psychology unit0

Cognitive Perspective

how individuals interpret, process, and remembers information! how people process and store information → how this affects behaviors and emotions

Psychodynamic/Psychoanalytic Perspective

Sigmund Freud: focuses on how the unconscious mind and early childhood experiences can shape someone’s behavior and personality → Ex: free association to identify repressed thoughts

Behavioral Perspective

John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, BF Skinner: believe that psychology should be objective, focused solely on things we can observe, studying observable behaviors that are learned with interactions rather than mental processes

Biopsychosocial Perspective

interconnectedness of biological, psychological, and social factors in understanding behavior and mental processes, how biological factors → psychological factors and social behaviors

Biological Perspective

Understanding links between biological and psychological processes, our system’s influence on thoughts and actions → helps with understanding different neurological conditions (uses Lab experiments)

Evolutionary Perspective

Charles Darwin: analyzes human behavior, cognition, and emotions as evolved adaptions. Behaviors are products of natural selection that helped our ancestors survive and reproduce

Humanistic

Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers: studies potential of people, believes that all humans are inherently good and willing to improve themself towards self-actualization

Social-Cultural Perspective

how someone’s experiences and influences in life (their culture) shapes them as an individual (Ex: social norms)

Cultural Norms

shared rules and guidelines within a community that dictate what’s appropriate and acceptable in society

Circumstances

the situations individuals find themselves in, including socio-economic factors, historical events, and the person’s geographical location, how it affects someone’s behavior and lives

Confirmation Bias

tendency to seek out information that aligns with our pov, while dismissing information that disagrees with our pov (beliefs) → polarized thinking and prevents individuals from considering new information

Hindsight Bias

tendency to think that one could have anticipated the outcome of an event or an experiment after it already happened → tendency to think that information is less surprising once you find out about it

Overconfidence Bias

tendency to overestimate your own knowledge, the likelihood of being correct, or ability to perform certain tasks → can be caused by hindsight bias,

Descriptive and Inferential Statistics

When researchers organize and DESCRIBE data

When researchers make PREDICTIONS about their data and independent variables, help determine if data from a sample can be applied to a population

Testing a Hypothesis

p value: probability that observed study results happened by random chance, provides insight into statistic significance (BETWEEN 0.0001 - 0.1)

high p value (0.05 and above) = no evidence against null hypothesis (no change) = accept null, reject alt
low p value (0.05 and below) = strong evidence against null hypothesis (yes change) = reject null, accept alt

P Value: Effect Size

tells us the strength of relationship between variables, how meaningful it is in real world terms! HOW MUCH IT MATTERS
high: great difference between groups, high impact
low: little difference between groups, low impact

Null Hypothesis

No difference between variables, applying the variable will not change anything
Ex: the new teaching method has no effect on test scores

Alternative Hypothesis

Significant difference between variables, contradicts null
Ex: The new teaching method improves test scores!

Statistical Significance

whether differences between variables is real or just due to chance, IF RESULTS MATTER

Histograms

bar graphs with no lines between them

Regression Toward Mean

when statistical results start off extreme but average out (outliers!)

Standard Deviation

Allows researchers to indicate the average distance from the mean for a data set
high = wider spread of results, low consistency
low = close to average, high consistency

Normal Distribution

symmetrical bell shape where the data points cluster perfectly around the center mean, UNLIKELY!! more common for data to have positive or negative skew

Bidomal Distribution

two modes (value that appears most frequently), causing the distribution to have two peaks

Z-score

numerical measurement that describes how many standard deviations a particular score is from the average or mean
(result - mean)/ standard deviation

Correlation Coefficient

statistical measure calculating the strength and direction of a linear relationship between 2 variables
1/-1 = stronger linear relationship, 0= no linear correlation

Percentile Rank

percentage of scores at or below a particular score (100th percentile = 100% people got lower than you).

Scientifically Derived Evidence

objective!! can be replicated and went through peer review, making findings more reliable and based on factual procedures instead of claims