AP Psych Unit Zero: Research Methods in Psychology (New CED) Flashcards | Quizlet

Psychology

The scientific study of mental processes and behavior.

Mental Processes

Thoughts, feelings, and motives that each of us experiences privately but that cannot be directly observed.

Behavior

Any action that people can observe or measure.

Confirmation Bias

The tendency to favor information that confirms your existing beliefs.

Hindsight Bias

The feeling after something happens that you knew it was going to happen.

Overconfidence

Being more confident than correct; overestimating the accuracy of your beliefs.

Empirical Evidence

Information from experiments or observations rather than theories.

Scientific Method

A step-by-step method for conducting research.

Hypothesis

A prediction that you can test through study and experimentation.

Falsifiable

Something that can be proven wrong through tests.

Peer Review

The process of having other experts examine your work to check its validity.

Replication

Repeating a study to see if the same results are obtained.

Reliability

The consistency of a research study or measuring test.

Validity

The accuracy of a test or research to measure what it claims to measure.

Correlation Coefficient

A number between $-1$ and $1$ that describes the strength and direction of a relationship between variables.

Confounding Variable

An extra variable that wasn't accounted for that could affect the results of an experiment.

Random Assignment

Assigning participants to experimental and control groups by chance, which helps ensure that any differences observed after the treatment are due to the treatment and not a preexisting difference.

Double-Blind Study

When neither the participants nor the researchers know who is receiving a particular treatment.

Standard Deviation

A measure of how spread out numbers are around the mean.

Institutional Review Boards (IRB)

Groups of people responsible for reviewing proposed research to ensure that it is ethical.

Informed Consent

Permission granted in the knowledge of the possible consequences, typically that which is given by a patient to a doctor for treatment with full knowledge of the possible risks and benefits.

Confederates

Actors who take part in a study pretending to be real participants.

Debriefing

Explaining to participants at the end of a study the true purpose of the study and exactly what transpired.

Psychodynamic Perspective

This approach looks at how our unconscious mind and childhood experiences shape our behaviors and emotions.

Biopsychosocial Perspective

Integrates biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors to provide a comprehensive understanding of human behavior.