Thinking like a Scientist

Question 1

what is psychology?

Answer 1

The study of thought and behavior.

Question 2

What is the Scientific Method?

Answer 2

Getting as close to the truth as possible.

Question 3

What is a hypothesis?

Answer 3

Direct test of a theory in specific situation.(prediction)

Question 4

What is replication?

Answer 4

Repeating essence of research study to see if your finding generalizations to other participants and circumstances.

Question 5

Dr. Holden used the hearing of “scary, corrupting” backwards messages in the Queen song “Another One Bites the Dust” as an example of what?

Answer 5

Confirmation bias

Question 6

True or False: An operational definition is a description of how operations will be carried out in a multi-stage experiment.

Answer 6

False

Question 7

According to Abraham Maslow, what is the highest class of needs in his hierarchy?

Answer 7

Self-actualization

Question 8

Freuds’s approach to understanding of psychology, which focuses strongly on the role of the unconscious mind, is referred to as the _____ approach?

Answer 8

Psychoanalytic

Question 9

What is Oedipus Complex?

Answer 9

Makes assumptions about childhood and mental conflicts that just are not supported by existing studies.

Question 10

What are the two mistakes that interfere with critical thinking?

Answer 10

Overreliance on common sense, confirmation bias

Question 11

Steps in the scientific method

Answer 11

observation, theorize, hypothesis, test

Question 12

Critical Thinking

Answer 12

comprehension, analysis, evaluation

Question 13

Case study

Answer 13

study one individual in great depth

Question 14

Survey

Answer 14

questioning a sample about attitudes/behaviors to draw conclusions about a larger population.

Question 15

Naturalistic definiton

Answer 15

recording behavior in a naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate the situation in person.

Question 16

Opperational definition

Answer 16

Precise definition of a behavior we are measuring in our study. (movement)

Question 17

Correlation Coefficient

Answer 17

extent to which 2 variables vary together.

Question 18

Mean

Answer 18

rely on the most, arithmetic average.

Question 19

Median

Answer 19

middle score.

Question 20

Mode

Answer 20

most frequently occurring score.

Question 21

Range

Answer 21

difference between the highest and lowest scores.

Question 22

Dispersion

Answer 22

how spread out the scores are.

Question 23

Standard deviation

Answer 23

how much scores totally deviate from the mean.

Question 24

Quasi- Experiemnt

Answer 24

like an experiment but can’t directly change the independent variable.

Question 25

Random assignment

Answer 25

assigning participants to groups randomly. (minimizes pre-existing differences between groups)

Question 26

Independent Variable

Answer 26

variable that is manipulated by the experimenter. (something that you can change)

Question 27

Dependent Variable

Answer 27

measured variable thought to be affected by the manipulation of the the independent variable.

Question 28

Control group

Answer 28

it stays the same( you are in control)

Question 29

Third variable problem

Answer 29

good parenting could cause more friends and higher GPA

Question 30

Skewed distributions

Answer 30

has a long “tail” consisting of a few extreme scores. the mean tends to get dragged towards the extreme tail, median is usually a better measure of the center of the data.

Question 31

Correlation Coefficient

Answer 31

extent to which two variables vary together.

Question 32

Sign for correlation coefficient

Answer 32

weak= below 0.1
moderate= around 0.3
strong=above 0.5

Question 33

Scatterplot

Answer 33

Each dot=1 person

Question 34

Experimental condition

Answer 34

the group of participants who are exposed to the independent variable.

Question 35

Theory

Answer 35

explanation based on observations.