Lecture 1 Flashcards
What is a psychological construct?
A construct is a hypothetical factor that is never directly observed however its existence is inferred from certain behaviours and assumed to follow from certain circumstances
What does a psychological construct explain?
Phenomena or it provides a short hand representation for a cluster of related behaviours e.g. self-confidence, happiness, body image, hunger
What is a good psychological construct?
It is good if it is overlapping and converging operational definitions
What are case studies?
They are descriptive, exploratory, or explanatory analysis of a person, group, or event which illustrates a particular point or provides insight, and offers an unusual or particularly revealing set of circumstances
What are negatives to case studies?
Limited generalisability and susceptible to researcher bias
What are observational studies?
Observational studies are when researchers watch subjects in their natural environment (high external validity) and it can help to create structured observation research
What are negatives of observational research?
Observations can alter behaviour, and you cannot infer causality regarding behaviours. There is also limited experimental control and observer bias
What is archival data used for?
Answering empirical questions with already collected data, usually gathered for independent reasons (correlational or quasi-experimental)
Can use available large data bases
What are negatives of archival data?
It is prone to researcher bias and the ethics of the research
What are surveys in psychological research?
They ask questions directly on attributed and behaviour
Uses questions or interview
Often aim to generalise numerical estimated from the sample to the population rather than measure the relationships between variables e.g. frequency of mental health problems
What negatives of surveys?
There are sampling issues and biases in responding
Key factors of correlational studies
Whether two or more dependent variables are associated Typically linear (positive or negative inverse) Useful when you have a hypothesis that is about a relationship between variables and a prediction
Key issues of correlational studies
Correlation does not imply causation
Directionality problem/reverse causality
Third variable problem
Coincidence
Key factors of experimental studies
Independent and dependent variables (IV and DV) Manipulated the IV in isolation whilst all else being equal, measure resulting change in DV Reduces confounds Minimises noise (random variation across all conditions, so distinct from confounds) which will obscure any true effects
What is random assignment?
Membership to a group is determined entirely by chance e.g. true experiment
What is a quasi experiment?
Means the subjects are not randomly assigned, it is not ethical, not practical
What is between subjects?
Each participant appears in one group
What is within subjects?
Each participant appears in all groups, random assignment concerns are irrelevant, requires fewer subjects/ more cost effective, minimise individual difference noise (participants are matched except for the IV)
Cross sectional vs longitudinal studies
Same person tested at over a long period of time - longitudinal
One person tested at one point, another at a different point - cross sectional
What are key issues in longitudinal and cross sectional studies?
Time, cost, cohort effects, attrition (participant mortality)
What are field experiments?
Has features of an experiment (IV manipulation) but operates outside the controlled environment of the lab
Higher ecological validity
Possible ethical concerns (consent, awareness)
Meta Analyses - what is it
Effect size - how big is the effect seen?
Correlation between independent and dependent variables, standardised effect sizes take into account the distance between two distributions and their variance
Meta analyses eval
Very useful in clinical trials or in areas with many studies with inconsistent results
Clear criteria for which studies to include
Clear limitations but also methods of dealing with them
What are the different types of research?
Quantitative versus qualitative research
Basic versus applied research
Lab versus field research
