Psych - Chapter 2

Question 1

What is basic research for?

Answer 1

It answers questions about behaviour

Question 2

What is applied research for?

Answer 2

It investigates issues for everyday life, and provides solutions to everyday problems.

Question 3

True or false. Basic and applied research inform each other.

Answer 3

True. Advances in science occur more rapidly.

Question 4

What is a theory?

Answer 4

Integrated set of principles that explains and predicts many, but not all, observed relationships within a domain of inquiry.

Question 5

What is stage of theory of cognitive development? (Piaget)

Answer 5

States that children pas through a series of cognitive stages as they grow, each which must be mastered in succession before movement to the next cognitive stage can occur.

Question 6

What does falsifiable mean?

Answer 6

Variables of interest can be adequately measured and the relationships between variables that are predicted can be shown through research to be incorrect.

Question 7

Hypothesis

Answer 7

A general statement about relationships between variables–often generated from theories.

Question 8

Operational definition

Answer 8

The measurement properties of a variable. They show exactly what is being measured (ie. self-reported number of hours of sleep).

Question 9

Descriptive research

Answer 9

Provides a snapshot of current state of affairs

Question 10

Correlational research & Correlational coefficient

Answer 10

Correlational research designs look for associations between variables–eg. height and weight.

Statistic that measures this association is the correlational coefficient.

Correlational coefficient can be either negative or positive, and range from -1.0 through 0 to 1.0

Question 11

Experimental research

Answer 11

Assess cause and effect

Question 12

Case studies

Answer 12

Descriptive records of one or more individual’s experiences and behaviour. Small number of individuals.

Useful when only a small amount of research is done on a topic.

Researchers can only speculate about cause and effect, and must do so with great caution.

Question 13

Survey

Answer 13

Interview or written questionnaire to get a picture of behaviour of a sample of people of interest.

Question 14

Sample

Answer 14

People chosen to participate in the research selected to be representative of all the people that the researcher wishes to know about. Known as population.

Question 15

Representative sample

Answer 15

Must reflect Canada’s demographic make-up in terms of age, sex, gender orientation, socioeconomic status, ethnicity……

Question 16

Generalizability

Answer 16

Research based on unrepresentative samples is limited in generalizability since it will not apply to anyone who was not represented in the sample.

Question 17

WEIRD

Answer 17

Western
Educated
Industrialized
Rich
Democratic

These people have been over-represented in psych research in the past

Question 18

Pearson correlational coefficient

Answer 18

r=.54 positive relationship

r=-.30 negative relationship

Correlations of 0 indicate no relationship between variables.

Question 19

Positive correlation coefficients

Answer 19

In each case of correlations, people who score higher, or lower, on one of the variables also tend to score higher, or lower, on the other variable.

Question 20

Negative correlation

Answer 20

Occur when people score high on one variable, and low on the other.

Negative linear line on scatter plot.

Question 21

Linear relationship

Answer 21

When the association between the variables on the scatterplot can be easily approximated with a straight line.

Correlational research is limited in this design because we do not know what causes what.

Question 22

Third variable

Answer 22

One that is not part of the research hypothesis, but that causes both the observed variables and, thus, the correlation between them.

Positive correlation between dark chocolate consumption and health

x=those who consume dark chocolate are concerned about their longevity
y=those who are concerned about their health exercise regularly
c=high alcohol consumption

Question 23

Independent variable (aka experimental manipulation)

Answer 23

Variable manipulated by researchers so that there is more than one condition.

Question 24

Dependent variable

Answer 24

Outcome or score on the measure of interest that is dependent on the actions of the independent variable.

Question 25

Double-blind

Answer 25

Neither the experimenter, nor the participants know which condition any participant is in during the experiment.

Question 26

Single-blind

Answer 26

A study in which the experimenter does not know which condition each participant is in during the experiment, so that they cannot systematically treat one group differently.

Question 27

Initial equivalence

Answer 27

Between conditions of the experiment that are made possible by using random assignment to conditions.

Question 28

Confounding variable

Answer 28

A variable that has slipped unwanted into the research and potentially caused the results, and not the independent variable.

Question 29

Quasi-experimental

Answer 29

The inability to randomly assign the participants to condition results in uncertainty of cause and effect.

• Men and women differ in some ability, it could be biology that is the cause. It is equally likely that it could be a societal experience of being male or female that is responsible.

Question 30

Correlational research example….

Answer 30

Independent variable - the participant will attend psychotherapy for two sessions per week for a 6 month period.

Dependent variable - the participant will show an increase in emotional stability and overall happiness over the course of the 6 month period.

Question 31

Mean (aka central tendency)

Answer 31

The average. Sum of all scores and then divide by the number of participants.

Question 32

Median

Answer 32

Score in the centre of the distribution.

Used as an alternative measure of central tendency when distributions are not symmetrical.

Question 33

Mode

Answer 33

The value that occurs most frequently in distribution.

Question 34

Dispersion

Answer 34

The extent to which the scores are all tightly clustered around the central tendency.

Question 35

Range

Answer 35

Highest score minus the lowest score.

Question 36

Standard deviation

Answer 36

Most commonly used measure of variability around the mean.

Question 37

Significance test

Answer 37

The researcher’s estimate of how likely it is that their results were simply the result of chance.

Less than 5% probability - result is considered to be real and to generalize the population.

More than 5% probability - result is considered to be a non-significant result. Likely due to chance and not generalized to population.

Reported as p values that provide info about presence and effect.

p<.05 = probability of being caused by chance less than 5%

p>0.5 = probability of being caused by chance more than 5%. The difference is real.

Question 38

Deception in research

Answer 38

Occurs when research participants are not made fully aware about the nature of the project before participating in it.