methodological concepts: key terms Flashcards
hypothesis
a testable statement based on the aims of an investigation
alternative hypothesis
the testable statement predicting a difference in the DV between levels of the independent variable in an experiment (or a relationship between variables in a correlation)
sampling technique
the method used to obtain the participants for a study from the population
ethical guidelines
pieces of advice that guide psychologists to consider the welfare of participants and wider society
debriefing
giving participants full explanation of the aims and potential consequences of the study at the end of a study so that they leave in at least as positive a condition as they arrived
ethnocentric bias
foregrounds and prioritizes one’s own culture, judging all other groups by one’s own cultural standards even when such a judgment is inappropriate- psychologists must never assume an item or task in a psychological instrument to have the same meaning cross-culturally
experimental validity
the extent to which research has internal validity and external validity
because it concerns what goes on inside and outside the experiment
cost-benefit analysis (CBA)
a widely used method of evaluating the pros and cons of different alternatives in order to make optimal decisions
Cross-cultural psychology attempts to reduce the ethnocentrism of psychology in one important sense:
by recognizing the limitations of our current knowledge and by seeking to extend our data and theory through the inclusion of other cultures, we can reduce the culture-bound nature of the
discipline.
ethnocentric bias
judging other cultures and ways of life as intrinsically inferior to your own.
reductionism
process of understanding complex things by breaking them down to their most basic parts
cost-benefit analysis
in a wider sense, whether the method of research is worth the knowledge/insight gained as a result of it - do the ends justify the means
measures of central tendency
a mathematical way to find the typical or average score from a data set, using the mode, median or mean
median
the measure of central tendency that identified the middle score of a data set, which is in rank order. If there are two numbers in the middle, they are added together and divided by two
mode
the measure of central tendency that identifies the most frequent score(s) in a data set
mean
the measure of central tendency calculated by adding up the values of all the scores and dividing by the number of scores in the data set
measure of spread
a mathematical way to describe the variation or dispersion within a data set
range
the difference between the biggest and smallest values in the data set plus one (a measure of spread)
standard deviation
a calculation of the average difference between each score in the data set and the mean. Bigger values indicate greater variation (a measure of spread)
bar chart
a graph used for data in discrete categories and total or average scores. There are gaps between each bar that is plotted on the graph because the columns are not related in a linear way
histograms
a graph used to illustrate continuous data, e.g. to show the distribution of a set of scores. It has a bar for each score value, or group of scores, along the x-axis. The y-axis represents frequency of each category
scatter graph
a way to display data from a correlation study. Each point on the graph represents the point where one participant’s score on each scale for the co-variable cross
