Studied by 161 people
Structuralism
Early school of thought promoted by Wundt and Titchener; used introspection
Introspection
examination of one's own thoughts and feelings
Functionalism
Early school of thought promoted by James and influenced by Darwin; explored how mental and behavioral processes enable the organism to adapt and survive
Behaviorism
Focuses on observable behavior only and not the mental processes behind it
Psychoanalytic
Study of the unconscious (Freud)
Descriptive/correlational method
Describe patterns of behavior and discover association between variables
Experimental method
Studies causation
Random sample
Everyone has an equal chance of getting picked
Random assignment
Randomly assigning people to groups to eliminate the influence of the confounding variables on the treatment
Operational definition
Carefully worded statement of the exact procedures used in a research study so that it can be replicated
Causation
A cause and effect relationship in which one variable controls the changes in another variable
Correlation
A measure of the extent to which two factors vary together (NOT the same thing as causation)
Correlation coefficient (r)
Ranges from -1.0 to 1.0 to indicate the strength and direction of an association between two variables (closer to zero = less correlation)
Double blind procedure
an experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff don't know whether the research participants have received the treatment
Placebo effect
the phenomenon in which the expectations of the participants in a study can influence their behavior
Descriptive statistics
Numerical data used to measure and describe characteristics of groups (measures of center and variation)
Inferential statistics
Numerical data that allows one to generalize - to infer from sample data the probability of something being true of a population
Statistical significance
How likely it is that an obtained result occurred by chance
Informed consent
Ethical principle that research participants be told enough to enable them to choose whether they wish to participate
Debriefing
Post-experimental explanation of a study, including its purpose and any deceptions, to its participants
Reliability vs. validity
Consistency vs. accuracy
biological approach
how the body and brain enable emotions, memories, and sensory experiences
evolutionary approach
how the natural selection of traits has promoted the survival of genes
cognitive approach
how we encode, process, store, and retrieve information
humanistic approach
how we achieve personal growth and self-fulfillment
psychodynamic approach
how behavior springs from unconscious needs, desires, conflicts, and memories
behavioral approach
how we learn observable responses
sociocultural approach
how behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures
longitudinal study
observes variables in the same people over a long period of time
cross-sectional study
observes variables in people with different ages at one point in time
Note 
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