Chapter 2 Flashcards
Based on our descriptions
Goals of science: prediction
Using out descriptions and ability to predict to create better environments
Goals of science: control
Describing the world as it is
Descriptive approach
Watching behavior unfold in the real world
Naturalistic observation
Using questionnaires and other means to determine attitudes
Surveys
Finding out things about an individual helps us understand some issue or characteristic
Case studies
Surveys can provide lots of information
Case studies allow us to study rare or unusual phenomenon
Case studies take a long time and don’t allow us to infer causation
Positives and negatives of descriptive methods
Use statistics to explore connections between characteristics and events
Correlations
1.0
Strong correlation
-1.0
Strong negative correlation
Seeing a correlation where none exist, an illusion
Illusory correlation
Manipulating events to determine cause and effect relationships
Experimental method
- Manipulates a variable to determine effects
- Done under controlled conditions
- Determine cause and effect relationships
- Likely to occur after we have gathered information via other research methods
Four features of experiments
Measure of the central scores in a data set, or where a group tends to cluster
Central tendency
Average
Mean
Middle score of data
Median
Where group tends to cluster
Mode
Measure of dispersion that takes into account how far each data point is from the mean. Is a ball curve
Standard deviation