Unit 1/2 terms

Question 1

Empirical

Answer 1

based on experience

Question 2

authority

Answer 2

based on someone else’s knowledge

Question 3

logic

Answer 3

based on deductive or inductive reasoning

Question 4

intuition

Answer 4

spontaneous perception or judgment not based on reasoned mental steps

Question 5

common sense

Answer 5

practical intelligence shared by a large group

Question 6

Empirical Methods

Answer 6

Intuitive and scientific

Question 7

science

Answer 7

a way of obtaining knowledge by means of objective observation

Question 8

4 ways of knowing about behavior

Answer 8

Science, intuition, authority, logic

Question 9

Realism

Answer 9

the philosophy that objects perceived have an existence outside the mind

Question 10

rationality

Answer 10

a view that reasoning is the basis for solving problem

Question 11

regularity

Answer 11

a belief that phenomena exist in recur- ring patterns that conform with universal law

Question 12

discoverability

Answer 12

the belief that it is possible to learn solutions to questions posed

Question 13

determinism

Answer 13

the doctrine that all events hap- pen because of preceding causes

Question 14

law

Answer 14

a statement that certain events are regularly associated with each other in an orderly way

Question 15

theory

Answer 15

a statement or set of statements explaining one or more laws, usually including one indirect concept needed to explain the relationship

Question 16

cause

Answer 16

scientists search for the causes of the events that we observe.

Question 17

falsifiability

Answer 17

the property of a good theory that it is capable of disproof

Question 18

Theories play three crucial roles in the development of a science

Answer 18

(1) organizing knowledge and explaining laws
(2) predicting new laws
(3) guiding research

Question 19

hypothesis

Answer 19

a statement assumed to be true for the purpose of testing its validity

Question 20

Operationism

Answer 20

a view that scientific concepts must be defined in terms of observable operations

Question 21

Operational definition

Answer 21

statement of the precise meaning of a procedure or concept within an experiment

Question 22

paradigm

Answer 22

a set of laws, theories, methods, and applications that form a scientific research tradition; for example, Pavlovian conditioning

Question 23

four ways of knowing about behavior

Answer 23

authority
logic
intuition
science

Question 24

characteristics of science

Answer 24

empirical
objective
self-correcting
progressive
tentative
parsimonious
concerned with theory

Question 25

five major working assumptions of science

Answer 25

the reality
rationality
regularity of the world
the discoverability of how the world works
the operation of causality

Question 26

reality

Answer 26

an assumption of science that that the world is real, but they do not assume that it is
just the way it appears to be.

Question 27

rationality

Answer 27

an assumption of science that means that the world is believed to be
understandable via logical thinking.

Question 28

regularity

Answer 28

an assumption of science that means that the world is believed to follow
the same laws in all times and places.

Question 29

discoverability

Answer 29

an assumption of science that means that scientists believe that it is
possible to find out how the world works

Question 30

causality

Answer 30

an assumption of science that means that all events are believed to have
causes.

Question 31

The ultimate goal of science is

Answer 31

the development of a theory to explain
lawful relationships that exist in a particular field

Question 32

three main functions in science

Answer 32

(1) organizing knowledge
and explaining laws
(2) predicting new laws
(3) guiding research.

Question 33

dependent variable

Answer 33

a measure of the subject’s behavior that reflects the independent variable’s effects

Question 34

independent variable

Answer 34

the condition manipulated or selected by the experimenter to determine its effect on behavior

Question 35

confounded variable

Answer 35

one whose effect cannot be separated from the supposed independent variable

Question 36

variable

Answer 36

aspect of a testing condition that can change or take on different characteristics with different condition

Question 37

quantitative variable

Answer 37

one that varies in amount

Question 38

categorical variable

Answer 38

categorical variable: one that varies in kind

Question 39

continuous variable

Answer 39

one that falls along a continuum and is not limited to a certain number of values

Question 40

discrete variable

Answer 40

one that falls into separate bins with no intermediate values possible

Question 41

measurements must have

Answer 41

reliability and validity.

Question 42

reliability of measurement

Answer 42

consistency of a measurement that gives the same result on different occasions

Question 43

validity of measurement

Answer 43

the property of a measurement that tests what it is supposed to test

Question 44

construct validity (of a test)

Answer 44

a test that the measurements actually measure the constructs they are designed to measure, but no others

Question 45

content validity

Answer 45

content validity: idea that a test should sample the range of behavior represented by the theoretical concept being tested

Question 46

criterion validity

Answer 46

idea that a test should correlate with other measures of the same theoretical construct

Question 47

test-retest reliability

Answer 47

the degree to which the same test score would be obtained on another occasion

Question 48

internal consistency

Answer 48

the degree to which the various items on a test are measures of the same thing