Chapter 3 Flashcards
What are the two overall categories of research?
Note both of these use the scientific method
Basic research: answers fundamental questions about behaviour
Applied research: investigate issues that have implications for every day life and provide solutions to every day problems
What are three characteristics of the scientific method?
Empirical: based on systematic collection and analysis of data
Objective: free from the personal bias or motion of the scientist
Replicable going to repeat, add to, or modify
What’s the difference between a law and a theory?
A law is a principle that is general as to apply to all situations in a given domain of inquiry.
A theory is an integrated set of principles that explains and predicts many, but not all, observed relationships within a given domain of inquiry; an organized system of assumptions and principles that purports to explain a specific set of phenomena and they’re interrelationships
What is falsifiability?
A scientific hypothesis must be stated in such a way that it is testable or verifiable by the senses, observed or counted or tallied; there must be a chance that the hypothesis could be proven false or refuted
What are the three types of research designs
Descriptive studies: provide a snapshot of the current state of affairs. For example case studies, observational studies, psychological test, survey research
Correlational studies: discover relationships among variables and to allow the prediction of future events from present knowledge
Experiment: manipulation of experiences between equivalent groups and measurement of the influence of the manipulation
What are the uses and limits of the descriptive methods
Your descriptions of current thoughts, feelings, and behaviours but cannot provide us with casual explanations
What are psychological tests?
Procedures for measuring and evaluating personality traits, emotional state, attitudes, interest, abilities, and values
What is central tendency
The point in the distribution around which the data are centred
What’s the difference between a mean, median, and mode
Arithmetic mean or average is the some of all the scores of the variable divided by the number of participants in the distribution.
Median is the score in the centre of the distribution meaning that 50% of the scores fall above and below the median
The mode is the value that occurs most frequently in the distribution
What is dispersion
The extent to which the scores are all tightly clustered around the central tendency
What is Correlational study
A descriptive study that looks fuller consistent, systematicRelationship between two phenomena or variables
What is Pearson’s correlation coefficient?
A measure of correlation that ranges in value from negative one to positive one, specifying the size and direction of the correlation. The number or distance from zero indicates the strength of the relationshipThe further from zero the number, the stronger the correlation
What are the types of correlation?
Positive correlation: increase in one variable associated with increasing another, decreasing one variable associated with decreasing another.
Negative correlation: increase in one variable associated with decreasing another, decreasing one variable associated with an increase in another
Zero correlation: no relationship exists between the variables
True or false? Perfect correlations exist in the real world.
False!!!
What is a limit of correlation?
Correlations tell us that two variables are related, that they tend to very together in systematic ways. They cannot however tell us anything about causality
