Unit 2 Flashcards
Hindsight bias
Looking back makes an event seem inevitable
Overconfidence
When we are more confident that we know something than we are correct
Humility
To be able to admit when he or she is proven wrong
Scientific method
Hypothesis Procedure Observation Conclusion Report findings
Theory
Explanation that organizes observations and tries to predict outcomes
Hypothesis
Prediction that can be tested
Operational definition
Statement of the procedures and concepts
Something that is measured numerically
Subjectivity
a judgment based on or including a person’s opinion or emotions
Objectivity
Judgment that has had opinion or emotion stripped away from it
Methods of research
Case study
Survey
Naturalistic observation
Case study
Thorough study of one person in hopes of learning about people in general
Survey
Asks questions and deals with many more people, but in much less depth
Naturalistic observation
Watching a person or animal behave in its normal surroundings
Wording
Results of the survey can be dramatically different depending on the wording of the survey and/or the question order
Random sampling
Every person in the group has the same chance of being selected for the survey
Representative sample
Where the small group truly represents the whole group
Correlational coefficient
Measures how closely two things go together
Random selection
Participants come from a large population and are randomly selected to be involved
Random assignment
Participants are randomly assigned to either the control or experimental group
Double-blind procedure
Participants and researchers don’t know which group they’re in and/or the hypothesis being tested
Cuts down bias
Placebo effect
Fake drug that’s just a sugar pill
Independent variable
IV
What the experimenter manipulates
Dependent variable
DV
What is measured
What the IV supposedly affects
Confounding variables
Factors that might make the experiment go wrong
Central tendency
Center of a bunch of numbers
Mode
The number which occurs most frequently
Mean
The average
Median
The middle number
Range
The distance between the lowest and highest numbers in a group
Standard deviation
Measurement of how much the numbers vary from the mean
Normal curve
Graph that often occurs in nature with things like height and intelligence scores on tests
Validity
Test or bit of research measures what it’s supposed to measure
Reliability
The test yields the same results over and over
Statistical significance
Observed difference between two numbers is not due to chance
Informed consent
Participants:
Know what’s going on
They give their permission to be in the study
Debriefing
Researchers and participants go back over the whole experiment
