Psych Midterm #1

Question 1

Describe how tradition, anecdote, intuition, authority, empiricism, and reasoning are or are NOT consistent with science and scientific thinking.

Answer 1

Tradition, anecdotes, intuition, and authority are all subjective. There’s nothing that can be used and applied to every situation if it’s left up for the individual to decide based on those sources. Scientific thinking uses empiricism and reasoning. They measure, and then come to logical conclusions based on their findings.

Question 2

Describe the role inductive reasoning plays in scientific (and everyday) reasoning.

Answer 2

Inductive reasoning is drawing general conclusions from specific observations. Scientists may observe a situation or experiment, and draw a general conclusion based on the results. In day-to-day life, one might see that there are clouds outside, and the air feels humid. You could make the inductive conclusion that it’s going to rain.
Deductive reasoning is proof-based, the exact opposite of inductive. It starts with a fact, or premise. If the data lines up with the premise, then the conclusion is true.

Question 3

Explain Karl Popper’s great contribution to science.

Answer 3

If we can show what’s not true, then we can find what is true! Think of Russel’s teapot: If someone says there’s a teapot orbiting the sun, we can neither prove nor disprove that. If someone makes the claim that all people are right-handed, we could test and disprove that. We learn better through finding falsities.

Question 4

Explain the process for testing the scientific validity of a claim. Include the following terms in your description: correlation, null-hypothesis significance testing, null hypothesis, alternative hypothesis, p-value, and type I and type II errors.

Answer 4

Scientists like to be very thorough in their testing. They do this through NHST. One takes a null hypothesis that assumes there is no relationship between variables, and test it against the alternative hypothesis which claims there is one. If one gets a false positive, then it’s a type 1 error. If it’s a false negative, it’s type 2. A p-value, or probability value, sets in place a threshold for those errors. It helps determine if data is good or not.

Question 5

Compare and contrast the term “theory” when used in scientific and everyday contexts.

Answer 5

Theory in science means it’s been tried and tested. It’s thought through and accounts for every aspect. In an everyday sense, a “theory” is merely a guess.

Question 6

Describe some examples of how general scientific research has changed the world.

Answer 6

In a medical sense, the research of people like Edward Jenner saved BILLIONS of people’s lives through vaccines/immunology. Haberg and Borlaug produced hybrid crops and synthetic fertilizer which has enabled Earth to support billions of people.

Question 7

Empiricism

Answer 7

The idea that all knowledge comes from experience. (Locke, Reid)

Question 8

Neural impulse

Answer 8

Electro-Chemical signals that allow the neruons to communicate.

Question 9

Psychophysics

Answer 9

The relationship between physical stimuli and human perception.

Question 10

Who was Wilhelm Wundt, and what was his contribution to Psych?

Answer 10

He developed modern psychology! Key idea was to use introspection to explore consciousness.

Question 11

Structuralism

Answer 11

What the mind is, and what are its contents?

Question 12

Who was Margaret Washburn?

Answer 12

She was the 1st woman to earn a PHD in psychology.

Question 13

Who was Mary Calkins?

Answer 13

1st woman president of the American Psychological Association.

Question 14

Functionalism

Answer 14

Utility of consciousness.

Question 15

Eugenics

Answer 15

Selective breeding to promote desired traits

Question 16

Gestalt Psychology

Answer 16

An attempt to study the unity of experience. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”
These theories were primarily Jewish and brought their ideas to America during WWII. This fueled cognitive psych.

Question 17

Behaviorism

Answer 17

The study of behavior. They believed that behavior could be controlled and manipulated through operate conditioning. (Povlov, Watson, and Skinner)

Question 18

Flashbulb memory

Answer 18

A highly detailed and vivid memory of an emotionally significant event.

Question 19

Science and practitioner model

Answer 19

Training in psych that focuses on developing research and clinical skills.

Question 20

Scholar-practitioner model

Answer 20

Traning that uses only clinical practices.

Question 21

Psychodynamic

Answer 21

A more systematic study of psych. Personality is explained in terms of unconscious psychological processes. Early childhood shapes who we are today. (Freud)

Question 22

Humanism

Answer 22

Common humanities. Moral values are founded on human nature and experience alone. This was like a renaissance theory.

Question 23

Sociocultural psychology

Answer 23

How a person’s social/culture background influences their behavior.

Question 24

Evolutionary psychology

Answer 24

How our evolution shaped our brain. How problems we faced in the past affect how we interpret the world now. (think fight or flight behaviors)

Question 25

Biopsychological model

Answer 25

Human behaviors are all consequences of genetics and psychology.

Question 26

Explain what the key elements or characteristics of the scientific approach are and how they are applied in research studies.

Answer 26

Scientifically minded people figure out the natural world through testing and observation. Specifically systematic observation.
Science is: Democratic, uses systematic observation, is empirical, and cumulative.

Question 27

Identify some limitations in the study of psychology, and explain why there has been skepticism about psychology as a science.

Answer 27

There are certain things that are subjective, or can be tampered with because of the nature of humans. It’s hard to measure the invisible, so scientists in the past have discounted it. But today we have methods of observing and testing cognitive processes/brain/ect. It’s also just a very young science.

Question 28

Explain what contributions psychological science has made.

Answer 28

It creates interventions that help save people’s lives! It examines what kind of therapies are beneficial for things like anxiety and depression.
Psych has also helped in the courtroom with things like Forensic psychology, where you study what is actually going on instead of relying on eye-witness testimonies.
Also the workplace. Studying what makes people more productive counts as psych, and has helped promote better environments and more successful companies/employees.

Question 29

Describe the five guidelines included in the code of ethics for human research and provide examples of how each could be applied.

Answer 29

Informed consent
When people are a part of a study, they deserve to know what they’re apart of, and what they will be experiencing/doing.
Confidentiality
Information about the individual participants shouldn’t be made public without the consent of the individual. A lot of times data is de-identified.
Privacy
Researchers shouldn’t be observing people in their private places (ex. bedrooms) without known consent. They also shouldn’t be be seeking confidential information from others, such as a guardian without the participant’s consent.
Benefits
Researchers need to weigh the benefits with the potential risk in regard to the participants. Participants should only be exposed to a risk only if they understand what the risk is, and what the benefits of exposure are.
Deception
In studies that require participants to now know the intentions of the study, researchers are required to “debrief” participants after the study is completed.
We often do animal studies when we can’t ethically do certain things with humans. (Baboons and stress study)

Question 30

Experimental design (true experimental and quasi-experimental)

Answer 30

Experimental research: True experimental research relies completely on statistical analysis to approve/disprove a theory or hypothesis.
Quasi-experimental is very similar to experimental research, but it doesn’t use random assignment. It’s perfect for examining how different variables effect things, and the situation can be controlled to limit interfering variables. Comparisons are made between treatment and control conditions. Treatment may be a participant variable. The researcher can compare groups, but does not control nature or independence. (cause and effect, not randomly assigned.)

Question 31

Correlational/non experimental research design

Answer 31

This type of research is a more passive observance and measuring of phenomena. Nothing is done to alter the results. Great for examining things in a natural environment, but it does allow for outside variables to interfere with the results. Things like surveys (great for collecting a large amount of data) interviews, and focus groups. Also correlational studies, such as case studies, and qualitative studies.

Question 32

Biopsychosocial model

Answer 32

BPS: How bio, psych, and social are interconnected and how they relate to health/disease.

Question 33

Longitudinal study

Answer 33

A study that follows the same group of people over time. (Attrition can happen here, where people drop out over time)

Question 34

Cross-sectional study

Answer 34

Looking at data at a single point in time. Looking at a whole bunch of groups in the present. A snapshot of one moment.

Question 35

Cross sequential study

Answer 35

Looking at two or more groups over a period of time. It’s a mix of longitudinal and cross-sequential.

Question 36

Case study

Answer 36

An in-depth study of one particular topic, person, group, or event.

Question 37

Cohort effect

Answer 37

Having different groups that experienced something together.

Question 38

Describe how experiments help us to infer causality

Answer 38

Through actively making changes in one variable and watching for changes in the other variable, experiments can help us see what things are actually causing a phenomenon.

Question 39

Correlational Studies

Answer 39

Like a ven-diagram. It says there is a relationship/overlap between variables. Where one thing is correlated to multiple different things. Correlation says variables are related. These types of studies DO NOT show temporal precedence or eliminate other explanations.

Question 40

Explain how to design a study by including the concepts and ideas described in the Key Terms and Learning Outcomes above.

Answer 40

We need research for a few reasons. A properly designed research study should prevent confirmation bias (only seeing what supports what we like/want to see) and Bias blind Spot (we believe we would never have a bias)
Listening to the best evidence, not the loudest voice.
Causation is one variable directly affects another variable. Proving that variable A caused a change in B. Certain things need to happen in order for this to happen:
A is related to B
A comes before B (temporal precedence)
You have eliminated any other plausible explanations.
The Independent variable is your predictor/treatment. This would represent the treatment vs. the control group.
Dependent Variable is the outcome, or response. The change in this variable depends on the exposure to IV.

Question 41

Qualitative data

Answer 41

Data that can’t be measured, or easily expressed in numbers.

Question 42

Quantitative data

Answer 42

Data that is numerical, testing theories empirically.

Question 43

Inductive reasoning

Answer 43

Drawing general conclusions from specific observations.

Question 44

Deductive reasoning

Answer 44

Proof-based. Starts with a premise, and if it’s true, then the conclusion must be true. Example: All birds have feathers, since a duck is a bird, it must have feathers.

Question 45

Probability value (p-value)

Answer 45

A way to tell if data is good or not. Sets a threshold value for type and ii errors.

Question 46

Null-hypothesis

Answer 46

Assuming there is no relationship between variables.

Question 47

Type i error

Answer 47

False positive. Covid tests are positive when you have no symptoms would be an example of this.

Question 48

Type ii error

Answer 48

False negatives.

Question 49

What are the levels of analysis?

Answer 49

Social/cultural, behavioral, cognitive, and biological.