Psychology Exam 1 -- Chapter 2 Notes

Question 1

What are the three primary goals of any science?

Answer 1

Description, Prediction, Explanation

Question 2

What is the scientific method?

Answer 2

Systematic procedure of observing and measuring phenomena

Question 3

What does a theory do?

Answer 3

Explains what is observed and makes predictions about future events

Question 4

What is a hypothesis?

Answer 4

A specific, testable prediction that is narrower than the theory it is based on

Question 5

What characterizes the scientific method?

Answer 5

A cyclical process

Question 6

What is replication in research?

Answer 6

Repetition of a research study to confirm the results

Question 7

What is a replication crisis in psychology?

Answer 7

Questionable research practices that have made it harder to replicate studies

Question 8

What is HARKing?

Answer 8

Hypothesizing after the results are known

Question 9

What does P-hacking refer to?

Answer 9

Running many statistical analyses until one is statistically significant

Question 10

What is the population in a study?

Answer 10

Everyone in the group the experimenter is interested in

Question 11

What is a sample?

Answer 11

A subset of a population

Question 12

What are the three main types of research designs in psychology?

Answer 12

Descriptive research, Correlational studies, Experiments

Question 13

What is descriptive research?

Answer 13

Research methods that involve observing behavior to describe that behavior objectively and systematically

Question 14

What is a scatterplot?

Answer 14

A graphical depiction of the relationship between two variables

Question 15

What are the complications in correlational studies?

Answer 15

Directionality problem, Third variable problem

Question 16

What is an independent variable (IV)?

Answer 16

The variable that gets manipulated in a research study

Question 17

What is a dependent variable (DV)?

Answer 17

The variable that gets measured in a research study

Question 18

What is the Belmont Report?

Answer 18

Outlines three ethical principles that all human subjects research should uphold

Question 19

What are the three ethical principles outlined in the Belmont Report?

Answer 19

• Respect for Persons
• Beneficence
• Justice

Question 20

What does respect for autonomy of participants involve?

Answer 20

Informed consent

Question 21

What does beneficence mean in psychological research ethics?

Answer 21

Research benefits should outweigh costs and discomfort

Question 22

What does justice refer to in the context of psychological research ethics?

Answer 22

Fairness and equity in the distribution of the costs and benefits of research

Question 23

What is construct validity?

Answer 23

Refers to whether a test measures the concept it’s intended to measure

Question 24

What is external validity?

Answer 24

The extent to which research findings can be generalized to settings, people, times, and measures beyond the study

Question 25

What is internal validity?

Answer 25

The degree to which an experiment accurately establishes a causal relationship

Question 26

What is reliability in research data?

Answer 26

The consistency of a measure

Question 27

What is central tendency?

Answer 27

A measure that represents the typical response or behavior of a group

Question 28

What are the measures of central tendency?

Answer 28

* Mean (M) * Median (Md) * Mode (Mo)

Question 29

What does variability measure?

Answer 29

How widely dispersed the values are from each other and from the mean

Question 30

What is standard deviation?

Answer 30

A measure of the amount of variation or dispersion in a set of values

Question 31

What are inferential statistics?

Answer 31

Procedures that enable researchers to decide whether differences between groups reflect true differences in populations

Question 32

What does 'statistical significance' indicate?

Answer 32

Whether differences between groups are probably just chance variations or reflect true differences