week 1 Flashcards
when were psych lab and methodologies established
late 19th to early 20th centuries
what are the people used in studies who know about the study but fake being in it called
Confederates
three ways of knowing
- authority
- reason
- empiricism
how to recognize pseudoscience
- side steps falsification requirements
- reduces complex phenomena to overly simplistic concepts
-relies on anecdotal evidence
goals of research in psychology
- describe
- predict
- explain
- apply
what is knowledge of the world derived from
- use of reason
- experiences and how we interpret them
- reliance on authroity
what is empiricism and why is it important
- learning through direct observation and learning from them
- important: authorities can be wrong, reasonable arguments in the absence of empirical evidence are unproductive, social cognition biases
Confirmation bias
- tendency to seek and pay attention to info in support of ones belief, also ignoring info that contradicts
belief perseverance
- tendency to hold onto a belief, even if faced w evidence that would convince most ppl that the belief is false
availability heuristic
- overestimating how often an unusual or very memorable event may typically occur
assumptions of research psychologists abt behaviour
- lawful, predictable
- can use scientific method to make predictions
science being verifiable by more than one observer means it is ____
objective
Emphasis on objectivity led to a shift from using _____ as a method to using methods that ______
introspection, measure specific behaviours
science requires conclusion about the causes of behaviour to be _____
data based
empirical question
- answerable through use of recognized scientific methods
pseudoscience
- characterized by deliberate attempt to associate itself w true science despite a lack of evidence
visual cliff studies
- eleanor gibson
APA developed its code of ethics ____, using a critical incidents procedure
empirically
code for researching human participants consists of:
- specific standards of behaviour
- general principals guiding behaviour of psychologists
APA code for researching on human subjects
- cost-benefit analysis of degree of risk imposed on participants w scientific value
- informed consent
- special care w children and ppl prone to coercion
- participants are free to withdraw and assured confidentiality
- debrief
responsibilities for institutional review boards
- ensure research studies w human subjects are following ethics code and federal law
apa guidelines for research w animals
- care and humane treatment
- guidance in choosing appropriate experimental procedures
- use of animals for research and educational purposes
data falsification
- manufacturing/altering data
- discovered often after repeated failure to replicate findings
forms of scientific fraud
- plagiarism
- data falsification
_____ research allows greater control, _____ research allows for close approximated real life situations
Laboratory, field
theories
- summarize and organize existing knowledge
- provide a basis for making predictions
- provide a working explanation abt some phenomena
t or f: the relationship between theory building and research is one sided
false, reciprocal
theories in psychology are useful bc they generate _____ that increases our understanding of ____
research, behaviour
good theories are ______ and are precise enough to be ____ by well designed research
parsimonious, falsified
what is probability sampling attempting to achieve
a good sample
common ex of probability sampling
- simple random sample
- stratified sample
- cluster sample
common forms of NON probability sampling
- quota sampling
- purposive sampling
- snowball sampling
stratified sample
ensures important subgroups in population are represented proportionally in the sample
simple random sample
every member of population has equal chance of being selected
cluster sample
- used when it is impossible to know all of the members of the population
quota sample
researchers divide population into groups then arbitrarily choose participants from each group
purpose sampling
- specific group is targeted
snowball sampling
- subjects recommend others known to them as additional subjects in the study
behaviours measured in psychological research range from _____ to _____ to _____
overt actions, self-reports, physiological recordings
high quality measures of behaviours are both ___ and ____
reliable and valid
reliable
- repeatable and low in measurement error
- consistant
valid
- accurately measuring what is intended to be measured
confidence in validity increases if it has ___ and ___ validity or also ___ and ___ validity
- content, criterion
- convergent, discriminant
content validity
measure makes sense
Criterion validity
measure predicts future outcomes well
construct validity
measurement used is a good measure of construct being studied
convergent validity
scores on the measure are related to other measures of same construct
discriminant validity
measure the lack of association among constructs that are supposed to be different
four scales of measurements
- nominal
- ordinal
- interval
- ratio
nominal scale
- categories are identified and frequency of occurrences/category in main research interest
ordinal scale
- measurement categories from a rank order along continuum
interval scale
- intervals between numbers on scale are all equal in size
ratio scale
- measurement has natural/absolute zero and allows comparison of absolute magnitudes of numbers
traditionally, psychologists rely on __ and ___ scales bc of the wider range of statistical analyses when using the scales
interval, ratio
descriptive statistics def
- calculated for the sample of participants
- provides summary of results w measurements of central tendency and variability
measurements of descriptive stats
- central tendency (mean, median, mode)
- variability (range, STDev, variance, INT QR)
type 1 and 2 errors
- type 1: null hypothesis is rejected but should not have been (find smth when smth does not exist)
- type 2: true effect exists but no stat significance found in study (exists but was not found)
for data outliers
- meduans and INT QR substitute for mean and STDev
inferential stats
- allow decisions abt results of study, are they due to chance factors or appear to reflect genuine relationship that can be applied to larger population
effect size
- measure of strength of relationship between two variables
- extent of an experimental effect
confidence interval
- stat range
- given probability
- takes random error into account
a stat test has power if chances are high it will detect a _______
true effect
an experiment in psych involves:
- establishing independent variables
- controlling extraneous variables
- measuring dependent variables
Independent variables are the ___ or ___ under the direct control of the researcher
- experimental conditions, comparisons
extraneous variables
- factors that are not of interest to the researcher
failure to control extraneous variables leads to a problem called ____
confounding
dependent variables are behaviours measured that are defined _____
operationally
