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ap psychology > unit three: research methods (baron's two, mod three) > Flashcards

unit three: research methods (baron's two, mod three) Flashcards

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1
Q

hindsight bias

A

people have the tendency upon hearing about research findings (and many other things) to think the they knew it all along

ex: hearing a study about how babies sync their heart beat with their mothers and stating you already knew that but you don’t because you didn’t do the research to prove your claim

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2
Q

applied research

A

comparison of two different methods etc.
this type of research is clear and has practical applications

ex: comparing two different methods of teaching children to see which is more beneficial

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3
Q

basic research

A

explores the questions that are of interest to psychologists but are not intended to have immediate, real world applications

ex: studying how people form their attitudes about others and how people in different cultures define intelligence

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4
Q

hypothesis

A

expresses a relationship between two variables

ex: religion, stress level and height are variables.

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5
Q

dependent variable

A

depends on the independent variable. a change in the independent variable would also alter the dependent variable.

ex: # of hours of playing violent games impact on children’s behaviors

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6
Q

independent variable

A

the variable that alters the dependent variables result.

ex: amount of fruits eaten vs health of child

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7
Q

theory

A

aims to explain some phenomenon and allows researchers to generate testable hypothesis with the hope of collecting data that support the theory.

ex: researcher a. believes that if a child eats more fruits they are more likely to be healthy than a child who does not

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8
Q

operational definitions

A

when you operationalize a variable, you explain how you will measure it.
raises many issues about the validity and reliability of the research.

ex: in the hypothesis used before: what programs will be considered violent? what behaviors are considered aggressive?

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9
Q

research is valid…

A

… when it measures what the researcher set out to measure

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10
Q

research is reliable…

A

… when it can be replicated; it is consistent.

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11
Q

participants

A

the individuals on which the research will be conducted on

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12
Q

sampling

A

the process by which participants are selected

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13
Q

population

A

includes anyone or anything that could possibly be selected to be in the sample

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14
Q

sample

A

the group of participants

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15
Q

representative

A

the goal in selecting a sample is that it is representative of the larger population

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16
Q

random selection

A

every member of the population has an equal chance of being selected

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17
Q

true random selection

A

choosing people by standing in front of a library on a wednesday morning is NOT random because a specific group of people in the population usually goes to the library wendesday mornings (senior citizens)

random selection is best done by a computer, a table of random numbers or by simply picking names out of a hat

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18
Q

stratified sampling

A

a process that allows a researcher to ensure that the sample represents the population on some criteria.

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19
Q

laboratory experiments

A

conducted in a lab highly controlled environment,

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20
Q

field experiments

A

conducted out in the world

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21
Q

experiments

A

psychologists preferred method of research because only through a carefully controlled experiment can one show a casual relationship.

experiments allow the researcher to manipulate the independent variable and control for confounding variables

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22
Q

confounding variables

A

any difference between the experimental and control conditions which can affect the dependent variable.

ex: in order to show that the violent games cause aggression I need to rule out that there are not any other reasons for aggression.

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23
Q

assignment

A

the process by which participants are put into a group, experiment or control.

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24
Q

random assignment

A

means that each participant has an equal chance of being placed into any group. this prevents participant-relevant confounding variables.

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25
Q

participant-relevant confounding variable

A

if participants were given the opportunity to choose whether to be in the group watching the violent television or not, it is highly unlikely that the two groups would be compromised of similar people

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26
Q

controlling for participant-relevant variables

A

using random assignment diminishes the chance that participants in the two groups differ in any meaningful way.

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27
Q

group matching

A

if one wanted to ensure that the experiment and control group were equivalent on some criterion

ex: sex, IQ scores, age

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28
Q

situation-relevant confounding variables

A

can also affect an experiment
environment of participants must be similar
making the environments of the two groups as similar as possible controls for situation-relevant confounding variables

ex: if one group watches a video in a lecture hall vs.. another in a classroom then their situations are not equivalent

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29
Q

experimenter bias

A

special kind of situation-relevant confounding variable.
the unconscious tendency for researchers to treat members of experimental and control groups differently to increase the chance if confirming their hypothesis. not conscious (that’d be fraud)

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30
Q

double-blind procedure

A

occurs when neither the participants nor the researcher are able to affect the outcome of the research.

can be accomplished by: the researcher to have someone blind to the participants condition interact with the participants

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31
Q

single-blind procedure

A

occurs when only the participants do not know to which group they have been assigned; this strategy minimizes the effect of demand characteristic (cues about the study) as well as certain kinds of response or participant bias.

32
Q

demand characteristics

A

cues about the purpose of the study. participants use such cues to try to respond appropriately. response or subject bias is the tendency for subjects to behave in certain ways.

33
Q

social desirability

A

a kind of response bias, the tendency to try to give answers that reflect well upon them

ex: phone polls and people who were afraid to say they would vote trump even though they were anon

34
Q

experimental group

A

(IV) the one that gets the treatment operationalized in the independent variable.

35
Q

control group

A

(placebo) the control group gets none of the independent variable. it serves as a basis for comparison. without a control group, knowing whether changes occurred in the experimental group are due to the experimental treatment is impossible essentially.

36
Q

the hawthorne effect

A

merely selecting a group of people on whom to experiment has been determined to affect the performance of that group, regardless of what is done to those individuals.

37
Q

placebo method

A

whenever participants in the experiment groups are supposed to ingest a drug, participants in the CONTROL group are given an inert but otherwise identical substance. researchers can separate the psychological effects of the drug from the psychological effects of those witnessing the placebo effect.

38
Q

placebo effect

A

psychological effect of people thinking they took a drug that works even though its just a faux drug they believe it did something because the were either told it was or just inferred it would.

39
Q

counterbalancing

A

sometimes using participants as their own control group is possible through counterbalancing.

ex: if i wanted to see how frustration affected performance on an IQ test, I could have my participants engage in a task unlikely to cause frustration, test their IQ then give them a frustrating task and test their IQs again. this causes order effects though.

40
Q

order effects

A

participants may do better on the second IQ test simply by virtue of having taken the first IQ test. this can be eliminated by counterbalancing.

41
Q

counterbalancing

A

by having half the participants do the frustrating task first and half the participants do the not-frustrating task first then switching.

42
Q

correlation

A

expresses a relationship between two variables without ascribing cause. can be either positive or negative.

43
Q

positive correlation

A

between two things means that presence of one thing predicts the presence of the other.

44
Q

negative correlation

A

means that the presence of one thing predicts the absence of other.

45
Q

ex post facto

A

after the fact study.

ex: my hypothesis is that boys are more likely to call out in class. i can’t randomly assign subjects to conditions. the IV has been predetermined. i won’t be able to isolate the cause of calling out behavior. could be biological or societal influences that acted on the two sexes from birth onward.

if i seek to control all other aspects of the research process as I would in an experiment then I will have conducted an ex post facto

46
Q

survey method

A

involves asking people to fill out surveys. can not show a cause and effect relationship.

47
Q

naturalistic observation

A

researchers opt to observe their participants in their natural habitats without interacting with them at all. the goal of this is to get a realistic and rich picture of the participants’ behavior. control is sacrificed.

48
Q

case study method

A

is used to get full, detailed picture of one participant or small group of participants. cannot be generalized to a larger population

ex: clinical psychologists often use case studies to present information about a person suffering from a particular disorder. case studies allow researcher s to get a good picture on what they are studying but is limited to an individual or small groups.

49
Q

descriptive statistics

A

simply describes a set of data.

50
Q

frequency distribution

A

ex: if i wanted to know what kinds of pets my peers have i’d make a frequency distribution showing how many of them have dogs, cats, bird etc.

can be turned into line graphs called histograms/frequency polygons/ bar graphs

51
Q

frequency polygons/ bar graphs known as histograms

A

the y-axis always represents the frequency

the x-axis is whatever else is being graphed (ie: dogs cats, etc.)

52
Q

central tendency

A

measures of central tendency attempt to mar the center off a distribution. three common measures of central tendency are the three Ms: mean, median and mode.

53
Q

mean

A

the average of all the scores in the distribution.

add up all the scores in the distribution then divide by the # of scores.

54
Q

median

A

the central score in a distribution.

write the numbers in order numerically then find the number in the center.

55
Q

mode

A

the score that appears most frequently.
distribution can have multiple modes.
bimodal, trimodal, etc.

56
Q

extreme scores or outliers

A

ex: 19/20 of my friends have cars all valued at $12,000 but 1/20 has a ferrari valued at $120,000 this skews the data to say that the mean value of our cars is $17,400

unless a distribution is symmetrical it is skewed.

57
Q

positively skewed

A

distribution includes an extreme score or group of scores that is very high
…
….. ….
….. ………….

58
Q

negatively skewed

A

when the skew is caused by particularly low score (or group of scores) the distribution is negatively skewed.

….
……
.. ……….

59
Q

measures of variability

A

another type of descriptive statistical measures. again, you may be familiar with some of these measures: range, variance, and standard deviation.

60
Q

range

A

the distance between the highest and lowest score in a distribution

61
Q

standard deviation

A

related to the variance. the standard deviation is the square root of the variance.

62
Q

z scores

A

the distance of a score from the mean in units of standard deviation.
scores below the median are negative z scores.

ex: Clarence got a 72 on a test with a mean of 80 and standard deviation of 8 his z score is -1.

63
Q

normal curve

A

theoretical bell shaped curve for which the area under the curve lying between any two z-scores has been predetermined.

64
Q

percentile

A

indicate the distance of a score from 0. someone who scores in the 90th percentile on a test has scored better than 90 percent of the people who took the test too.

65
Q

correlation coefficient

A

range from -1 to +1. -1 is a perfect negative correlation and +1 is a perfect positive correlation. both -1 and +1 denote equally strong correlations and 0 is the weakest possible being that it is no correlation

66
Q

scatter plot

A

a scatter plot graphs pairs of values, one on the y-axis and one on the x-axis. the closer the points come to falling on a straight line, the stronger the correlation is.

67
Q

line of best fit or regression line

A

line drawn through the scatter plot that minimizes the distance of all points from the line. when the line is upwards left to right it indicates a positive correlation.

68
Q

inferential statistics

A

used to determine whether or not findings can be applied to the larger population from which the sample was selected.

69
Q

sampling error

A

guaranteeing that a sample is representative of a population is impossible.

the extent to which the sample differs from the population is known as sampling error

70
Q

p value

A

the probability that the difference between the groups is due to chance.

scientists have decided that a p-value of 0.5 is the cutoff for statistically significant results

71
Q

statistically significant

A

0.5 : a 5% chance exists that the result occurred by chance. p value can never be 0 because we can never be 100% certain that results did not happen due to chance.

72
Q

international review board (IRB)

A

any type of academic research must first propose the study to the ethics board or the IRB.

they review research proposals for ethical violations or procedural errors. they give the go ahead with the research or requires the revise the procedures.

73
Q

animal research

A

IRB requires

  • must have clear scientific purpose
  • must care for animals humanely
  • must acquire animals legally
  • design experiment for least suffering possible
74
Q

human research

A

IRB requires:

  • no coercion must be voluntary
  • informed consent
  • anonimosity and confedentiality: must not identify source of data
  • risk must be minimal
  • debriefing
75
Q

representative sampling

A

sampling in a way (population) that accurately reflects the characteristics of the population as a whole

76
Q

illusory correlation

A

when a person believes that a relationship exists between two variables when it does not

77
Q

skew right vs skew left graph

A

RIGHT/POSITIVE

  • head to left tail to right
  • positive whale cuz it’s going west to cali

LEFT/NEGATIVE

  • head to right tail to left
  • negative cuz it’s going east to NY

ap psychology (11 decks)

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