Psychology Ch. 2 2
Terms
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- What are the five characteristics fo the ideal scientist?
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Precision
Skepticism
Reliance on empirical evidence
willingness to make "risky predictions"
Openness - What is precision?
- Start out with a general theory, an organized system of assupmtions and principles that purports to explain certain phenomena and how they are related.
- Hypothesis?
- A statement that attempts to describe or explain a given behavior.
- Operatioinal definitions?
- Specify how the phenomena in question are to be observed and measured.
- Skepticism?
- treating conclusions, both new and old with caution.
- Reliance on empirical evidence?
- Ideas must be backed by empirical eveidence not just because it's appealing.
- Willingness to make "risky predictions"
- Principle of falsifiability, does not mean that the idea will be disproved, only that it could be if contrary evidence were to be discovered.Another way of saying this is tha ta scientist must risk disconfirmation by predicting not only what will happen, but also what will not happen.
- Confirmation bias?
- The tendency to look for and accep evidence that supports our pet theories and assumptions and ignore or reject evidence that contradicts our beliefs.
- Openness?
- Free flow of ideas and full disclosure of the procedures used in a study. Scientist must be willing to tell others where they got their ideas, how they tested them, and what the results were.
- Case Study?
- Is a detailed descriptoin of a particular individual, based on careful observation or on formal psychological testing. It may include information about a persons childhood, dreams, fantasies, experiences, relation.
- Example of a case study?
- For example, suppose you want to know whether the first few years of life are critical for acquiring a first language. Can children who have missed out on hearing speech (or, in the case of deaf children, seeing signs) "catch up" later? Obviously psychologist cannot answer this question by isolating children and seeing what happens! So instead they have studied unusual cases of language deprivation.
- Naturalistic obsevation?
- Is to find out how people or animals act in their normal social environments.
- Example of naturalistic obsevation?
- a social psychologist and hist students ventured into a common human habitat: bars. They wanted to know whether people in bars drink more when they are in groups than when they are alone. They visited all 32 pubs in a midsized city, ordered beers, and recorded on anapkins and pieces of newpaper how much the other patrons imbibed. They found that drinkers in groups consumed more than individuals who were alone. Those in groups did not drink any faster; they just lingered in teh bar longer.
- Laboratory observation?
- Psychologist have more control of the situation. They can use sophisticated equipment, maintain a clear line of vision, remain hidden behind a one way mirror, and so forth.
- Case example of laboratroy observation?
- Suppose tha tyou wanted to know how infants of different ages respond when left with a stranger. The most efficient approach might be to have parents and their infants come to your laboratory, observe them playing together for a while through a one way window, then have a stranger enterh the room and a few minutes later have the parent leave. you could recored signs of distress, interactions with the stranger, and other behavior. If you did this, you would find that very young infants carry on cheerfully with whatever they are doing when the parent leaves. However, by the age of about 8 months, many children will burst into tears or show other signs of what child psychologist call "separatoin anxiety."
- Psychological test?
- AKA assessment instruments, are procedures for measuring and evaluating personality traits, emotional states, aptitudes, interest, ablilites, and values.
- Example of psychological test?
- Intelligence test achievement test....
- Survey?
- Questionnaires and interview that gather information by asking people directly about thir experiences, attitudes, or opinions.
- Example of Survey?
- Consumer preferences, sexual preferences.
- Correlation?
- Is often yoused as a synonym for relationship. Technically correlation is a numerical measure of the strength of the relationsip between things (variables).
- Why is experimentation important in psychological research?
- The experiment allows the researcher to control or manipulate, the situatin being studied.
- Independent Variable?
- The aspect of an experimental situation manipulated or varied by the researcher is known as the independent variable.
- Dependent Variable
- The reaction of the subject, the behavior tha thte resarher tries to predict.
- Example of Dependent and Independent?
- The independent variable is nicotine use: One cigarette versus none. The dependent variable is the number of collisions.
- Control condition?
- In the control condition, subjects are treated exactly as they are in the experimental condition, except that they are not exposed to the same treatment, or manipulation of the independent variable.
- Random assignment?
- By randomly assigning them numbers and putting those with even nmbers in one group and those with odd numbers in another. If we have enough participants in our study, individual characteristics that could possibley affect the results are likely to be roughly balanced into two groups, so we can ignore them.
- Single-blind study?
- Participants should not know whether they are in an experimental or a control group.
- Experimental Effect?
- experimental expectations can effect behavior.
- Double Blind study?
- the person running the experiment, the one having actual contact with the subjects, also does not know which subjects are in which groups until the data has been gathered.
- If your inferential statistical results to an experiment is statistically significant, what have you determined?
- No answer yet