test #1 AP psych

Wall High school (Mrs. Pizzo)

What is a naturalistic observation?

observing participants in their natural habitatats without interacting with them.

Is a naturalistic observation a expermient?

NO

Strength of a Naturalistic observation

represents real-world situations

Weakness of a Naturalistic observation

• Nothing is controlled

• Could have many confounding variables unaccounted for that may explain the behaviour

Does a Naturalistic observation manipulate the independent variable?

NO

What is a case study?

Full, detailed, “picture” of one participant/ really small group of participants

When is a case study used?

Used in clinical psychology to present information about a person suffering from a really rare disorder.

What are some strengths of a case study?

Provides detailed (rich qualitative) information

What are some weaknesses of a case study?

• Can’t generalate to the general public

• researchers own subjective feelings may influence the case study (researchers bias)

• Difficult to replicate

• time consuming

What is a correlation study?

A relationship between two variables without a a reason. In simple terms, correlational research seeks to figure out if two or more variables are related and, if so, in what way.

Whats the most popular type of study?

correlation study

Is a correlation study an expermient?

NO- you can’t manipulate anything

How can you find correlations?

Through analyzing many reaserch studies or through the survery method (asking people to fill out surveys)

What are some strengths of a correlation study?

• can get a lot of feed back

• Easy to survey a lot of people

What are some weaknesses of a correlation study

• Can’t ascribe cause

• Do not control for participant-relevant confounding variables

What is the definition of a positive correlation?

As one variable increases so does the other (presence of one thing predicts the presence of another)

What is the definition of negative correlatoin?

As one variable increases the other variable decreases (the presence of one variable predicts the absence of another)

What computes the strength of a correlation?

Correlation Coefficient

What is Correlation Coefficient defined as?

r

What is a perfect negative correlatoin?

r=-1

What is a perfect positive correlation?

r=1

What is no correlation

r=0

What is a lab experiment?

An experimental method which is conducted in a lab. Participants are aware they are being studied.

What are some strengths of a lab experiment?

1. Easy to replicate (copy)

2. Precise control of extraneous and independent variables

What are some weaknesses of a lab experiment?

1. Demand characteristics of experimenter effects may bias the results and become confounding variables

2. The artificiality of the setting may produce unnatural behaviors that don’t reflect real life (impossible to generalize the findings in a real-life setting)

3. Hawthorne effect

4. Participant Bias

5. Social Desirability

What is a Field Experiment?

It is conducted out in the real world. The experimenter still manipulates the independent variable but in a real-life setting where participants do not know they are part of an experiment.

What are some strengths of a Field Experiment?

1. More likely to reflect real life

2. Less likelihood of demand characteristics

What are some weaknesses/limitations of a field experiment?

1. Less control over extraneous variables

2. may make it difficult for another researcher to later replicate

What is a Longitudinal Study?

1. Involves one group of people over an extended period of time

2. Good for studying development of lifespan issues

3. Good for Seeing how behaviors change over time

What are some strengths of a longitudinal study?

1. Allows researchers to look at changes over time in the same people without cofounding variables in generations

What are some weaknesses in longitutional studies?

1. Takes a very long time

2. Expensive

3. Eventually, some participants may drop out of the study

What is a cross-sectional study?

uses two groups of people who differ in the variable of interest (such as age) but share other characteristics such as socioeconomic status, educational background and ethnicity

basically taking 2 groups of people who differ in age to see how they are different

What are some strenths of a cross-sectional study?

1. takes place at a single point in time (studies are super quick)

2. Inexpensive

What are some weaknesses of cross-sectional studies?

1. Confounding variables are present- they are two difrent groups of people with diffrent expierences

2. Difrent genertations= diffrent behaviors

what is a Qualitative Study?

When reaserchers gather information not in numerical form. HARDER TO ANALYZE THAN QUALITATIVE DATA

What are some examples of Qualitative Study?

1. Open-ended questions

2. Unstructured interviews

3. Case study

What are some examples of Quantitative Study?

Reaserchers gather data in numerical form, which can be put into categories, or rank order, or measured in units of measurement.

What do experiments typically yield? (qualitative or quantitative data?)

quantitative data

What type of research methods can produce both quantitative and qualitative information?

Observations and questionnaires.

What is the placebo effect?

the phenomenon in which a placebo- a fake treatment such as a sugar pill)- improves patients condition simply due to their expectations

What is the Hindsight Bias?

• allows people to convince themselves after an event that they accurately predicted it before it happened

• “I knew it all along phenomenon”

What is Basic research?

Explores questions that are an interest to psychologists but are not intended to have an immediate real-world application

What are some examples of basic research?

1. A study trying to find out what makes up a proton

What is Applied research?

Research that has a clear practical application in whcih the results can be used today.

What are some examples of applied research?

1. A study searching for ways to encourage high school graduates to attend college.

What is the definition of Hypothesis?

An educated guess about the expected outcome of an event (A specific statement)

What is the definition of theory?

An aim to explain some sort of phenomenon *A broad idea)

What is a operational definition?

Explaining how you will measure a variable

EX: How do we measure love? Is it the number of gifts we give to our partners? Number of hugs and kisses? How do we measure it?

What is an independent variable?

the variable that the experimenters change or alter so they can observe its effects (what the experimenter measures and what changes the behavior)

What is the dependent variable?

the variable that changes in relation to the IV

What is an Experimental group? (gets the IV)

The group that is exposed to the independent variable

What is the control group? (gets the placebo)

The group who is NOT exposed to the IV

What is Random Assignment?

each participant has an equal chance of being placed in either groups- using two groups diminishes the chance that participants in the 2 groups differ in any meaningful way.

what is Random Selection?

Each member of the population has an equal chance of being selected.

What is the by-stander effect?

Occurs when the presence of others affects an individual from intervening in an emergency situation.

What is Stratified sampling?

When the researcher divides the entire population into subgroups, then randomly selects the final subjects proportionally from the different subgroups (a type of random selection)

What is group matching?

During group matching (ex: group matching for sex) one would first divide the sample into male and females then randomly assign galf of each group to each condition (type of random assignment)

What is order effect?

Performing better the second time you take a test which alters the result of the study (confounding variable)

What is counter balancing?

Way to control order effect. By using half the participants to do one order of things and the other half to do the other order.

What is double blind?

When neither the experimenter nor the participant knows which group is the experimental group and which one is the control group.

What is single blind?

Only the researcher knows who is in the experimental group and who is in the control group.

What is the Hawthorne effect?

The tendency of some people to work harder and perform better when they are participants in an experiment.

What is measures of centeral tendency

the attempt to mark the center of a distribution.