Chapter two Flashcards
Zimbardo’s study
Zimbardo’s study
Prisoners and guards started to act like real prisoners and guards after 6 days and the study had to stop
Hindsight bias
“I-knew-it-all-along”, overestimating your ability to predict an event, after the event outcome is known
The limits of observation
Our sense can be fooled
Generalizing observations, assume one situation applies to them all if you’ve observed it
The Scientific method:
OPTIC Observe Predict Test Interpret Communicate
Pseudoscience:
Pseudoscience: What science is not
Lacks the cumulative progress seen in science
Disregards real world observations and established results
Lacks internal skepticism
Vaguely explains how conclusions are reached
Uses loose and distorted logic
Findings cannot be replicated
Strategy is conformational, very easy to prove the can rather than cannot
Based on testimonials
Non-peer reviewed journals
Intellectual Integrity
every so often you hear of scientists who have faked studies. We know this because other scientists have tried to replicate their experiment and did not have similar findings
Theory:
a set of related assumptions from which a scientist can make testable predictions
Variable
Variable: anything that varies or changes between subjects
Ex: age, weight, extraversion, gender
Sample
subset of population being sudied
population
: the entire group the researcher is interested in
A single event can inspire new ideas and new lines of research:
Woman was attacked, stabbed and later died in an apartment complex, later 38 ppl confessed they heard or saw the attack and did nothing
This sparked two researchers interest and now research in on the “bystander effect” happens all the time today
Descriptive studies
Don’t make any predictions and do not manipulate or control variables
Researchers simply define a problem and describe very carefully the variables of interest
Basic question of descriptive studies: What is the nature of this phenomenon
Researchers make careful observations a lot of time in the real world
Descriptive designs often occur in the exploratory phase of research
Possible relationships and patterns are noted and can be used in other designs as the basis for testable predictions
Three most common types of descriptive studies
case studies
naturalistic observation
interview and survey
Case study
Observation of one person over long period of time
Use detailed descriptions to describe remarkable and rare events
Do not test hypotheses, but can be a source for hypotheses
Allow researchers to study things that are impractical to study any other way
case study example: case of D.S.
Example: case of DS
Man suffered head injury in traffic accident
He recovered cognitive abilities
Bu insisted his parents were replaced by doubles - rare symptom of Capgras condition
Interestingly- didn’t treat them as imposters when talking on phone to them, but only when he saw them in person
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naturalistic observation
Where a researcher unobtrusively observes and records behavior in the real world
Social desirability bias
The tendency towards favourable self-presentation that could lead to unreliable data
Correlation designs
Is x related to y
We cannot establish whether one variable causes another or vice versa
These different variables could be influenced by a number of things other than the other variable measured
Correlation coefficients
Stat that goes from -1 to 1
Asses the strength and direction of the relationship between the variables being measured
0 means no relationship
Close to -1 or 1 means relationship strength increases
Experimental studies
A research design
Two crucial characteristics
Manipulation of predicted cause (independent variable), the measurement of response (dependant variable)
Random asissgnamet of participants to control and experimental group
