Topic 4 - How Psychology Can Help Save the Planet

Question 1

Environmental Psychology

Answer 1

an interdisciplinary, scientific field that examines human interaction with the physical environment, broadly defined to include both natural and built settings and elements

Question 2

Ecopsychology

Answer 2

a perspective that focuses more on the mental health aspects of the reciprocal relationship between human and nonhuman nature

Question 3

Ecotherapy

Answer 3

expanded practice of psychotherapy that moves from offices and hospitals into gardens and wilderness settings, with the goal of helping people nurture a sense of connection to their natural surroundings; also involves taking clients’ anxiety about ecological problems seriously

Question 4

Conservation Psychology

Answer 4

scientific study of the reciprocal relationships between humans and the rest of nature, with a particular focus on how to encourage conservation of the natural world

Question 5

Scientist-practitioner model

Answer 5

rigorous research is accompanied by active application toward solving real problems

Question 6

Human Ecology

Answer 6

combined expertise from many social science disciplines to address the interplay between humans and their varied environments

Question 7

Psychology of sustainability

Answer 7

a collection of psychological insights relevant to, and perhaps crucial for, creating a more sustainable world

Question 8

Theories

Answer 8

explanations about how things work,

Question 9

Empiricism

Answer 9

the discovery of knowledge via systematic data collection

Question 10

Type I error

Answer 10

to identify a result as real, or unlikely to be due to chance, when really there is no systematic pattern

Question 11

Type II error

Answer 11

to overlook a phenomenon when it actually exists

Question 12

Precautionary Principle

Answer 12

encourages avoiding potential risks to human and overall ecological health, even if scientific proof of harm has not yet been fully established

Question 13

variables

Answer 13

the factors under study

Question 14

operationalized

Answer 14

specifically defined in terms of how it is represented and measured

Question 15

construct

Answer 15

theoretical variable

Question 16

external validity

Answer 16

whether a study’s conclusions should be considered applicable to populations other than the one studied

Question 17

hypotheses

Answer 17

predictions about the expected relationships among variables

Question 18

naturalistic observation

Answer 18

observation of public behaviours as they naturally unfold

Question 19

Interviews and focus groups

Answer 19

additional exploratory methods that allow researchers to move beyond inference to hear participants’ feelings, beliefs, and attitudes about a topic

Question 20

Laboratory Experiments

Answer 20

The most highly controlled method of hypothesis testing in which the goal is to isolate a cause and effect relationship.

Question 21

independent variables (IVs)

Answer 21

will impact the dependent variables (DVs), to be manipulated

Question 22

dependent variables (DVs)

Answer 22

impacted by the independent variables (IVs), to be measured; reserved for experimental designs

Question 23

constant

Answer 23

nothing else about the experience would vary between the two sets of participants

Question 24

conditions

Answer 24

different versions of the IV

Question 25

random assignment

Answer 25

every participant has an equal chance of ending up in any of the conditions

Question 26

confounding variable

Answer 26

factor that varies between the conditions, and may actually be responsible for any observed differences (DV) between the two groups

Question 27

quasi-independent variables

Answer 27

created when it is not possible, either practically or ethically, to manipulate a causal variable, by identifying participants based on pre-existing characteristics

Question 28

interactions

Answer 28

Testing for interactions is one way that researchers can try to capture some of the complexity of behaviours as they occur in the real world

Question 29

simulations

Answer 29

developed to provide realistic experiences in the laboratory

Question 30

deception

Answer 30

temporarily misleading participants to create more realistic situations

Question 31

confederate

Answer 31

an actor hired by the experimenter to pose as another participant, a passerby, or some other pretend role

Question 32

debriefing

Answer 32

revealing and explaining the purpose of the deception to the participant after the experiment is over

Question 33

Correlational Studies

Answer 33

in which no independent variable is manipulated and there is no random assignment

Question 34

predictor variable

Answer 34

any hypothesized causal variable is called a predictor variable rather than an IV in correlational studies

Question 35

criterion variable

Answer 35

replaces dependent variables (DVs) in nonexperimental methods

Question 36

correlation

Answer 36

does not equal causation

Question 37

Field Experiments

Answer 37

occur in actual workplaces, schools, and public places with people going about their normal behaviour

Question 38

main effect

Answer 38

caused by the descriptive norm

Question 39

counterintuitive

Answer 39

the empirical evidence doesn’t gibe with common sense

Question 40

Quasi-Experiments in the Field

Answer 40

maximize realism by studying people in their real-world context, but are unable to conduct a true experiment (in which every possible variable in the situation is controlled and participants are randomly assigned to conditions)

Question 41

behavioural interventions

Answer 41

formal efforts to influence behaviour (e.g., training a new skill) in real-world contexts

Question 42

quantitative

Answer 42

employing operational definitions that convert human thoughts, feelings, and behaviours into numbers that can be statistically analysed

Question 43

central tendency

Answer 43

mean, median, and mode

Question 44

variability

Answer 44

standard deviation measured to determine “how typical is typical”

Question 45

outliers

Answer 45

those who are really different from anyone else who was measured, sometimes eliminated from further statistical analysis since keeping them in the data set can trick the statistics, masking a more general pattern

Question 46

Inferential statistics

Answer 46

used for understanding differences between groups, | and patterns among variables

Question 47

statistical significance

Answer 47

What are the odds that I would see this pattern in my sample of participants if no such pattern actually exists in the broader population of people (i.e., if the pattern were simply due to chance)? It is customary to consider a pattern statistically significant if those odds are less than five in 100.

Question 48

meta-analysis

Answer 48

used to assess the big picture, involves quantitative synthesis

Question 49

literature review

Answer 49

authors summarize and subjectively interpret large numbers of studies on the same topic

Question 50

effect sizes

Answer 50

labeled “small,” “medium,” or “large,” indicate which IVs (or predictors) are most influential, and to what extent they reliably predict a DV (or criterion)

Question 51

Meta-analytic summaries

Answer 51

used to update theory and can serve as the foundation for subsequent research

Question 52

reliable

Answer 52

yielding consistent results time after time

Question 53

valid

Answer 53

measuring what they are supposed to be measuring

Question 54

sensitive

Answer 54

considering differences among people

Question 55

psychometric properties

Answer 55

reliability, validity, and sensitivity

Question 56

New Ecological Paradigm

Answer 56

The most commonly used scale in conservation psychology. Captures people’s assumptions about the relationship between humans and the natural world, demonstrates acceptable reliability and predicts proenvironmental behavioural intentions

Question 57

Environmental Attitudes Inventory

Answer 57

designed to measure a diverse set of predictive constructs identified by previous research (including concepts originating in the New Ecological Paradigm)

Question 58

behavioural observation

Answer 58

actually watching and recording what people do

Question 59

self-report

Answer 59

to get at actual behaviour without the need for chronic surveillance of participants

Question 60

Problems with self-report measures

Answer 60

Participants aren’t always fully honest in self-reports because of the pressure they feel to give socially desirable responses. Participants may feel frustrated trying to communicate their behaviour quantitatively.

Question 61

Qualitative data

Answer 61

collected through surveys, interviews, and focus groups in which participants respond freely to open-ended questions

Question 62

interrater reliability

Answer 62

agreement between coders before the data analysis begins, should be high

Question 63

reductionistic

Answer 63

assumes that experience can be partitioned (reduced) into smaller elements and that we can understand people by studying individuals separated from each other, as well as from their communities, culture, and the rest of the natural world