PSY 311 - Week 4

Informed Consent

supports a voluntary and informed choice about participation

Confidentiality

protects info that participants reveal to the research team

Anonymity

keeps responses from being linked to a participant’s identity

Assent

respects a child or other minor’s affirmative agreement to take part

Institutional Review Board (IRB)

committee of scientists and nonscientists, including community members and sometimes legal specialists, that reviews proposed studies for ethical concerns before research begins

Risk Benefit Analysis

a careful comparison of possible harms or burdens against the study’s anticipated value and benefits

Confederate

a person who works with the research team but appears to other participants to be ordinary participant; this role can be used to create a standardized social situation

Belmont Report

foundational doc regarding ethical principles for research involving human subjects

Apprehensive Subject

participant who acts in a socially desirable way because they fear being judged by the researcher

Demand Characteristics

cues in an experiment that tell the participant what behavior is expected or what the study is evaluating

Deceptive Measures

act of intentionally providing false info to participants about the nature or purpose of a study

Psychological Realism

the extent to which the experimental tasks are involving and meaningful to the participant, encouraging natural behavior

Unobtrusive Measures

research methods used to observe subjects without their knowledge, such as using one-way mirrors or hidden recording devices

Good Subject

overly cooperative in an attempt to support the researcher’s hypothesis

Negative Subject

demonstrates the “screw you” effect by acting in ways intended to refute the hypothesis

Faithful Subject

attempts to act as if they are unaware of the hypothesis, regardless of their actual knowledge

Conceptual Variable

an abstract construct or idea that exists at the theoretical level and cannot be directly measured

Inter-Rater Reliability

degree of consistency and agreement between different researchers or observers looking at the same data

Operational

specific procedure or set of activities used to define how a variable will be observed and measured

Operationalism

requirement that variables in empirical research be conceptually defined and translated into concrete, observable forms

Physiological Measure

method of data collection involving biological responses

Quantifiable Data

info that can be expressed as a numerical value, allowing for statistical analysis

Replication

process of repeating a research study, using the same operational definitions, to determine if the original findings are consistent