Studying Behaviour Scientifically

Question 1

hypothesis

Answer 1

a specific prediction about some phenomenon or other.

Question 2

theory

Answer 2

a set of formal statements that explain how and why certain events are related to one another.

Question 3

variable

Answer 3

any characteristic or factor that can vary.

Question 4

operational definition

Answer 4

defines a variable in terms of the specific procedures used to produce or measure it.

Question 5

electroencephalography (EEG)

Answer 5

measures the activity of large groups of neurons through a series of large electrodes placed on the scalp.

Question 6

unobtrusive measure

Answer 6

records behavior in a way that keeps participants unaware that they are being observed.

Question 7

archival measure

Answer 7

record or document that already exists.

Question 8

descriptive research

Answer 8

seeks to identify how humans and other animals behave, particularly in natural settings.

Question 9

case study

Answer 9

an in-depth analysis of an individual, group or event.

Question 10

naturalistic observation

Answer 10

technique in which the researcher observes behavior as it occurs in a natural setting.

Question 11

survey research

Answer 11

technique where information about a topic is obtained by administering questionnaires or interviews to many people.

Question 12

population

Answer 12

all the individuals that we are interested in drawing a conclusion about.

Question 13

sample

Answer 13

a subset of individuals drawn from the larger population.

Question 14

representative sample

Answer 14

reflects the important characteristics of the population.

Question 15

correlation coefficient

Answer 15

a statistic that indicates the direction and strength of the relation between two variables.

Question 16

positive correlation

Answer 16

higher scores on one variable are associated with higher scores on a second variable.

Question 17

negative correlation

Answer 17

when higher scores on one variable are associated with lower scores on a second variable.

Question 18

scatterplots

Answer 18

graphs that who’s the correlation between two variables.

Question 19

experiment

Answer 19

in an experiment the experimenter manipulates one or more variables, measures whether this manipulation influences other variables and other attempts to control extraneous factors that might influence the outcome of the procedure.

Question 20

independent variable

Answer 20

the factor that is manipulated by the experimenter.

Question 21

dependent variable

Answer 21

the factor that is measured by the experimenter and may be influenced by the independent variable.

Question 22

experimental group

Answer 22

the group that receives a treatment or an active level of the independent variable.

Question 23

control group

Answer 23

the group not exposed ti the treatment or that receives a zero level of the independent variable.

Question 24

random assignment

Answer 24

procedure in which each participant has an equal likelihood of being assigned to any one group within an experiment.

Question 25

counterbalancing

Answer 25

procedure in which the order of conditions is varied so that no condition has an overall advantage relative to the others.

Question 26

internal validity

Answer 26

the degree to which an experiment supports clear casual conclusions.

Question 27

confounding of variables

Answer 27

two variables are intertwined in such a way that we cannot determine which one has influenced a dependent variable.

Question 28

demand characteristics

Answer 28

cues that participants pick up about the hypothesis og a study or about how they are supposed to behave.

Question 29

placebo

Answer 29

a substance that has no pharmacological effect

Question 30

placebo effect

Answer 30

people reciting a treatment show a change in behavior because of their expectations not because the treatment itself had any specific benefit.

Question 31

experimenter expectancy effects

Answer 31

subtle and unintentional ways in which researchers influence their participants to respond in a manner that is consistent with the researchers hypothesis.

Question 32

external validity

Answer 32

the degree to which the results of a study can be generalized to other populations, settings and conditions.

Question 33

replication

Answer 33

process of repeating a study to determine whether the original findings can be duplicated.

Question 34

descriptive statistics

Answer 34

statistics that allow ut t summarize and describe the characteristics of a set of data.

Question 35

mode

Answer 35

the most frequently occurring score in a distribution.

Question 36

median

Answer 36

the point that divides a distribution of scores in half when those scores are arranged in ordet from lowest to highest.

Question 37

mean

Answer 37

the arithmetic average of a set of scores.

Question 38

range

Answer 38

the difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution.

Question 39

standard deviation

Answer 39

statistic that takes into account how much each score in a distribution differs from the mean,

Question 40

inferential statistics

Answer 40

allow us to make inferences about a population from data provided by a sample of that distribution.

Question 41

statistical significance

Answer 41

holds that it is very unlikely that a particular finding occurred by chance alone.

Question 42

meta-analysis

Answer 42

a statistical procedure for combining the results of different studies that examine the same topic.