chapter 2 vocab Flashcards
theory
an organized set of concepts that explains a phenomenon or set of phenomena
determinism
the doctrine that all events- physical, behavioral & mental - are determind by specific causal factors that are potentially known
causal factors
limited to indiv environment or within the person
hypothesis
a tentative/testable explanation of the relationship between variables … a prediction of sorts
observer bias
the distortion of evidence b/c of the personal motives & expectations of the viewer
standardization
a set of uniform procedures for treatcing each test participant , interview/or for recording data. GUIDELINES !!! “TO STANDARD”
operational definition
a defintion of a variable or condition in terms of the specific operation or procedure used to determine its presence
variable
duh
independent variable
a variable that the researcher MANIPULATES w/ the expecttation on having an impact of the values of the dependent variable
DEpendent variable
a variable that the researchers MEASURES to assess the impact of a varitiation in an independent variable
experimental method
research methodology that involves the manipulation of independet variables to determine their effects on the DEpendent variable
CONFOUNDING variable
a stimulus other thant the variable on the experimenter explicitly introduces into a research setting that affects participants behavior
expectancy effect
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
placebo effect
change of behavior w/o no experimental manipulation
control procedure
consistent procedure for giving instructions, scoring responses and holding all other variables constant except those being systematically varied
double-blind control
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
placebo control
an experimental condition which treatment is not adminstreted, used to see where a placebo effect might occur
between-subjects design
a research design in which different groups of participants are randomly assigned to experiemental conditions or to control condtions
random assignment
a procedure in which diff groups of participants have an equal likelihood of being assigned to any condition within an experiment
experimental group
a group in an an experiment that is exposed to treatment/manipullation of the indepdent variable
control group
a group in an exp that is NOT exposed to a treatment or does not exp a mnaipulation of the ind variable
population
the entire set of indiv to which generalizations will be made based on an exp sample
sample
a subset of the population
representative sample
a subset of the population that represents the overall characteristics of the population
random sampling
a procedure that ensures that every member of a population has an equal likelihood of participating in an exp
within-subjects design
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
correlational method
research methodologt that determines to what extent two variables, tratis or attributes are related
correlation coefficient (r)
a statisticc that indicates the degree of relationship between two variables
correlations near zero = weak relationship
positive correlation coefficient
as one set of scores increase, another set of scores increase
negative correlation coefficient
the second set of scores goes in the opp directions of the first set of score
reliability
the degree to which a test produces similar scores each time it is used / stability STANDARD consistency of scores produced by an instrument
validity
the extent to which a test measures what it was intdend to measure
self-report measure
a self-behavior that is indentified through a participant’s own observations and reports
behavioral measure
overt actions or reaction that is observed and recorded, exclusive of self-reported behavior
naturalistic observation
a research technique in wwhich unobtrusive observations are made of behaviors that occur in nat’l environments
case study
intensive observation of a particular indiv. or small group of indiv.
