Chapter 2: Scientific Thinking & Research in Psychology Key Terms Flashcards
Rationalism
The view that using logic and reason is the way to understand how the world works.
Scientific thinking
A process using the cognitive skills required to generate, test, and revise theories.
Keep belief and evidence distinct.
Make testable claims
Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence
Try to disconfirm your idea after it has been confirmed
Have your belief follow the best evidence
Replication
The repetition of a study to confirm the results; essential to the scientific process.
Theory
A set of related assumptions from which scientists can make testable predictions.
Scientific theories must:
- Be tied to real evidence
- Organize observations
- Generate expectations and assumptions that can be tested systematically
Scientific method
The procedures by which scientists conduct research, consisting of six basic processes: observation, prediction, testing, interpretation, communication, and replication (OPTICR).
Hypothesis
A specific, informed, and testable prediction of the outcome of a particular set of conditions in a research design.
The more specific a hypothesis is, the more easily each component can be changed to determine what effect it has on the outcome.
Reliability
The consistency of a measurement, such as an intelligence test.
Validity
The degree to which a test accurately measures what it purports to measure, such as intelligence, and not something else, and the degree to which it predicts real-world outcomes.
Pseudoscience
Claims presented as scientific that are not supported by evidence obtained with the scientific method.
Pseudoscience practitioners:
- Make no real advances in knowledge
- Disregard well-known and established facts that contradict their claims
- Do not challenge or question their own assumptions
- Tend to offer vague or incomplete explanations of how they came to their conclusions, and
- Tend to use unsound logic in making their arguments
Research designs
Plans of action for how to conduct a scientific study.
The design chosen for a given study depends on the question being asked.
Variable
A characteristic that changes, or “varies,” such as age, gender, weight, intelligence, anxiety, and extraversion.
Population
The entire group a researcher is interested in—for example, all humans, all adolescents, all boys, all girls, all college students.
Samples
Subsets of the population studied in a research project.
Research is almost always conducted on samples, not populations.
If researchers want to draw valid conclusions or make accurate predictions about a population, it is important that their samples accurately represent the population in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, or any other variables of interest.
Descriptive designs
Study designs in which the researcher defines a problem and variable of interest but makes no prediction and does not control or manipulate anything.
Case studies, naturalistic observations, qualitative research/interviews, and surveys.
CANNOT look at cause and effect; only serves to describe patterns or behavior
Case study
A study design in which a psychologist, often a therapist, observes one person over a long period of time.
Naturalistic observation
A study in which the researcher unobtrusively observes and records behavior in the real world.
Conditions cannot be controlled and cause-and-effect relationships between variables CANNOT be demonstrated.
Interviews
Interactions in which one person asks questions and the other answers them and the answers are open-ended. Sometimes interview questions are predetermined and sometimes they are spontaneous.
