Unit 1 - Foundations of Psychology and Research (P-V)

Question 1

What are the four goals of psychology?

Answer 1

1. Describe Behaviors
2. Explain Behaviors
3. Predict Behaviors
4. Control Behaviors

Question 2

What is hindsight bias?

Answer 2

Tendency to reflect and believe the outcome, ex. “I knew it all along!”

Question 3

What is overconfidence?

Answer 3

More confident than correct

Question 4

What is perceived order in random events?

Answer 4

Makes sense of everything, ex. coin flips/dice rolls

Question 5

What is a theory?

Answer 5

Explains behavior or events by offering ideas that organize observations

Question 6

What is a hypothesis?

Answer 6

Predictions, specify what would support/disconfirm a theory, if…then

Question 7

What is falsifiability?

Answer 7

Can it be proven false?

Question 8

What is an operational definition?

Answer 8

Exact procedures

Question 9

What is a case study?

Answer 9

In-depth analyses of individuals/groups, non-experimental

Question 10

What is a naturalistic observation?

Answer 10

Recording natural behavior

Question 11

What is social-desirability bias?

Answer 11

Answering to please others

Question 12

What is self-report bias?

Answer 12

When people don’t accurately report/remember behaviors

Question 13

What is a case study?

Answer 13

In-depth analyses of individuals/groups, non-experimental

Question 14

What is sampling bias?

Answer 14

Flawed sampling, unrepresentative

Question 15

What is a random sample?

Answer 15

Fairly represents a population, with an equal chance of inclusion

Question 16

What is a correlation coefficient?

Answer 16

Shows how closely 2 things relate, prediction (-: relate inversely, +: relate)

Question 17

What is a scatterplot?

Answer 17

Helps show clusters with 2 variable values

Question 18

What is a directionality problem?

Answer 18

Cannot tell us which variable is the cause/effect

Question 19

What is an illusionary correlation?

Answer 19

If we believe that dreams forecast events, we may notice more confirming than disconfirming factors (perceiving where a relationship does not exist)

Question 20

What is regression towards the mean?

Answer 20

The tendency for extreme/unusual events to regress towards the average

Question 21

What is an experiment?

Answer 21

Enables researchers to isolate 1+ plans, proves cause and effect

Question 22

What are random assignment groups?

Answer 22

Randomly assigned unbiased, picked with a random assignment, or numbered off

Question 23

What is a single-blind procedure?

Answer 23

Uniformed, all aware except participants

Question 24

What is a double blind procedure?

Question 25

Placebo Effect

Answer 25

Experimental effects by observation alone

Question 26

Ind. variable

Answer 26

manipulated, effect is studied

Question 27

dep. variable

Answer 27

measured outcome, will change when ind. is manipulated

Question 28

cofounding variable

Answer 28

may influence studied events, extraneous

Question 29

experimenter bias

Answer 29

unintentional influence from researchers to confirm beliefs

Question 30

correlation coefficient meanings

Answer 30

+1.0 ^^, 0.0 --, -1.0 ^-

Question 31

spurious correlations

Answer 31

seem related but are not

Question 32

scientific method in 5 basic steps

Answer 32

create hypothesis, design the study, collect the data, analyze the results, report findings

Question 33

quantitative research

Answer 33

numerical data sets

Question 34

qualitative research

Answer 34

narrative data, interviews

Question 35

informed consent

Answer 35

giving potential participants enough info about the study to help them decide

Question 36

debriefing

Answer 36

post-study explanation, including purpose/deceptions

Question 37

mean

Answer 37

average

Question 38

mode

Answer 38

most frequent score

Question 39

range

Answer 39

highest - lowest =

Question 40

median

Answer 40

middle # in order

Question 41

positively skewed

Answer 41

high outlier will shift the mean to the right

Question 42

p-value

Answer 42

did IV change the DV? less than .05, sig.

Question 43

if the number is less than .05 but the effect is small...

Answer 43

results are unlikely to be generalizable

Question 44

5 major ethics guidelines

Answer 44

informed consent, minimal risk to subjects, anonymity, justified use of deception, debrief subjects