Psychology 1.1 Terms (Under construction)

1st year 2023

Psychology

The scientific study of individual human behavior and mental processes (cognition)

Mental process

Internal thought-processes, both conscious and unconscious

Cognition

The mental process or action of gathering knowledge and understanding through thought, senses and experience. (Thinking)

Behaviour

Observable actions

Empirical evidence

Gathered through observations and experiments, objective and uses a scientific approach.

Anecdotal evidence

Gathered from personal experiences and hearsay, subjective, informal and haphazard.

Independent variable (IV)

Factor the researchers change/manipulate.

Dependent variable (DV)

Factor researchers measure. The effect of the IV

Treatment group

Control group

Causation

One variable causing change in another variable.

Correlation

Statistical measure of relationship between two variables.

Extraneous variable

Variable that effects the IV. Something that is (potentially) disturbing the experiment. (age, gender, education, skills, sleep, feelings)

Negative correlation

Realationship between two variables where, an increase in one variable is associated with a decrease in the other variable.

Positive correlation

Realationship between variables where, two variables who both move in the same direction.

Phenomenon

Bidirectional ambiguity

Laboratory experiment