Research Methods

Question 1

Why does research design matter?

Answer 1

Helps eliminate bias and avoids subjective impressions

Question 2

Used for severe mental disorders, what is the disproven method of cutting fibres connecting the frontal lobe and the thalamus of the brain?

Answer 2

Prefrontal lobotomy

Question 3

What is a representative heuristic?

Answer 3

An assumption of homogeneity, or that all members of a category are the same, e.g., stereotyping

Question 4

What is a base rate?

Answer 4

How common a characteristic or behaviour is in the general population

Question 5

What is the availability heuristic?

Answer 5

An assumption used to judge the frequency of events, based on how easily an example comes to mind

Question 6

What is hindsight bias?

Answer 6

Turning vague statements into solid predictions after the fact, e.g. “I knew it all along”

Question 7

What do we call the tendency to overestimate our ability to make correct predictions?

Answer 7

Overconfidence bias

Question 8

How can we avoid biases and heuristics?

Answer 8

Testing specific hypotheses derived from broader theories

Question 9

What are the 4 major kinds of research done in psychology?

Answer 9

1. Naturalistic observation
2. Case studies
3. Self report measures and surveys
4. Correlational and experimental designs

Question 10

How are naturalistic observations conducted?

Answer 10

Watching behaviour in real-world settings

Question 11

What is the difference between external validity and internal validity?

Answer 11

External - the extent to which we can generalize findings to real-world settings
Internal - the extent to which we can draw cause-and-effect inferences from a study

Question 12

What kind of study has high external validity but low internal validity?

Answer 12

Naturalistic observations

Question 13

What do case studies study?

Answer 13

One or several people for an extended period of time, usually used for rare brain damage or mental illness

Question 14

What kind of study is great for existence proofs, but can be misleading or anecdotal?

Answer 14

Case studies

Question 15

What do self-report measures assess?

Answer 15

Characteristics such as personality or mental illness by asking for opinions or abilities

Question 16

In order for self-report measures to be accurate, what must be done to follow protocol?

Answer 16

Random selection, validity, and reliability

Question 17

What is the difference between reliability and validity?

Answer 17

Reliability - consistency of measurement
Validity - extend to which a measure assesses what it claims to measure

Question 18

What are two types of reliability?

Answer 18

1. Test-retest - similar scores over time
2. Interrater - two raters should produce similar scores

Question 19

What is the halo effect?

Answer 19

Tendency of ratings of one positive characteristic to spill over and influence the ratings of other characteristics

Question 20

What does a correlational design examine?

Answer 20

The extent to which two variables are associated

Question 21

Causation can only be determined by what type of design?

Answer 21

Experimental design

Question 22

How do participants in experiments need to be arranged?

Answer 22

Randomly into an experimental group that receives manipulation and a control group that does not

Question 23

In experimental designs, what are confounds?

Answer 23

Differences between the experimental and control groups other than the independent variable

Question 24

What is the placebo effect and what is the nocebo effect?

Answer 24

Placebo - improvement due to the expectation of improvement
Nocebo - harm resulting from the expectation of harm

Question 25

Because of the placebo and nocebo effects, participants must be _____ .

Answer 25

Blind

Question 26

What are demand characteristics and how can they be avoided?

Answer 26

Cues that participants pick up allowing them to guess the researchers’ hypothesis, can be avoided by disguising the study’s purpose

Question 27

What is the experimenter expectancy effect?

Answer 27

Researchers’ hypotheses lead them to unintentionally bias the outcome, can be avoided by using double blind design

Question 28

What was the name of the horrific, unethical study that evaluated men diagnosed with syphilis and never given treatment?

Answer 28

Tuskegee Study

Question 29

What are the 3 required steps researchers must take when following the Research Ethics Board (REB)’s guidelines for experiements?

Answer 29

1. Informed consent
2. Justification of deception
3. Debriefing of participants afterwards

Question 30

About what % of research in psychology uses animals?

Answer 30

7-8%

Question 31

What is the difference between descriptive statistics and inferential statistics?

Answer 31

Descriptive - numerical characteristics of the nature of the data
Inferential - mathematical methods so we can generalize findings from our sample to the population

Question 32

What do we call a group that tends to cluster on a graph?

Answer 32

Central tendency

Question 33

Within 1 standard deviation, how much data fits inside? 2 SDs? 3 SDs?

Answer 33

1 SD - 68%
2 SD - 95%
3 SD - 99.7%

Question 34

What is variability/dispersion?

Answer 34

How loosely or tightly bunched the scores are

Question 35

What is standard deviation?

Answer 35

Accounts for how far each data point is from the mean

Question 36

Which is less susceptible to extreme scores - ranges or standard deviations?

Answer 36

Standard deviations

Question 37

What is a statistically significant finding?

Answer 37

A finding that would have occurred by chance less than 5% of the time

Question 38

What is practical significance?

Answer 38

Real-world importance, not necessarily the result of something statistically significant

Question 39

What is peer review?

Answer 39

A process used to help identify and correct flaws in research and its conclusions