Chapter 3 Ehtics And Methods

Question 1

What to believe

Answer 1

People are confronted with a wide range of facts and opinions, beliefs come from incomplete information

Question 2

Tenacity

Answer 2

The reason we belive something is because we have always belived it; you may not even know why, need extra strong evidence to change a belief like this
Ex. Cutting salt out of your diet; although you don’t even know why you just believed it was bad

Question 3

Authority

Answer 3

Some beliefs you have are simply because someone with authority has told you it. Is the source knowledgeable? In the Middle Ages the church would proclaim things that were not tru, yet people followed anyways.
Ex. Doctors

Question 4

Intuition

Answer 4

Use personal experience and perception to form judgments; tends to rely on heuristics (short thinking shortcuts, feels right but its a quick decision)

Question 5

Rationalism

Answer 5

Belief arrives are through logic and rational thought; if this happens, then that will happen. Assumes based on facts, assuming that these fact are correct. When we thought the earth was the centre of the solar system, was a logical assumption based off of the facts they had at the time

Question 6

Empiricism

Answer 6

Gathering evidence to answer a question; confirmation bias ( you’ll find the information you want to find, evidence that supports what you believe)
Anecdotal evidence- someone relates their experience to you and used it as evidence for a bigger picture (ex. Anti-depressants)

Question 7

Science

Answer 7

Combines rationalism with systematic objective empiricism. An orderly universe that is open to discovery, physical laws can be measured.
Knowledge is never complete, whatever is found leads to another question

Question 8

Psychological research: describe a particular behaviour

Answer 8

Systematic observation and objective measurement (unbiased)

Question 9

Psychological research: try to determine cause(s)

Answer 9

Requires an interrelation of measures

Question 10

Psychological research: understand/explain behaviour

Answer 10

Make logical evaluation that fits with the results

Question 11

Psychological research: predict and affect future behaviour

Answer 11

Practical applications

Question 12

Diffusion of responsibility

Answer 12

If others are present, people are more likely to assume that someone else will act

Question 13

Theory

Answer 13

Theory generates and guides hypothesis, results support or refute theory ( start point and end point at the same time)

Question 14

Good Samaritan law

Answer 14

(in response to diffusion of responsibility)- makes it illegal to do nothing when witnessing someone in distress

Question 15

What makes a good theory

Answer 15

Good theories are falsifiable ( which means you are able to test it, and have the opportunity to show that it is false)
-Parsimonious; simple to explain and understand
-Scientific impact; larger importance to the world
-Replication; anyone should be able to replicate it and get close to the same results

Question 16

Ethics in research 3 basic principles

Answer 16

Concern for welfare
Respect for Autonomy
Justice

Question 17

Ethics in research: concern for welfare

Answer 17

-reduce harm while maximizing benefit
-physical or psychological harm
-possible benefits(to science, to individual or to society)

Question 18

Ethics in research: respect for autonomy

Answer 18

-achieved through informed consent
-informed of the purpose and procedures
-passive deception (researchers don’t tell the subject the hypothesis, so they behave naturally)
- risks and benefits
-right to withdraw without penalty

Question 19

Ethics in research: justice

Answer 19

-identifiable groups (age, ethnicity) can’t be excluded without defensible scientific reason

Question 20

Ethics in research general info

Answer 20

if you were in the placebo group, but the drug ends up being effective you then have access to the drug (justice)
-research also must comply with Canadian charter of rights and freedoms
-federal and provincial privacy of information laws
-Anonymity vs. Confidentiality
-group-based studies

Question 21

Retread with animals

Answer 21

-incapable of informed consent
-ethics board separate from human research; more detailed than human ethics

• 3 R’s: replacement, reduction, refinement
• replacement: if you can replace animals with something else, then do that instead
  -reduction: use as few animals as possible to get the results you need
  -refinement: if there’s any stress on the animal during the procedure, the person should refine the procedure to limit the discomfort as much as possible

Question 22

Professional ethics for students and researchers

Answer 22

-academics are expected to behave in an ethical manner
-data collection and writing research (is honest)
-data fabrication (made up the data)
-data falsification (they have collected the data, but they change it to fit what they want it to look like)

Question 23

Self-report pitfalls

Answer 23

Social desirability
Sensitive or controversial topics, people will most likely not answer truthfully because they do not want to admit it, people answer in the way society wants you to respond

Question 24

Survey vs. Observation

Answer 24

Subjective vs. Objective; most subjective is interviews and surveys, most objective measure of a persons outward behaviour that they show

Question 25

Recording observations

Answer 25

Narrative record- real time video ( with out without audio) *objective
Field notes- records frequency of which those things occur, done, by the researcher, usually done in addition to narrative record
Diary- the people in those observations can provide their account, record slightly subjective measures

Question 26

Reactivity “Hawthorne effect”

Answer 26

Named for study conducted at the Hawthorne works in Illinois
Does improving lightning conditions improve worker productivity?
Being watched improves productivity; reactivity “its human nature”

Question 27

Naturalistic observation

Answer 27

Most unitrusive way to do research, the people do not know they are being observed
-purest behaviour because there is no reactivity

Question 28

Partially disguised observation

Answer 28

Example: science museum study
You know you are being watched, but you do not know the reason
A little bit of reactivity but not an extreme amount

Question 29

Undisguised observations

Answer 29

The people know they are being observed and they know why
For the first while people will behave differently and they will behave artificially, require habituation ( to go back natural patterns of behaviour, who they are)

Question 30

Disguised participation observation

Answer 30

In order to get close to the people you are observing you pretend to be one of them. They are not aware they are bring observed because they think you are one of them

Question 31

Structured observation

Answer 31

Set up a situation so they can see the behaviour in action, it can take awhile for a behaviour to show itself, so they do this

Question 32

Correlation

Answer 32

correlation reflects an associated between two (or more) variables
True correlations
-increased marijuana use linked to higher rates of schizophrenia
-higher education level associated with reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease
-you cannot conclude a lot from this, you have an association, it does not mean that one thing causes the other

Question 33

Directionality problem

Answer 33

Example: media violence and aggression; is a correlation
You don’t know what causes it

Question 34

Experiments: inferring cause

Answer 34

-a direct change in one variable results in a corresponding change in the other variable
Independent variable ( IV)
Dependent variable (DV)
-researcher manipulates IV to determine effect on DV
- can call the DV a dependent measurement because it is always a measurement

Question 35

Internal validity

Answer 35

How well can changes in the DV can be attributed only to changes in the IV
IV. To DV.
An experiment with strong internal validity can rule out other plausible explanations for the results
-speaks to the overall quality of the experiment
- are there other explanations that could account for those results?

Question 36

Assessing internal validity

Answer 36

Sampling technique

random assignment: randomly assigned which group they would be in, unbiased
-controlling for potential confounding variables: (confounding variable are unwanted variables) variable that would change the results

External validity: you know the experiment has validity if you attempt to recreate it and it works, resulting in similar results