🧠🧪🔬Unit 0 AP Psych 🔬🧪🧠

Psychology

Scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

Psychiatry

A physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders

Placebo effect

When people think a fake pill/ medical thing helped them, so it does help them.

Psychology’s perspective

Conceptual lenses psychologists use to observe, explain, and interpret humans thoughts and behaviors.

Psychodynamic

Unconscious motives that mold the personality, influence attitudes, and produce emotional disorder.

Biological

An approach to abnormal psychology that emphasizes physiologically based causative factors.

Behavioral

Explains all human/animal actions as learned from the environment through conditioning, focusing strictly on observable behaviors.

Cognitive

Explains behavior and mental processes by focusing on internal mental events like perception, memory, thinking, and problem solving.

Humanistic

Optimistic approach emphasizes free will, personal growth, and an innate drive to reach one’s potential.

Sociocultural

Explains human thought, feeling, and behavior as the result of cultural norms, social expectations, and group contexts.

Evolutionary

Explains human behavior, mental processes, and traits by how they helped our ancient ancestors survive and reproduce through natural selection.

Cognitive bias

A systematic predictable error in thinking and decision-making that occurs when the brain uses mental shortcuts instead of careful reasoning.

Confirmation bias

He tendency to search for evidence that fits one’s beliefs while ignoring any evidence that doesn’t fit those beliefs.

Hindsight bias

The tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that you predicted or foresaw if.

Over confidence

The tendency to believe more confident than correct and to over-estimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements.

Methods of research

Specific strategies scientists use to collect data test a hypothesis, and investigate mental processes/ behaviors.

Case study

Study of one individual in great detail

Naturalistic observation

Study and recording behavior in real-world settings without manipulating or controlling the environment or variables.

Correlation

A measure of the relationship between two variables

Positive correlation vs negative correlation

Positive variable: two variables move in the same direction

Negative variable: two variables move in opposite directions.

Correlation coefficient

Number that represents the strength and dissection of a relationship existing between two variables.

Experiment

Manipulating one or more independent variables to observe their effect on a dependent variable. Establishes cause/effect.

Meta-analysis

Statistical procedure that combines the results of multiple independent studies on the same research question to find an overall conclusion.

Independent variable

Factor manipulated in an experiment to test its effect on the dependent variable.

Dependent variable

Outcome/ response measured in an experiment to see change from the independent variable.

Confounding variable

Uncontrolled outside factor that changes experiment outcomes and creates alternative explanations for change.

Random selection

Subset of individuals chosen from a large population where every member has an equal chance of being selected.

Random assignment

Experiment procedure: every patient has an equal chance of being placed in any group.

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Convenience sampling

researchers pick participants who are easily accessible, close by, and readily available, rather than random assignment.

Sampling bias

A problem that occurs when a sample does not accurately represent the population

Sample vs population

A sample is a smaller group studied, while a population is the entire group research’s want to understand.

Experimental group

Group in an experiment that receives the treatment or independent variable.

Control group

The group that does not receive the treatment and provides a comparison for the experiment group.

Single-blind

Experiment where participants don’t know which group they are in.

Double-blind

Experiment where neither the participants nor the researchers interacting know who is in each group.

Experimenter bias

When a researcher’s expectations unintentionally influence the results of a study.

Desirability bias

When people give answers they think are socially acceptable or favorable rather than truthful answers

Qualitative

Data describing qualities or experience.

Quantitative

numerical and measurable data.

Likert scales

Rating scales that measure how strongly someone agrees or disagrees with a statement.

Hypothesis

A testable prediction about the relationship between variables.

Falsifiable

A hypothesis is falsifiable if it can be tested and potentially shown to be false.

Operational definition

A specific definition of how a variable will be measured or manipulated in a study.

Replication

Repeating a study to see weather it’s results can be reproduced.

Ethics

IRB (review board), informed consent, do not harm, anonymousy, and debriefing.

Mean

Arithmetic average of a data set.

Median

The middle score in a set of data when the scores are arranged from lowest-to-highest.

Mode

The most frequent accruing score in a set of data.

Range

The difference between the highest and lowest scores in a data set.

Normal curve

A bell-shaped distribution where most scores cluster near the middle and fewer scores occur at extremes.

Skewness (positive and negative)

Positive: distribution with long tail extending toward higher scores.

Negative: tail extends toward lower scores.

Standard deviance

A measure of how much scores vary it spread out from the mean.

Regression to mean

The tendency for unusually extreme scores to become closer to average when measured

Statistical significance

A result that is unlikely to have occurred by chance alone.

Measures of central tendency

Statistics that describe the typical or central score in a data set, such as mean, median and mode.

Percentile rank

The percentage of scores in a data set that fall below a particular score.