Psy 1301 Chapter 2 – Flashcards
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A broad idea or set of closely related ideas that attempts to explain observations.
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What is a theory?
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The relations between variables on a conceptual level.
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What do theories tell us about?
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Hypothesis
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What is the second step in the scientific method?
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An educated guess that derives logically from a theory. It is a prediction that can be tested.
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What is a hypothesis?
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To test the hypothesis by conducting empirical research. Collecting and analyzing data.
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What is the third step in the scientific method?
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Provides an objective description of how a variable is going to be measured and observed in a particular study.
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What is an operational definition?
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They eliminate the fuzziness that might creep into thinking about a problem.
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What do optional definitions do?
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Devised a self report questionnaire that measures how satisfied a person is with his or her life. Scores were used as measures of happiness.
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What did Psychologist Ed Diener and his students do?
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The Satisfaction with Life Scale.
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What was Psychologist Ed Diener self report questionnaire named?
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All the information researchers collect in a study.
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What is Data?
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"crunching" those numbers mathematically to see if they support predictions.
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What does Data analysis mean?
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People are likely to feel fulfilled when their lives meet three important needs.
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What is the self- determination theory?
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Relatedness ( Warm relations with others) , Autonomy (Independence), and Competence (Mastering new skills) .
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What are the three important needs of the self---determination theory?
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Based on results of data analysis, psychologists write articles presenting those findings. Once submitted they undergo rigorous review by other scientists.
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What is step 4 of drawing conclusions?
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Repeating it ans getting the same results.
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What is replication?
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Doing the study with precisely as it was conducted in its original form.
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What is direct replication?
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Doing the study with different methods or different types of samples.
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What is Conceptual replication?
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Is a research finding is shown again and again----if it is replicated---across different researchers and different specific methods, it is considered reliable.
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What is reliable?
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A statistical procedure that summarizes a large body of evidence from the research literature on a particular topic.
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What is Meta-Analysis?
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Tries to find all of the studies that have been done on a topic, compares all studies and findings, and conclude whether a result is consistent in the literature and to estimate the magnitude of the relationship between variables.
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What does a researcher try to do with Meta-Analysis?
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They combine many findings in the literature.
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Why are Meta-Analysis results more powerful that the results of any single study?
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Involves finding out about the basic dimensions of some variable.
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What is descriptive research?
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Interested in discovering relationships between variables.
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What is correlation research?
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Establishing casual relationships between variables.
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What is Experimental research?
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Some phenomenon---determining its basic dimensions and defining what this thing is, how often it occurs, and so on.
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Define descriptive research.
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It cannot prove what causes some phenomenon, however it can reveal important information about people's behaviors and attitudes.
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What can't descriptive research do on its own?
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Observation, surveys,interviews, and case studies.
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What does descriptive research include?
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It must be systematic. You must know who, what, when, where, and how you will make observations. You also need to know what form you will document them in (writing, sound, recording)
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How is observation effective?
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Presents a standard set of questions or items to obtain people's self reported attitudes or beliefs about a particular topic.
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What is a survey?
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The tendency of participants to answer questions in a way that will make them look good rather than a way that communicates what they truly think or feel.
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Whats the problem with surveys?
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It is critical that the items clearly measure the specific topic of interest and not some other characteristic.
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What is the challenge with surveys?
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usually involves the subject selecting a number that indicates the person's level of agreement what a statement.
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What is a Likert scale?
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An in depth look at a single individual.
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What is a case study or a case history?
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Clinical psychologists for either practical or ethical reasons.
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Case studies are performed mainly by what and why?
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Information about one person's goals, hopes, fantasies, fears, traumatic experiences, family relationships, health, and anything else that helps the psychologist understand the person's mind and behavior.
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What does a case study provide?
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generalized to the general population.
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An in depth study of a single case may not be what?
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It allows researchers to get a sense of a subject of interest, but it can not answer questions about how and why things are the way they are.
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What is the value of descriptive research?
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the experience of happiness in different cultures.
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What intriguing topics does descriptive research explore?
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That most people are pretty happy because they score above the midpoint, 4 on the scale of happiness.
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What did Ed and Carol Diener conclude?
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Tells us about the relation between two variables.
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What is correlation research?
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To examine whether and how two variables change together. It looks at corealtion
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What is the purpose of correlation research?
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The statistical technique correlation that is typically used to analyze these types of data.
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Correlation research is named because of what?
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The factors of interest are measured or observed to see how they are related.
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What is the key feature of a correlation study?
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The degree of relation between two variables is expressed as a numerical value.
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What is correlation coefficient?
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r
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What is correlation coefficient refereed to as a letter?
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Tells us about two things about the realtionshop between two variables--its strength and its direction.
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What does the correlation coefficient do?
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1.00 and +1.00.
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What does the value of correction always fall between?
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The number or or magnitude of the correlation.
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What is strength?
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The stronger the relationship is.
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The closer the number is to +_ 1.00, what?
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As one variable increases, the other also increases.
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What does a positive sign mean?
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As one variable increases, the other decreases.
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What does the negative sign mean?
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there is no systematic relation between the variables.
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What does zero mean?
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causation.
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Correlation does not equal what?
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At times some other variable that has not been measured accounts for the relationship between two others.
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What is the third variable problem?
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confound.
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What is a third variable also called?
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A type of correlation study in which variables are measured at a single point in time.
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what is cross-sectional design?
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Sometimes the studies are real world events like hurricanes and earthquakes, being the only ethical way, and testings like SAT and ACT.
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Why do researchers conduct correlation studies?
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involves having people report on their experiences in a diary a few times a day or to complete measures of their mood and behavior whenever they are beeped by an electronic organizer or by a smartphone.
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What is the experience sampling method esm study?
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Asks participants to complete a report each time they engage in particular behavior, such as drinking or having sex.
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What is event- contingent responding?
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Involves obtaining measures of the variables of interest in multiple waves over time.
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What is longitudinal design?
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Longitudinal design.
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What is based on the idea that if participants are randomly assigned to groups, the only systematic difference between them must be the manipulated variable?
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Researches assign participants to groups by change.
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What does Random assignment mean?
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If participants in an experiment are assigned to each group only by chance, the potential differences between the groups will cancel out over the long run.
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What is the logic of random assignments?
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a relatively large pool of people.
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Random assignments do not always work. One way to improve its effectiveness is to start with what?
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A manipulated factor.
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What is an independent variable?
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An experiment in the variable that may change as a result. The outcome and effect.
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What is a dependent variable?
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A person who is given a role to play in a study so that the social context can be manipulated.
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What is a confederate?
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Participants in an experiment who are exposed to the change that the independent variable represents.
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What is an experimental group?
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Provides a comparison against which the researcher can test the effects of the independent variable.
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What is a control group?
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Does not randomly assign participants to conditions because such assignment is either impossible or unethical.
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What is the quasi- experimental design?
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Studies that assess the differences between groups of people who have had different experiences.
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What might quasi-experimental designs be used for?
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The soundness of the conclusions that researcher draws from an experiment.
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What does Validity refer to?
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Refers to the degree to which an experimental design actually reflects the real-world issues it is supposed to address.
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What is external validity?
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How well those analogues represent the real world contexts they are meant to represent. Sees weather results generalize.
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External Validity is concerned with what?
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Refers to the degree to which changes in the dependent variable are genuinely due to the manipulation of the independent variable.
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What is internal validity?
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Occurs when the experimenter's expectations influence the outcome of the research.
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What is experimental bias?
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Any aspects of a study that communicate to participants how the experimenter wants them to behave.
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What is demand characteristics?
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In experimental research, confounds are factors that "ride along" with the experimental manipulation, systematically and undesirably influencing the dependent variable.
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What is a confound?
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Occurs when behavior of research participants during the experiment is influenced by how they think they are supposed to behave or by their expectations about what is happening to them.
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What is Research participant bias?
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Occurs when participants expectations, rather than the experimental treatment, produce a particular outcome.
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What is the Placebo effect?
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A harmless substance that has no physiological effect.
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What is a placebo?
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Neither the experimenter administering the treatment nor the participants are aware of which participants are in the experimental group and which are in the control group until the results are calculated.
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What is a double-blind experiment?
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to participants in a control group so that they are treated identically to the experimental group except for the active agents.
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When is a placebo given.
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Distinguish the specific effects of the independent variable from the possible effects of the experimenter's and the participants' expectations about it.
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What does a double- blind study allow researchers to do?
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Descriptive, correlational, and experimental.
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What are the three types of research?
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People who were the healthiest and the happiest were capable of having intense moments of awe.
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Abraham Maslow believed what?
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The entire group about which the investigator wants to draw conclusions.
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What is population?
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The subset of the population chosen by the investigator for study.
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What is sample?
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A sample that gives every member of the population an equal chance of being selected.
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What is a random sample?
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Making sure experimental and control groups are equivalent, and random sample is about selected participants from a population so that the same is representative of that population.
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random assignment vs random sample
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A controlled setting with many of the complex factors of the real world, including potential confounding factors, removed.
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What is a laboratory?
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Viewing behavior in a real-world setting.
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What is Naturalistic observation?
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Mathematical method for reporting data.
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What is a statistic?
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Descriptive and inferential
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What are the two basic categories of statics?
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Used to describe and summarize data.
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What are descriptive statistics used for?
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Draw conclusions about those data.
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What are inferential statistics used for?
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The mathematical procedures researchers have developed to describe and summarize sets of data in a meaningful way.
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Define Descriptive staistics
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"the big picture" --the overall characteristics of the data and the variation among them.
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Descriptive Statistics reveals what?
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A single number that indicated the overall characteristics of a set of data.
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A measure of central tendency is what?
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Mean, median, and mode.
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What are the three measure of central tendency?
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describes how much the scores in a sample differ from one another. These measures give us a sense of the spread of scores, or how much variability exists in the data.
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What are the measures of dispersion?
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Measures how much scores vary, on average, around the mean of the sample.
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What is Standard deviation?
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One of the mathematical properties of the mean is that if you add up each person's difference from the mean, the sum will always be 0. We cannot calculate the average difference from the mean and get a meaningful answer.
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What is the hitch in the standard deviation?
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We take each person's difference form the mean and multiply it by itself.
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How do we get around the hitch in the standard deviation?
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the mathematical methods used to indicate whether data sufficiently support a research hypothesis.
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What does inferential statistics mean?
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Inferential statistics
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What would a researcher need in order to test predictions about a sample?
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They yield a statement of probability about the differences observed between two or more group; this probability statement gives the odds that the observed differences were due simply to chance.
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What is the logic behind inferential statistics?
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The differences observed between two groups are large enough that it is highly unlikely that those differences are merely due to chance.
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What does statistical significance mean?
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The minimum level of probability that scientists will accept for concluding that the differences observed are real, thereby supporting a hypothesis.
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What is the 0.5 level of statistical significance?
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Evaluates ethical nature of research conducted at their institutions.
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What is the institutional review board?
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1. informed consent. 2. Confidentiality. 3. Debriefing 4. deception
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What are the ethical guidelines?
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1.Avoid overgeneralizing based on little info. 2.Distinguish between group results and individual needs. 3. Avoid attributing causes where none have been found. 4.Consider the source of psychological info.
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What are the guidelines to thinking critically?
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