Ap psych science practices and statistics

biological approach (biopsychology)

a perspective of psycholgy that focuses on the link between the brain, nervous system, hormones, genetics etc and behaviors and mental processes

socio-cultual approach

focuses societal and cultural factors that shape behaviors and mental processes, influences of nationality religion beliefs gender ethnicity cultural traditions etc

cognitive approach

focus mental processes thought related process that cannot be directly observed, memory language comprehension problem solving decision making etc. studies mental process and language comprehension

evolutionary (sociobiological perspective)

evolution has shaped many thoughts and behaviors behaviors / mental process that were adaptive at an earlier stage of human evolution and have been passed onto contemporary humans through natural selection. ( we do things now bcs it helped ancestors survive)

eclectic approach

multiple approaches to explain cause of thought/ behavior. essential looking from a diverse perspective, complex forces shape any one behavior/ thought and there are multiple reasons for one simple

nature

behaviors are genetically inherited brain structure/chemisty and or inborn abilities shaped by evolution

nurture

behaviors that come from learning. experience

diathesis-stress model

both nature and nurture interact to cause behaviors mental process mental illness personality etc

diathesis side (diathesis stress model)

runs in the family and a person might be born with the genetically inherited chemical imbalance born with a pre disposition

stress ( diathesis - stress model )

an environmental factor is present that triggers genetic predisposition

descriptive statistics

statistics that summarize r describe trends in a large amount of Fata

measures of central tendency

establishes central point for a large set of data (mean median and mode)

mean

average

median

middle number when arranged from lowest to highest

mode

the most frequent appearing score

outlier

an extreme score found in a set data or scores. can cause the mean to be an inaccurate measure of central tendency psychologist will often remove outliers when calculating states

measures of variability

stats which tell how different scores are compared to the mean, typically range and standard deviation and z score

standard deviation

a measure of variability that shows the different between each score and the mean score. the higher the blank the greater the diversity of scores or the more spread out they are

z score

converts a set of score SD into a unit of 1 positive z score mean the score is above the mean and a negative z score is below the mean

an average on an IQ test was 100 and the SD was 15 what is the z score of a student who scored a 115

1

low variability

bell curve is tall and skinny serving Bella Hadid

medium variability

average looking bell curve

high variability

short and wide bell curve

percentile rank

a stat used to rank a test takers performance 95th percentile = they scores better than 95 percent of people that took the test

normal distribution curve

the bell curve 68 percent of scores will be within 1 SD of the mean. and 95 percent of scores will be within 2 SDs of the mean and 5 percent score within 3 SD above/ below mean

positively skewed distribution

graph is very to the left suggest that a test may have been too difficult decays too many scores are low

negatively skewed distribution

graph is more to the right suggest test may be too easy because too many scores are high

if scores are normally distributed the measures of central tendency

will be very similar

when scores are positively skewed the mean will be

higher than the median and mode

when scores are negatively skewed the mean will be

lower than the median and mode

introspection (Wundt)

looking inwards analyzing ur own thoughts and being able to describe. being aware if vibes mental process and objectively measuring them. measure thought

Wilhelm Wundt

father of modern psychology 1st to collect objective objective data on mental processes p

psychoanalytic/psychodynamic approach

freud, influence of the unconscious mind / drives, impulses and urges exist within the mind, these urges are socially unacceptable to act upon and people are unaware of the causes of these urges making them unconscious

behavioral approach (John Watson)

practical application, research applied to daily life to help people to predict behaviors, move away from the idea of consciousness and move to behaviors hat are observable and quantifiable (think little albert) .

humanistic approach ( Abraham Maslow)

third form of pschyology to challenge Freud and Watson, focus on self-actualization els

self-actualization

knowing who you are and putting it in to practice theres and inherit need to live a life and utilyzings 1s unique talent

case study method

in depth exploration into a specific individual small group or event, often focuses on people with rare characteristics. a type of qualitative research

qualitative research

research that collects observations and descriptions is not numerical

naturalistic observation

a procedure used to make observations of a subject doing a case study, participates are observed in the environments they routinely functionn within. risk of observer effect

observer effect

observation during research during research can change a subjects behavior. observer should limit interaction with subject and their environment

correlation studies

studies that seek to identify the relationship between two quantifiable variable. seek to determine if 2 amounts of these 2 variable increase of decrease together. ex of quantitative research

positive correlation

as one variable increases the other increase

negative correlation

as one variable increases the other decreases (inverse relationship)

correlation coefficient

stat that indicated whether 2 variables are positively or negatively correlated and the strength of the correlation. r = .6 and greater is a strong correlation .5 and less weaker correlation

strong correlation

as one variable incr/decrease the other frequently incr/decrease as well

weak correlation

as one variable incr/decr the other infrequently along with it

directionality problem

correlation research cannot determine which variable is causing the change in the other

illusory correlation

incorrect assumption that correlated variables causes changes in each other. ex. correlation between amount of ice cream sold and number of drownings in the Us is +.84 caused by third variable problem

third-variable problem

occurs when relationships between correlated variables is better explained by unaccounted third variable

the key variable

the cognitive or behavioral elements the researcher believes have a cause and effect relationship

hypothesis must be falsifiable

have the potential to find data that causes it to be proven false

operation definition aka operationalizing a variable

the way key variable will be defined and measured. ex survey ratings, giving a test and measuring results

confounding variables

dependent variable changes should only result from changes made to the independent variable. uncontraollabe variable that alters experimental results

lab experiments

conducted in a controlled environment

field experiments

conducted in an actual real world environment

random assignment

prevents reasercher from exercising bias and evenly disperses uncontrollable variables to all groups

replication

repeating an experiment with the goal of getting similar results. if results are replicated the findings are likely due to research design and not chance

population

the entire group of individuals a researcher wants to study/ draw conclusions about

sample

smaller subset of population is actually selected to participate in the search. Blank should reflect demographic makeup of the population

random sampling

every individual in a population has an equal chance of being selected

convenience sampling

selecting participants based on their accessibility can lead to sampling bias. ( when convientley selected sample doesn’t rep the population

confirmation bias

tendency to seek out info that supports ones beliefs and ignoring info refuting it. researchers may selectively accept the results that support a hypothesis ignore those refuting it

inferential statistics

stats that represent the confidence a researcher can have when generalizing their study results to larger population. researcher look for statistically significant results

statiscally singifican results

results causee by independent variable and not by chance

statistical hypothesis test

performed by researchers to establish the statistical significance of their results

p value

an inferential statistic that represent the probability on experimental result occurred by chance . should be less that .05 or 5 percent. los tha 5 percent chance the result occured by cane

meta analysis

combines results of multiple studies addressing a similar research topic

experimenter bias

occurs when a researchers expectation or beliefs unintentionally influence the results

seld report bias

occurs when individuals provide inaccurate information about themselves

social desirability bias

type of set report bias, tendency to respond in a way that will be viewed favorable by others