Myers Psychology 4e — Unit 0 Flashcards

Critical thinking

Question it

Hindsight bias

“I knew it!”

Peer reviewers

Experts check it

Theory

Explanation

Hypothesis

Prediction

Falsifiable

Can prove it wrong

Operational definition

How you measure it

Replication

Do it again

Case study

Study one case deeply

Naturalistic observation

Watch naturally

Survey

Ask people questions

Social desirability bias

Answer to look good

Self-report bias

Inaccurate self-reporting

Sampling bias

Sample isn’t representative

Random sample

Everyone has a chance

Population

Entire group

Correlation

Relationship between variables

Correlation coefficient

Strength + direction

Variable

Something that can change

Scatterplot

Graph of paired data

Illusory correlation

See a relationship that isn’t real

Regression toward the mean

Extreme → closer to average

Experiment

Test cause and effect

Experimental group

Gets the treatment

Control group

Comparison group

Random assignment

Randomly put into groups

Single-blind procedure

One side doesn’t know

Double-blind procedure

Both sides don’t know

Placebo effect

Expectation causes change

Independent variable

What researcher changes

Confounding variable

Unwanted factor

Experimenter bias

Researcher influences results

Dependent variable

What gets measured

Validity

Measures what it should

Quantitative research

Numbers

Qualitative research

Words / descriptions

Informed consent

Agree after being informed

Debriefing

Explain afterward

Descriptive statistics

Describe the data

Histogram

Graph of numerical data

Mode

Most common

Mean

Average

Median

Middle

Percentile rank

Percent below you

Skewed distribution

Pulled to one side

Range

Highest − lowest

Standard deviation

How spread out

Normal curve

Bell-shaped distribution

Inferential statistics

Use sample to make conclusions

Meta-analysis

Combine many studies

Statistical significance

Unlikely due to chance

Effect size

How big the effect is