Week 1: Psychologists are research literate

Question 1

List the ways to understand the world

Answer 1

• association
• intuition
• authority
• induction
• empiricism
• deduction

Question 2

Describe association

Answer 2

Acquiring knowledge through superstition or habit e.g. wearing a particular lucky object when completing a challenge

Question 3

Describe intuition

Answer 3

Acquisition of knowledge not based on reasoning and inference; drawing on past experience, not patterns of reasoning

Question 4

Describe authority

Answer 4

• acceptance of information from highly respected sources

- when people are in positions of power and authority, this adds weight to what they say

Question 5

Describe induction

Answer 5

Acquisition of knowledge via generalisation. Some generalisations can be good/valid, some can be counterintuitive

Question 6

Describe empiricism

Answer 6

Acquisition of knowledge through passive experience; could be though imitation of those around us

Question 7

Describe deduction

Answer 7

Acquisition of knowledge through hypothesis testing

Question 8

What are the four key components of the scientific method?

Answer 8

• verifiability
• predictability
• falsifiability
• fairness

Question 9

What are the steps of research?

Answer 9

1. Make an observation
2. Ask a question
3. Form a hypothesis that answers the question
4. Make a prediction based on hypothesis
5. Do an experiment to test this
6. Analyse the results
7. Hypothesis is either correct or incorrect
8. Report results

Question 10

Describe verifiability

Answer 10

An experiment must be replicable by another researcher

Question 11

Predictability

Answer 11

Implies that the theory should enable us to make predictions about future events

Question 12

Falsifiability

Answer 12

Where a hypothesis can be disproved; it must be logically possible to make an observation or do a physical experiment that would show that there is no support for the hypothesis

Question 13

Fairness

Answer 13

Data must be considered when evaluating a hypothesis; a researcher cannot pick and choose what data tp keep. All data must be accounted fo even if it invalidates the hypothesis

Question 14

What are three important elements of critical thinking?

Answer 14

1. Scepticism
2. Objectivity
3. Open-mindedness

Question 15

What is evidence based practice?

Answer 15

Conscientious, explicit and judicious decision-making which is prominent in psychology and allied health professions

Question 16

What are clinical interventions?

Answer 16

Intended to improve the condition of individuals or groups by causing changes in their behaviour e.g. smoking cessation

Question 17

What is an empirically validated intervention?

Answer 17

A broad body of rigorous scientific research, using gold standard methodology that demonstrates its effectiveness for a particular disorder

Question 18

What are challenges to empirically validated interventions?

Answer 18

1. Not cost effective or time efficient
2. Patient compliance (is it too difficult?)
3. Patients are individuals (the same doesn’t work for everyone)
4. Is it ethical?

Question 19

What are normative values?

Answer 19

• expected values from a group of people
• useful for gold standard tests
• indicate if the subject is behaving normally or not