chapter 2 vocab

Question 1

theory

Answer 1

an organized set of concepts that explains a phenomenon or set of phenomena

Question 2

determinism

Answer 2

the doctrine that all events- physical, behavioral & mental - are determind by specific causal factors that are potentially known

Question 3

causal factors

Answer 3

limited to indiv environment or within the person

Question 4

hypothesis

Answer 4

a tentative/testable explanation of the relationship between variables … a prediction of sorts

Question 5

observer bias

Answer 5

the distortion of evidence b/c of the personal motives & expectations of the viewer

Question 6

standardization

Answer 6

a set of uniform procedures for treatcing each test participant , interview/or for recording data. GUIDELINES !!! “TO STANDARD”

Question 7

operational definition

Answer 7

a defintion of a variable or condition in terms of the specific operation or procedure used to determine its presence

Question 8

variable

Answer 8

duh

Question 9

independent variable

Answer 9

a variable that the researcher MANIPULATES w/ the expecttation on having an impact of the values of the dependent variable

Question 10

DEpendent variable

Answer 10

a variable that the researchers MEASURES to assess the impact of a varitiation in an independent variable

Question 11

experimental method

Answer 11

research methodology that involves the manipulation of independet variables to determine their effects on the DEpendent variable

Question 12

CONFOUNDING variable

Answer 12

a stimulus other thant the variable on the experimenter explicitly introduces into a research setting that affects participants behavior

Question 13

expectancy effect

Answer 13

result that occurs when a researcher or observer sublty communicates to participants the kind of behavioe he or she expects to find, therby creating the expected results

Question 14

placebo effect

Answer 14

change of behavior w/o no experimental manipulation

Question 15

control procedure

Answer 15

consistent procedure for giving instructions, scoring responses and holding all other variables constant except those being systematically varied

Question 16

double-blind control

Answer 16

an experimental technique in which biased expectations of experimenter are elimanted by keeping both participants and experimental assistants unaware of which participants have received which treatemetn

Question 17

placebo control

Answer 17

an experimental condition which treatment is not adminstreted, used to see where a placebo effect might occur

Question 18

between-subjects design

Answer 18

a research design in which different groups of participants are randomly assigned to experiemental conditions or to control condtions

Question 19

random assignment

Answer 19

a procedure in which diff groups of participants have an equal likelihood of being assigned to any condition within an experiment

Question 20

experimental group

Answer 20

a group in an an experiment that is exposed to treatment/manipullation of the indepdent variable

Question 21

control group

Answer 21

a group in an exp that is NOT exposed to a treatment or does not exp a mnaipulation of the ind variable

Question 22

population

Answer 22

the entire set of indiv to which generalizations will be made based on an exp sample

Question 23

sample

Answer 23

a subset of the population

Question 24

representative sample

Answer 24

a subset of the population that represents the overall characteristics of the population

Question 25

random sampling

Answer 25

a procedure that ensures that every member of a population has an equal likelihood of participating in an exp

Question 26

within-subjects design

Answer 26

a research design that uses each participant as his/her own control; for example, the behavior of an exp. participant before receiving treatment might be compared to their behavior after treatment

Question 27

correlational method

Answer 27

research methodologt that determines to what extent two variables, tratis or attributes are related

Question 28

correlation coefficient (r)

Answer 28

a statisticc that indicates the degree of relationship between two variables
correlations near zero = weak relationship

Question 29

positive correlation coefficient

Answer 29

as one set of scores increase, another set of scores increase

Question 30

negative correlation coefficient

Answer 30

the second set of scores goes in the opp directions of the first set of score

Question 31

reliability

Answer 31

the degree to which a test produces similar scores each time it is used / stability STANDARD consistency of scores produced by an instrument

Question 32

validity

Answer 32

the extent to which a test measures what it was intdend to measure

Question 33

self-report measure

Answer 33

a self-behavior that is indentified through a participant’s own observations and reports

Question 34

behavioral measure

Answer 34

overt actions or reaction that is observed and recorded, exclusive of self-reported behavior

Question 35

naturalistic observation

Answer 35

a research technique in wwhich unobtrusive observations are made of behaviors that occur in nat’l environments

Question 36

case study

Answer 36

intensive observation of a particular indiv. or small group of indiv.