Lecture Terms 1

Question 1

What are 5 ways we acquire our beliefs:

Answer 1

tenacity, authority, experience, empirical evidence, logical reasoning

Question 2

tenacity

Answer 2

commonly understood idea but source is unclear, cannot link to a primary source and thus does not usually hold up under further scrutiny

Question 3

authority

Answer 3

someone specific, who you view as an authoritative or credible figure, said this was true. Does not always hold up

Question 4

meta-analysis

Answer 4

puts together results from multiple studies

Question 5

correlational results does not mean:

Answer 5

causation, this requires experimental studies to determine

Question 6

experimental studies require:

Answer 6

control of variables and random selection of test subjects

Question 7

experience

Answer 7

can be either direct or a prior experience. Not always valid because negative info is more likely to be remembered and brought to mind, creating the illusion of a higher frequency of occurrence

Question 8

empirical evidence

Answer 8

systematic or formal observation to obtain objective, reliable, valid, and often quantitative measures of the matter of interest

Question 9

by itself, empiricism cannot explain:

Answer 9

WHY things are, they only demonstrate THAT they are: mechanisms must be tested as possible hypotheses

Question 10

logical reasoning

Answer 10

a system of rules regarding the relationship between premises (descriptive statements) and conclusions

Question 11

logical syllogisms

Answer 11

2 descriptive statements followed by a conclusion which may be either true or false based on the following statements

Question 12

what makes a conclusion true even if it isn’t known?

Answer 12

if the argument is valid and the premises are empirically true

Question 13

belief bias

Answer 13

endorsement of invalid arguments if they agree with the values, stronger belief bias could also result in pursuit of confirming evidence rather than disconfirming evidence

Question 14

scientific reasoning is formed from a basis of:

Answer 14

empirical evidence and logical reasoning

Question 15

the scientific method has four features:

Answer 15

objectivity, replication, self-correction and control

Question 16

representativeness

Answer 16

extent to which the sample is representative of the population. the sample statistic should be similar to the population parameter

Question 17

random selection

Answer 17

everyone in the population has equal chance of being assigned to one of the experimental groups

Question 18

statistics is affected by:

Answer 18

1. the type of data we collect (continuous/categorical)
2. difference or relationship?
3. number of groups/variables
4. scale of measurement (nominal/ordinal/interval/ratio)

Question 19

what are some non-systematic sources for research ideas?

Answer 19

observation of our surroundings, observation of people, inspiration, serendipity

Question 20

what are some systematic sources for research ideas?

Answer 20

past research, theory, classroom lectures

Question 21

what are some characteristics of a hypothesis:

Answer 21

synthetic statement (can be T or F), falsifiable, can be stated in general implication form, is either DIRECTIONAL or NON-DIRECTIONAL

Question 22

deductive logic

Answer 22

general to specific (how we form hypotheses)

Question 23

inductive logic

Answer 23

specific to general (how we build theories)