Lecture 1 Part 2

Question 1

What is the evidence based method?

Answer 1

the empirical approach: observation and experimentation

Question 2

What is the scientific attitude?

Answer 2

curiosity, skepticism, humility

Question 3

What is the hindsight bias

Answer 3

tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that we could have predicted it

Question 4

What are the three ways that our human tendencies affect our judgement in psychology?

Answer 4

1. Hindsight bias
2. we tend to be more confident than correct in our abilities
3. we perceive patterns in random events

Question 5

What is a theory?

Answer 5

• a theory explains relationship between variables
• leads to predictions about behaviours or events
• stimulates research

Question 6

What is a hypothesis

Answer 6

a testable prediction, often implied by a theory

Question 7

What is an operational definition?

Answer 7

a carefully worded statement of the exact procedures used in a research study

Question 8

What is replication in a scientific study?

Answer 8

repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situations, to see if the basic finding extends to other participants and circumstances

Question 9

what is descriptive research?

Answer 9

a systematic, objective observation of people
- provides a clear and accurate picture of people’s behaviours, thoughts and attributes

Question 10

What are the three types of descriptive research?

Answer 10

case study, survey/interview, naturalistic observation

Question 11

What is a case study?

Answer 11

examines one individual in depth, provides ideas, no conclusions

Question 12

What is a naturalistic observation?

Answer 12

records behaviour in natural environment, describes but doesn’t explain behaviour

Question 13

What is a survey/interview? what are the pros/cons?

Answer 13

examines many cases in less depth; depends alot on how it is worded
pros: efficient, cheap, easy to make, diverse
cons: nonresponse bias, poorly designed, limited answers can influence, social desirability bias

Question 14

What is a correlation?

Answer 14

observation that two traits are related to eachother, or (scientific) measures how well you can predict a change in one from observing a change in the other

Question 15

What is an experiment?

Answer 15

one or more variable is manipulated by the researcher

Question 16

What is an independent variable?

Answer 16

the variable that you manipulate in the study to explore its effects
- not influenced by other variables in the study

Question 17

What is a dependent variable?

Answer 17

• the variable that changes as a result of the independent variable manipulation
• the outcome that you’re interested in measuring

Question 18

What are the best practices of experiments? (4)

Answer 18

1. double blind
2. eliminate placebo effect
3. random assignment
4. eliminate confounding variables

Question 19

What is statistical significance?

Answer 19

A measure of how likely something could have occurred by chance (<0.05)

Question 20

What is the effect size?

Answer 20

helps readers understand the magnitude of differences found