9
Q

What is a representative sample?

A

A group of individuals, selected from a population for a study, which matches the population on important characteristics such as age and sex.

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10
Q

Define descriptive methods.

A

Methods that yield descriptions of behaviour but not necessarily casual explanations.

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11
Q

What is a case study?

A

A detailed description of a particular individual being studied or treated. They illustrate psychological principles in a way that abstract generalizations and statistics cannot, and produce a more detailed picture of an individual. But information is often missing or hard to interpret, the observer may have biases, the subject may have selective/inaccurate memories, and the subject may be unrepresentative for a group.

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12
Q

What is an observational study?

A

A study in which the researcher carefully and systematically observes and records behaviour without interfering with the behaviour; it may involve either naturalistic or laboratory observation.

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13
Q

What is the purpose of naturalistic observation?

A

To find out how people or animals act in their normal social environments.

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14
Q

What is laboratory observation?

A

Where the researcher has more control over the situation. They have access to more sophisticated equipment, subjects, and precise situations. This can cause people to act differently.

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15
Q

What are psychological tests?

A

Procedures used to measure and evaluate personality traits, emotional states, aptitudes, interests, abilities, and values. Sometimes called assessment instruments.

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16
Q

What do objective tests do?

A

Measure beliefs, feelings, or behaviours; also called inventories.

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17
Q

What do projective tests do?

A

Designed to tap unconscious feelings or motives.

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18
Q

What is Test-Retest Reliability?

A

Are scores similar from one session to another?

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19
Q

What is Alternate-Forms Reliability?

A

Are scores similar on different versions of the test?

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20
Q

What is Reliability?

A

The consistency of the test results.

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21
Q

Define Standardize.

A

In test construction, to develop uniform procedures for giving and scoring a test.

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22
Q

What does “norms” mean when evaluating a test?

A

Norms are established standards of performance that are referred to when scoring a test. They determine what is high, low, or average.

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23
Q

What is Validity?

A

The ability of a test to measure what is was designed to measure.

24
Q

What is Content Validity?

A

Do items broadly represent the trait in question?

25
Q

What is Criterion Validity?

A

Do the test results predict other measures of the trait?

26
Q

What are Surveys?

A

Questionnaires and interviews that ask people directly about their experiences, attitudes, or opinions.

27
Q

What is Volunteer Bias?

A

A shortcoming of findings derived from a sample of volunteers instead of a representative sample; the volunteers may differ from those who do not volunteer.

28
Q

What is a Correlational Study?

A

A descriptive study that looks for a consistent relation between two phenomena.

29
Q

Define Correlation

A

A measure of how strongly two variables are related to one another.

30
Q

Define Variables.

A

Characteristics of behaviour or experience that can be measured or described by a numeric scale.

31
Q

What is Positive Correlation?

A

An association where something increases in both variables or decreases in both variables.

32
Q

What is Negative Correlation?

A

An association where something increases in one variable and decreases in another.

33
Q

What is the Coefficient of Correlation?

A

A measure of correlation that ranges in value from -1.00 to +1.00.

34
Q

What are Illusory Correlations?

A

Apparent associations between two things that are not really related.

35
Q

Define Experiment

A

A controlled test of a hypothesis in which the researcher manipulates one variable to discover its effect on another.

36
Q

What is a Control Condition?

A

In an experiment, a comparison condition in which participants are not exposed to the same treatment as in the experimental condition.

37
Q

What is Random Assignment?

A

A procedure for assigning people to experimental and control groups in which each individual has the same probability as any other of being assigned to a given group.

38
Q

What is a Placebo?

A

An inactive substance or fake treatment used as a control in an experiment or given by a medical practitioner to a patient.

39
Q

What is a Single-Blind Study?

A

An experiment in which participants do not know whether they are in an experimental or a control group.

40
Q

What are Experimenter Effects?

A

Unintended changes in study participants’ behaviour due to cues inadvertently given by the experimenter.

41
Q

What is a Double-Blind Study?

A

An experiment in which neither the people being studied nor the individuals running the study know who is in the control group and who is in the experimental group until the results are tallied.

42
Q

What is Field Research?

A

Descriptive or experimental research conducted in a natural setting outside the laboratory.

43
Q

What three things must be done with results?

A
  1. They must be described2. Assessed for reliability and meaningfulness3. Explained
44
Q

What are Descriptive Statistics?

A

Statistical procedures that organize and summarize research data.

45
Q

What is the Arithmetic Mean?

A

The average.

46
Q

What is Standard Deviation?

A

A commonly used measure of variability that indicates the average difference between scores in a distribution and their mean. Shows how clustered or spread out the individual scores are.

47
Q

What are Inferential Statistics?

A

Statistical procedures that allow researchers to draw inferences about how statistically meaningful a study’s results are.

48
Q

What are Inferences?

A

Conclusions based on evidence.

49
Q

What are Significance Tests?

A

Statistical tests that show how likely it is that a study’s results occurred merely by chance.

50
Q

When is a result significant?

A

If the result would be expected to occur less than 5 times out of a 100 by chance (0.05).

51
Q

What is a Cross-Sectional Study?

A

A study in which people of different ages are compared at a given time.

52
Q

What is a Longitudinal Study?

A

A study in which people are followed are periodically reassessed over a period of time.

53
Q

What is Effect Size?

A

The amount of variance among scores in a study accounted for by the independent variable.

54
Q

What is Meta-Analysis?

A

A procedure for combining and analyzing data from many studies; it determines how much of the variance in scores across all studies can be explained by a particular variable.

55
Q

What are the 8 major principles of ethics?

A
  1. Respect for human dignity 2. Respect for free and informed consent3. Respect for vulnerable persons4. Respect for privacy and confidentiality 5. Respect for justice and inclusiveness6. Balancing harms and benefits7. Minimizing harm8. Maximizing benefit
56
Q

What is Informed Consent?

A

The doctrine that anyone who participates in human research must do so voluntarily and must know enough about the study to make an intelligent decision about whether to take part.