Psychology Unit 1: Introduction to Psychological Science and Research Methods

Vocabulary flashcards reviewing core definitions, subfields, cognitive biases, historical perspectives, research methods, statistical concepts, and ethical guidelines from Unit 1.

Psychology

The study, through research, of mind, brain, and behavior.

Clinical Psychology

A subfield of psychology that focuses on psychological treatments and disorders, such as factors distinguishing purging disorder or traits increasing suicide risk.

Developmental Psychology

A subfield of psychology studying psychological changes over time and across the lifespan.

Social Psychology

A subfield of psychology focused on how people are influenced by others, including topics such as how race impacts perceptions or how personality qualities shape intimate relationships.

Cognitive Psychology

A subfield of psychology studying mental processes such as attention, language, memory, perception, and problem-solving.

Neuroscience

A subfield of psychology investigating the nervous system and brain, such as identifying brain regions processing faces or how caregiving impacts brain development.

Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology

A subfield of psychology examining human behavior in organizations and the workplace, focusing on training, work-life balance, customer satisfaction, and productivity.

Sports Psychology

A subfield of psychology focusing on athlete performance, well-being, goal setting, self-esteem, team building, and emotional responses.

Educational Psychology

A subfield of psychology focused on learning and development within educational settings and classroom instructional techniques.

Critical Thinking

The practice of systematically questioning and evaluating information using well-supported evidence by challenging automatic thoughts and assumptions.

Confirmation Bias

The bias of placing more weight on information that supports preexisting beliefs, driven by selective sampling and selective memory.

Selective Sampling

The act of seeking out or consuming evidence that only aligns with existing beliefs, such as watching news programs consistent with one's worldview.

Selective Memory

The tendency to remember supporting evidence for one's beliefs while forgetting contradictory evidence, such as gamblers remembering big wins but not losses.

Hindsight Bias

An after-the-fact explanation bias where an individual looks back at a past event and falsely believes the outcome was easily predictable.

Heuristic

A mental shortcut or simple rule of thumb used for decision-making that can save effort but may oversimplify complex situations and cause biased outcomes.

Availability Heuristic

A mental shortcut in which decisions or judgments are guided by information that comes most easily to mind, particularly recent, frequent, vivid, extreme, or negative information.

Self-Affirmation Theory

The concept that individuals are motivated to feel good about themselves and are inherently resistant to recognizing their own weaknesses.

Dunning-Kruger Effect

A cognitive bias where individuals with low expertise or performance in a specific area lack the ability to evaluate their incompetence, rating their academic skills far higher than actual performance.

Dualism

The historical philosophical position, held by Rene Descartes, that the body and mind are separate entities, though some mental functions result from bodily functions.

Mind/Body Problem

The central debate over whether the mind and body are distinct entities or whether the mind is simply the subjective experience of ongoing brain activity.

Nature vs Nurture Debate

The inquiry into whether psychological characteristics are biologically innate (genetics) or acquired through education, experience, and culture, with modern consensus recognizing both interact.

Electroencephalography (EEG)

A brain imaging technology used to detect overall electrical activity in the brain.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

A neuroimaging technology that detects activity in specific areas of the brain as it performs psychological functions.

Epigenetics

The study of biological and environmental influences on gene expression that do not alter the underlying DNA sequence.

Gut-Brain Axis

The two-way communication system between the digestive system and the brain, connecting stress responses, gut microbiome, and brain chemistry.

Description (Goal of Science)

The primary goal of scientific research focused on defining and describing what a phenomenon is.

Prediction (Goal of Science)

The primary goal of scientific research focused on predicting when and where a phenomenon will occur.

Explanation (Goal of Science)

The primary goal of scientific research focused on explaining why a phenomenon occurs.

Theory

An explanation or model of how a phenomenon works that explains prior observations and makes general predictions about future events.

Law of Parsimony (Occam's Razor)

The principle stating that when given competing theories, researchers should choose the simplest theory.

Hypothesis

A specific, testable prediction based on a theory, often specifying a direction for the outcome.

Case Study

A descriptive research method involving an intensive examination of an atypical single person or situation, such as Phineas Gage.

Self-Reports and Interviews

Descriptive research methods, such as surveys, questionnaires, or interviews, in which participants directly provide information about themselves.

Participant Observation

A type of observational study where the researcher is actively involved in the situation being studied.

Naturalistic Observation

A type of observational study where the researcher acts as a passive observer separated from the situation without altering ongoing behavior.

Hawthorne Effect

The alteration of a participant's behavior caused by the knowledge that they are being observed.

Hawthorne Effect

A phenomenon where individuals change or improve their behavior simply because they know they are being observed.

Observer Bias

Systematic errors in observation that occur due to an observer's preexisting expectations.

Experimenter Expectancy Effect

A change in participant behavior caused by observer expectations, such as students giving better encouragement to maze rats expected to perform well.

Mean

A descriptive statistic representing the calculated average amount in a set of values.

Median

A descriptive statistic representing the middle number in an ordered dataset.

Mode

A descriptive statistic representing the most frequently occurring value in a dataset.

Standard Deviation

A descriptive measure of variability showing how far each value is, on average, from the mean.

Correlational Research

A research design that examines how variables are naturally related without researcher manipulation or establishing causation.

Positive Correlation

A correlation where two variables move in the same direction, both increasing ($\uparrow\uparrow$) or both decreasing ($\downarrow\downarrow$).

Negative Correlation

A correlation where two variables move in opposite directions, one increasing while the other decreases ($\uparrow\downarrow$ or $\downarrow\uparrow$).

Correlation Coefficient (r)

A statistic ranging from $-1$ to $1$ that measures the strength and direction of the relationship between two variables.

Directionality Problem

A limitation of correlational research where it is impossible to establish which variable is the cause and which is the effect.

Third Variable Problem

A confound issue in correlational studies where an unmeasured third factor influences both measured variables.

Experimental Research

A research design that tests causal hypotheses by manipulating one variable to measure its effect on another variable.

Independent Variable (IV)

The variable in an experiment that is directly manipulated by the researcher to produce a change.

Dependent Variable (DV)

The outcome variable measured in an experiment that is expected to be affected by the independent variable.

Operational Definition

A precise description qualifying and quantifying a variable so it can be measured objectively and replicated by other researchers.

Experimental Group

The treatment condition in an experiment consisting of participants who receive the specific intervention being tested.

Control Group

The comparison group in an experiment that receives no intervention or an intervention unrelated to the independent variable.

Random Assignment

The process of placing participants into experimental groups purely by chance to eliminate preexisting differences.

Population

The entire group of individuals that an experimenter is interested in studying.

Sample

A subset of the target population selected to participate in a research study.

Random Sample

A sample in which every member of the population of interest has an equal chance of being included in the study.

Convenience Sample

A non-random sample composed of individuals who are conveniently available for the study, often leading to sample bias.

Confederate

A research assistant pretending to be a participant who knows the study's purpose and behaves according to a script.

Reliability

The degree to which a research measure is stable and consistent over time.

Validity

How accurately a test or experiment measures what it claims to measure.

Construct Validity

The degree to which variables measure the specific concepts they are intended to measure.

External Validity

The degree to which experimental results are generalizable to other people or real-world situations.

Internal Validity

The degree to which effects observed in an experiment are caused by the independent variable rather than confounds.

Random Error

Unsystematic measurement error that differs unpredictably each time, typically caused by human error.

Systematic Error

Consistent measurement error that occurs repeatedly by the same amount, often caused by technical or equipment errors.

Replication

The repetition of a research study, ideally by independent researchers, to confirm or contradict original findings.

Meta-Analysis

A statistical study of studies that combines findings from multiple independent studies to reach an overall conclusion.

Statistical Significance

A statistical determination that results are unlikely to be due to random chance, established when the p-value is $p < .05$.

Basic Research

Theory-focused research that seeks to advance fundamental understanding rather than solve immediate practical problems.

Applied Research

Research focused on solving practical problems and developing implementable solutions for real-world settings.

Belmont Report

A 1979 report establishing the three foundational ethical principles for human subject research: Respect for Persons, Beneficence, and Justice.

Informed Consent

A written process and agreement conducted before a study that details the scope, potential risks, and benefits to ensure voluntary participant agreement.

Institutional Review Board (IRB)

An administrative body that reviews proposed research with human subjects to ensure all ethical, safety, and consent guidelines are met.