Thinking like a Scientist Flashcards
what is psychology?
The study of thought and behavior.
What is the Scientific Method?
Getting as close to the truth as possible.
What is a hypothesis?
Direct test of a theory in specific situation.(prediction)
What is replication?
Repeating essence of research study to see if your finding generalizations to other participants and circumstances.
Dr. Holden used the hearing of “scary, corrupting” backwards messages in the Queen song “Another One Bites the Dust” as an example of what?
Confirmation bias
True or False: An operational definition is a description of how operations will be carried out in a multi-stage experiment.
False
According to Abraham Maslow, what is the highest class of needs in his hierarchy?
Self-actualization
Freuds’s approach to understanding of psychology, which focuses strongly on the role of the unconscious mind, is referred to as the _____ approach?
Psychoanalytic
What is Oedipus Complex?
Makes assumptions about childhood and mental conflicts that just are not supported by existing studies.
What are the two mistakes that interfere with critical thinking?
Overreliance on common sense, confirmation bias
Steps in the scientific method
observation, theorize, hypothesis, test
Critical Thinking
comprehension, analysis, evaluation
Case study
study one individual in great depth
Survey
questioning a sample about attitudes/behaviors to draw conclusions about a larger population.
Naturalistic definiton
recording behavior in a naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate the situation in person.
Opperational definition
Precise definition of a behavior we are measuring in our study. (movement)
Correlation Coefficient
extent to which 2 variables vary together.
Mean
rely on the most, arithmetic average.
Median
middle score.
Mode
most frequently occurring score.
Range
difference between the highest and lowest scores.
Dispersion
how spread out the scores are.
Standard deviation
how much scores totally deviate from the mean.
Quasi- Experiemnt
like an experiment but can’t directly change the independent variable.
Random assignment
assigning participants to groups randomly. (minimizes pre-existing differences between groups)
Independent Variable
variable that is manipulated by the experimenter. (something that you can change)
Dependent Variable
measured variable thought to be affected by the manipulation of the the independent variable.
Control group
it stays the same( you are in control)
Third variable problem
good parenting could cause more friends and higher GPA
Skewed distributions
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.
Correlation Coefficient
extent to which two variables vary together.
Sign for correlation coefficient
weak= below 0.1
moderate= around 0.3
strong=above 0.5
Scatterplot
Each dot=1 person
Experimental condition
the group of participants who are exposed to the independent variable.
Theory
explanation based on observations.
