psych

Question 1

-Compare/contrast different ways of acquiring knowledge.

Answer 1

Intuition. Fast, but biased.
Authority. Easy, but could be misleading.
Rationalism. Simple, but relies on correct premises.
Empiricism. More scientific, but our senses can be fooled.
The Scientific Method. Systematic, but not always feasible.

Question 2

three main goals of science

Answer 2

describe , predict, explain

Question 3

-Compare/contrast basic and applied science

Answer 3

Basic - Research conducted primarily for the sake of achieving a more detailed and accurate understanding of human behavior, without necessarily trying to address any particular practical problem.

Applied science: Research conducted primarily to address some practical problem.

Question 4

-Define folk psychology

Answer 4

Intuitive beliefs about people’s behavior, thoughts, and feelings.
Science and rational thinking are hard; we prefer heuristics Confirmation bias

Question 5

-Understand where research ideas come from

Answer 5

Informal observations
Practical problems
Previous research

Question 6

-State what makes a research question good

Answer 6

Testable-Try to think of questions with variables you can quantify (How often? How accurate? How fast?

Interesting-The answer is in doubt.“Fills a gap”, Important practical implication

Question 7

-Distinguish between a theory and a hypothesis

Answer 7

theory-are explanations.go beyond the data. Include unobservables

hypothesis-are predictions. go beyond the data. include unobservables.

Question 8

-State what makes a hypothesis good

Answer 8

Testable
Falsifiable
Logical (i.e. not a random guess)
Positive (i.e. ”X exists” or “X will occur” rather than ”X does not exist” or ”X will not occur”)

Question 9

-variable

Answer 9

-A quantity or quality that varies across people or situations.

Question 10

-quantitative variable

Answer 10

A quantity, such as height, that is typically measured by assigning a number to each individual.

Question 11

-categorical variable-

Answer 11

A variable that represents a characteristic of an individual, such as chosen major, and is typically measured by assigning each individual’s response to one of several categories (e.g., Psychology, English, Nursing, Engineering, etc.).

Question 12

population

Answer 12

Definition: A population refers to the entire group of individuals, items, or units that possess the characteristics of interest and about which conclusions are drawn.

Question 13

sample

Answer 13

Definition: A sample is a subset or a smaller group selected from the population, with the intention of representing the larger population.
Characteristics:
It consists of a portion of the population.
Samples are used to make inferences or draw conclusions about the population as a whole.
Sampling methods are employed to ensure that the sample is representative of the population.

Question 14

Experimental research

Answer 14

involves manipulating one or more variables to observe the effect on another variable while controlling for extraneous factors.
It typically takes place in controlled environments, such as laboratories, where researchers can carefully control and manipulate conditions.
Experimental research aims to establish cause-and-effect relationships between variables.

Question 15

Non-experimental research

Answer 15

involves observing and describing phenomena without actively manipulating variables.
It focuses on describing relationships, making predictions, or exploring associations between variables.
Non-experimental research designs include observational studies, correlational studies, and descriptive studies.

Question 16

-Lab studies

Answer 16

are a type of experimental research conducted in controlled laboratory settings.
Researchers manipulate variables and control extraneous factors to investigate cause-and-effect relationships.
Lab studies offer high internal validity due to the control over variables but may lack external validity as findings may not generalize to real-world settings.

Question 17

Field experiments

Answer 17

combine elements of experimental and field research by manipulating variables in real-world settings.
Researchers intervene or manipulate variables in natural environments while still controlling for some factors.
Field experiments offer a balance between internal and external validity, allowing researchers to study cause-and-effect relationships in real-world contexts.

Question 18

conceptual definition

Answer 18

behaviours and internal process

Question 19

operational definition

Answer 19

An operational definition is a definition of a variable in terms of precisely how it is to be measured. These measures generally fall into one of three broad categories: self report, behavioural, physiological

Question 20

self report

Answer 20

Measures in which participants report on their own thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Question 21

behavioural

Answer 21

Measures in which some other aspect of participants’ behavior is observed and recorded.This is an extremely broad category that includes the observation of people’s behavior both in highly structured laboratory tasks and in more natural settings. A good example of the former would be measuring working memory capacity using the backward digit span task

Question 22

physiological

Answer 22

are those that involve recording any of a wide variety of physiological processes, including heart rate and blood pressure, galvanic skin response, hormone levels, and electrical activity and blood flow in the brain.

Question 23

nominal

Answer 23

nominal level of measurement is used for categorical variables and involves assigning scores that are category labels. Category labels communicate whether any two individuals are the same or different in terms of the variable being measured. For example, if you ask your participants about their marital status, you are engaged in nominal-level measurement. Or if you ask your participants to indicate which of several ethnicities they identify themselves with, you are again engaged in nominal-level measurement.

Question 24

ordinal

Answer 24

The remaining three levels of measurement are used for quantitative variables. The ordinal level of measurement involves assigning scores so that they represent the rank order of the individuals. Ranks communicate not only whether any two individuals are the same or different in terms of the variable being measured but also whether one individual is higher or lower on that variable. For example, a researcher wishing to measure consumers’ satisfaction with their microwave ovens might ask them to specify their feelings as either “very dissatisfied,” “somewhat dissatisfied,” “somewhat satisfied,” or “very satisfied.” The items in this scale are ordered, ranging from least to most satisfied. This is what distinguishes ordinal from nominal scales. Unlike nominal scales, ordinal scales allow comparisons of the degree to which two individuals rate the variable.

Question 25

interval

Answer 25

assigning scores using numerical scales in which intervals have the same interpretation throughout. As an example, consider either the Fahrenheit or Celsius temperature scales. The difference between 30 degrees and 40 degrees represents the same temperature difference as the difference between 80 degrees and 90 degrees. This is because each 10-degree interval has the same physical meaning (in terms of the kinetic energy of molecules).Interval scales are not perfect, however. In particular, they do not have a true zero point even if one of the scaled values happens to carry the name “zero.”

Question 26

types of measurement

Answer 26

nominal, ordinal, interval , ratio

Question 27

types of validity

Answer 27

face validity, content validity, criterion validity, discriminant validity

Question 28

types of reliBILITY

Answer 28

test retest, internal consistency, inter rater

Question 29

test retest

Answer 29

When researchers measure a construct that they assume to be consistent across time, then the scores they obtain should also be consistent across time. telligence is generally thought to be consistent across time. A person who is highly intelligent today will be highly intelligent next week. This means that any good measure of intelligence should produce roughly the same scores for this individual next week as it does today.
This is typically done by graphing the data in a scatterplot and computing the correlation coefficient. In general, a test-retest correlation of +.80 or greater is considered to indicate good reliability.

Question 30

internal consistency

Answer 30

which is the consistency of people’s responses across the items on a multiple-item measure. In general, all the items on such measures are supposed to reflect the same underlying construct, so people’s scores on those items should be correlated with each other.

Question 31

inter rater

Answer 31

The extent to which different observers are consistent in their judgments.is the extent to which different observers are consistent in their judgments. For example, if you were interested in measuring university students’ social skills, you could make video recordings of them as they interacted with another student whom they are meeting for the first time. Then you could have two or more observers watch the videos and rate each student’s level of social skills. To the extent that each participant does, in fact, have some level of social skills that can be detected by an attentive observer, different observers’ ratings should be highly correlated with each other.

Question 32

face validity

Answer 32

Face validity is the extent to which a measurement method appears “on its face” to measure the construct of interest. Most people would expect a self-esteem questionnaire to include items about whether they see themselves as a person of worth and whether they think they have good qualities. So a questionnaire that included these kinds of items would have good face validity. The finger-length method of measuring self-esteem, on the other hand, seems to have nothing to do with self-esteem and therefore has poor face validity. Face validity is at best a very weak kind of evidence that a measurement method is measuring what it is supposed to. One reason is that it is based on people’s intuitions about human behavior, which are frequently wrong.

Question 33

content validity

Answer 33

extent to which a measure “covers” the construct of interest. For example, if a researcher conceptually defines test anxiety as involving both sympathetic nervous system activation (leading to nervous feelings) and negative thoughts, then his measure of test anxiety should include items about both nervous feelings and negative thoughts. Or consider that attitudes are usually defined as involving thoughts, feelings, and actions toward something.

Question 34

criterion validity

Answer 34

extent to which people’s scores on a measure are correlated with other variables (known as criteria) that one would expect them to be correlated with. For example, people’s scores on a new measure of test anxiety should be negatively correlated with their performance on an important school exam. If it were found that people’s scores were in fact negatively correlated with their exam performance, then this would be a piece of evidence that these scores really represent people’s test anxiety. But if it were found that people scored equally well on the exam regardless of their test anxiety scores, then this would cast doubt on the validity of the measure.

Question 35

discriminant validity

Answer 35

Discriminant validity, on the other hand, is the extent to which scores on a measure are not correlated with measures of variables that are conceptually distinct. For example, self-esteem is a general attitude toward the self that is fairly stable over time. It is not the same as mood, which is how good or bad one happens to be feeling right now. So people’s scores on a new measure of self-esteem should not be very highly correlated with their moods. If the new measure of self-esteem were highly correlated with a measure of mood, it could be argued that the new measure is not really measuring self-esteem; it is measuring mood instead.

Question 36

experiment

Answer 36

A type of study designed specifically to answer the question of whether there is a causal relationship between two variables.

Question 37

internal validity

Answer 37

Refers to the degree to which we can confidently infer a causal relationship between variables

Question 38

external validity

Answer 38

Refers to the degree to which we can generalize the findings to other circumstances or settings, like the real-world environment

Question 39

carry over effect

Answer 39

An effect of being tested in one condition on participants’ behavior in later conditions.

Question 40

Confounds

Answer 40

A specific type of extraneous variable that systematically varies along with the variables under investigation and therefore provides an alternative explanation for the results.

Question 41

Moral principle

Answer 41

-weighing risks against benefits
-acting responsibility and with integrity
-seeking justice
- respecting peoples

Question 42

Nuremberg code

Answer 42

A set of 10 ethical principles for research written in 1947 in conjunction with the Nuremberg trials of Nazi physicians accused of war crimes against prisoners in concentration camps.The Nuremberg Code was particularly clear about the importance of carefully weighing risks against benefits and the need for informed consent.

Question 43

Declaration of helsinki

Answer 43

An ethics code that was created by the World Medical Council in 1964.de was that research with human participants should be based on a written protocol—a detailed description of the research—that is reviewed by an independent committee. The Declaration of Helsinki has been revised several times, most recently in 2004.

Question 44

Belmont report

Answer 44

A set of federal guidelines written in 1978 as a response to the abuses of the Tuskegee study that recognize three important principles in research with humans: justice, respect for persons, and beneficience, and that formed the basis for federal regulations applied to research.The Belmont Report explicitly recognized the principle of seeking justice, including the importance of conducting research in a way that distributes risks and benefits fairly across different groups at the societal level. It also recognized the importance of respect for persons, which acknowledges individuals’ autonomy and protection for those with diminished autonomy (e.g., prisoners, children), and translates to the need for informed consent. Finally, it recognized the principle of beneficence, which underscores the importance of maximizing the benefits of research while minimizing harms to participants and society. The Belmont Report became the basis of a set of laws—the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects—that apply to research conducted, supported, or regulated by the federal government. An extremely important part of these regulations is that universities, hospitals, and other institutions that receive support from the federal government must establish

Question 45

IRB

Answer 45

A committee that is responsible for reviewing research protocols for potential ethical problems.An IRB must consist of at least five people with varying backgrounds, including members of different professions, scientists and nonscientists, men and women, and at least one person not otherwise affiliated with the institution. The IRB helps to make sure that the risks of the proposed research are minimized, the benefits outweigh the risks, the research is carried out in a fair manner, and the informed consent procedure is adequate.

Question 46

tri agency

Question 47

ratio

Answer 47

such a way that there is a true zero point that represents the complete absence of the quantity. Height measured in meters and weight measured in kilograms are good examples. So are counts of discrete objects or events such as the number of siblings one has or the number of questions a student answers correctly on an exam.

Question 48

validity

Answer 48

the scores from a measure represent the variable it is intended for

Question 49

reliability

Answer 49

how consistent

Question 50

experiment

Answer 50

A type of study designed specifically to answer the question of whether there is a causal relationship between two variables. whether changes in one variable (referred to as an independent variable) cause a change in another variable (referred to as a dependent variable). Experiments have two fundamental features. The first is that the researchers manipulate, or systematically vary, the level of the independent variable. The different levels of the independent variable are called conditions.

Question 51

Independent variable

Answer 51

Independent variable-The variable the experimenter manipulates.

Question 52

Dependant variable

Answer 52

The variable the experimenter measures (it is the presumed effect).

Question 53

extraneous

Answer 53

Any variable other than the dependent and independent variable. of witnesses) with three different levels or conditions (one, two or five students). The second fundamental feature of an experiment is that the researcher exerts control over, or minimizes the variability in, variables other than the independent and dependent variable. These other variables are called extraneous variables- as noise, as confounds

Question 54

control condition

Answer 54

The condition in which participants do not receive the treatment.

Question 55

random assignment

Answer 55

The primary way that researchers accomplish this kind of control of extraneous variables across conditions is called random assignment, which means using a random process to decide which participants are tested in which conditions.

Question 56

Carryover effect

Answer 56

An effect of being tested in one condition on participants’ behavior in later conditions.

Question 57

Confounds

Answer 57

A specific type of extraneous variable that systematically varies along with the variables under investigation and therefore provides an alternative explanation for the results.

Question 58

internal validity

Answer 58

Refers to the degree to which we can confidently infer a causal relationship between variables

Question 59

external validity

Answer 59

Refers to the degree to which we can generalize the findings to other circumstances or settings, like the real-world environment