Methods Flashcards
What are the two forms of Empiricism that oppose each other
Inductivism VS falsification
What is inductivism
Several observation are used to induce theories
→ try to confirm
What is Falsification (Popper’s suggestion)
Test are designed to refute the predictions (falsification)
→ not to confirm the theory
If one prediction is falsified ⇒ theory is wrong
What are the problem of objectivity
Doing science is a human behaviour
*psychologist are often part of what they observe
➯ thus, objectivity has its limit
Why do we say that “Science progress funeral by funeral” and is the cycle called
There are conventions, traditons, shared assumptions that when they are refuted, proved wrong, their death leads to progress
This cycle is called the Kuhn cycle of revolution
➯not a linear view/progress, more like a cyclical progress with no clear end point
How do active measurements change the behaviour
People change their behaviour to make positive impressions
True or false, there is a strong correlation between the observer and the observed
True, the context in which the experiment is driven, the angle and the experimenter biases influence the result and prove that pure objectivity is not possible
Give an example of an experiment that demonstrated the influence of the experimenter on the subject
Pain inhibition for animals was greater with male experimenter than female experimenter
→ the smell of males experimenters influenced the results
What is the Hawthorne Effect
Experiment where they observed the effect of observation and concluded that being observed may lead participants to change their behaviour to make a positive impression
How do personal predictions bias behaviour of others
Person studied is not only a passive responder, but might engage in the experiment actively
➯ thus, participant respond in a way to confirm the assumed hypothesis
What experiments demonstrate how personal predictions bias behaviors of the subject
- The dumb/smart rat experiment
- The tearing up sheet for 5 hours
- The Milgram experiment on the power of the authority
What are the biases of Westerners research and what is the problem of it.
Also, it demonstrate what exactly
- Anglocentric
- Eurocentric
- Androcentric
- Masculinist
➯ not representative of humanity
It demonstrate the importance and imperativity of diversity in any experiment
What is the solution to artificiality in the domain of psychology
Field studies investigated by a diversify group of researchers!
In a positively skewed distribution, order the location of the mean, median and mode
mode < median < mean
mode always on the side of the slope
In a negatively skewed distribution, what is the order of the mode, median and mean
mean < median < mode
mode always on the peak of the slope
How is an histogram informative
By its
- shape
- location of center
- spread
- range
Order the mean, median and mode in a normal distribution
+
What are example of normal distribution
mean = mode = median
Examples
- height
- birth weight
- shoe size
- IQ scores
Whar are example of positively skewed distribution
- Household income
- Number of children in a family
- Millage on a used car
Whar is an example of a negatively skewed distribution
Age at death in many countries
What is the variability of a distribution and what are the causes
It is the degree of spread or dispersion of the distribution.
This is due
- differences between participants
- imprecise measurement tools or confounding characteristics
What are the characteristic of small variability
- less overlap
- meaningful differences between the group means
- statistically significant
What are the characteristic of a big variability
- more overlap
- insignificant difference between the group means
- statistically less significant
What is a standard deviation
the measure of variability that describes how cluster around the mean the data is located
What do represents how well the mean represents the data
Standard deviation
