Research Methods Flashcards
What does psychology study?
Psychology scientifically studies how human and non-human minds represent and behave within the world. It is:
Why is psychology considered historically new?
the first psychology lab in opened less than 145 years ago.
Why is psychology considered complex?
each human brain has as many synapses – connections inside the brain – as there are known galaxies in the universe.
What are the 3 stages to the scientific method?
Describe, Predict, Explain
What questions do we ask to describe?
what do you see? What is
absent? Can we measure it?
What questions do we ask to predict?
what will happen if I pull this lever? Does something change if I push this button?
What questions do we ask to explain?
the internal mechanisms of this cube work in such-and-such way.
How does psychology try to understand human nature?
Psychology attempts to understand human nature by using the scientific method: a collection of agreed-upon procedures for observing and communicating ideas about the world.
What is a theory? Example?
a potential explanation for why or how something works.
e.g., one popular psychological theory states that humans think in “two modes”: a fast/heuristic one and a slow/rational one.
What is a hypothesis? Example?
a prediction about what should occur in a specific context given a specific theory.
e.g., when rushed, people will make decisions following fast heuristics.
What are the 3 natural limitations of the scientific method?
1.Psychologists believe that at least some (but likely not all) aspects of human nature can be studied through observation and scientific testing.
2.Psychologists assume that some aspects of human nature are fixed and predictable.
3.Psychologists formulate theories about a general/idealized person, not a specific individual.
What is the question of fixedness?
how much of human nature is fixed, biologically determined, and universal, and how much of human nature is different between individuals?
What are the three questions involved with the question of fixedness?
- How much of human nature is shaped by evolution?
- How much of human nature depends on our genes versus cultural learning?
- Are there any essential, necessary characteristics of human nature?
What is the question of introspection?
do we ever truly know ourselves and why we do what we do?
What are the questions involved with the question of introspection?
- Are we actually one person or many competing subparts?
- Why don’t we know exactly what we want?
- Why are we sometimes confused by our own behaviours?
What is the question of computation?
do we think rationally like computers, or in a manner that is fundamentally different from logical information processing?
What are the questions involved with the question of computation?
- In what sense are human beings rational?
- What is the relationship between the mind and the body?
- Would it ever be possible to create human-like intelligence in machines?
What is the question of Uniqueness?
are human minds different from those of other animals? Why and how?
What are the questions involved with the question of Uniqueness?
Are humans uniquely capable of consciousness, of language, of deep social interactions, etc.?
How much do psychological theories benefit from neuroscience?
How has psychology been controversial?
- Psychology is historically tied to testing European ideals of human nature, and has been dominated by white, cis, male scientists.
- Psychology has played an active role in attempting to prove that there are differences in intelligence, personality, and motivation between people.
- Many psychological findings do not replicate, leading to a major shift in how we do statistics.
- Most non-psychologists care about prediction, not explanation.
What are the three sources of knowledge?
Intuition, Observation, Authority
How is knowledge in science obtained? Why?
knowledge in sciences occurs through observation and science is very against pure authority and pure intuition for acquiring knowledge.
What is observation?
in being direct and internal it shares elements of intuition because it is the interaction between you and the world like intuition but it is much more sharable because it can be OBSERVED by others as well.
What is Authority? What is an example?
Somebody tells you. Example, where and when you were born. Can be abused. it is too easy to exploit so it cannot be the only way we gain knowledge.
What is the problems with pure observation? Examples?
People don’t always agree on what they are experiencing. E.g., the dress illusion, yanni/laurel illusion, “fast rats study”
Observation is not always true!
E.g., visual illusions, the earth definitely appears to be flat.
Observation is not always possible.
E.g., How do we observe the internal thoughts and feelings of others?
Your observations can change!
What does science do to deal with the impossibility of observation? Examples?
Development of new tools: psychologists are inventing novel and cross-checking tools of measuring behaviour.
Examples include new tests, computerized tasks, fMRI, EEG, TMS, and others.
What does science do to avoid relying on pure observation?
Science does not rely on “pure” observation, but instead on observation following a set of community guidelines and rules.
How do we deal with the reliability of observation?
openness, falsifiable hypotheses, double-blind experiments
What is openness in regard to experiments?
all psychological data and measurement instruments should (ideally) be available for anyone to use, allowing others to evaluate them and check their reliability.
What is a Falsifiable hypothesis?
psychologists formulate inflexible predictions that can clearly be shown to be false with scientific observation alone.
What is a double Double-Blind experiments?
whenever possible, neither the participant nor the person getting the data should be aware of what the hypothesis is.
How do we deal with biases and differences in opinion?
Scientific Skepticism, Peer review, Replication
What is scientific Skepticism?
scientists begin from a position of skepticism and do not immediately trust or get attached to any theory or observation.
What is peer review?
scientific findings go through rigorous review from other scientists before getting published, to make sure biases did not sneak in.
What is replication?
no single study “proves” anything – science advances theories by accumulating dozens of confirmed or disconfirmed hypotheses. We only provide confirmation that something is more and more likely to be true. You also need to be able to keep replicating the work if you have truly discovered something.
What are the 5 formal steps to the scientific method?
Hypothesize, Operationalize, Measure, Analyze, Report
What is a hypothesis?
a hypothesis is a prediction, derived from a theory, about what should happen in a given situation.
What are confirmatory studies?
Begin with a falsifiable hypothesis from theory, and then seek to find data that either confirms or disconfirms it.
What are exploratory studies?
seek to describe some phenomena by collecting data, but don’t have any predictions at the onset of the study. Instead, we collect and describe data, looking for interesting patterns.
Why do psychologists spend most of their time doing exploratory studies?
psychologists spend most of their tie doing exploratory studies because the study is so new we are still trying to figure out how to define the phenomenon
What is an operational definition?
A description of a psychological property in measurable terms.
What is an example of a good operational definition for stage fright?
heart-rate immediately before the performance begins (good)
What happens if you have a bad operational definition?
if you have a bad operational definition you might not actually be measuring what you think you are.
What is an instrument?
anything that can provide us with a measurement of the
operational definition (e.g., a heart-rate monitor).
What three properties does a good instrument have?
validity, reliability, power/sensitivity
What is validity?
the instrument actually measures what it claims to measure.
What is reliability?
the instrument gives similar measurements each time it is used
to measure the same thing.
What is power/sensitivity?
the instrument can detect small differences in the measure (e.g., a beats-per-minute difference of 100 vs. 101).
What gives us data?
Operational definition + instrument can, when administered to a set of participants, give us data: a collection of measurements.
What is quantitative data?
data which is a numerical measurement (e.g., beats-per- minute). This is the most common type of data in the sciences. More common
What is Qualitative Data?
data which is non-numerical and descriptive (e.g., interview transcripts, pictures). A lot of exploratory studies use this.
What do we need to do to make sense of data?
we need to transform it into something interpretable:
how do we transform data into something interperatable?
Descriptive statistics
Inferential statistics
What are Descriptive statistics?
mathematical tools used to summarize data into more useful ways of understanding it.
What are inferential statistics?
mathematical tools used to help us decide if the data confirm or disconfirm some hypothesis.
