Psyc 379 Unit 2: Doing Psychological Research

question

Every social psychology study begins with a ()

Research which is done with the goal of understanding human behaviour

Basic Research

Research with the goal of being applied to real world issues.

Applied Research

After asking a question, a () is made, which is a testable prediction about the conditions in which an event occurs.

Hypothesis

Theory

An organized set of principles used to explain why certain conditions(X) caused a specific behaviour(y)

Conceptual Variables

Variables in an experiment which are abstract such as love, prejudice, pressure, etc.

An issue with self-reports is the () where an individual who believes that all their statements are being put through a perfect lie detector starts answering questions much more accurately and share more socially unacceptable opinions.

Bogus Pipeline

favorable

if individuals know they are being observed, their behaviors may be biased by the desire to present themselves in a () light.

descriptive research

The goal of () in social psychology is, as the term implies, to describe people and their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, through observational studies, archival studies, and surveys

Correlational research

Research designed to measure the association(correlation) between variables that are not manipulated by the researcher and how well one variable can be used to predict another

A () means that when one variable increases, so does the other.

positive correlation

negative correlation

A () means that when one variable increases, the other decreases

no correlation

Variables can also have (), meaning that one variable has no effect on the other

Experiment

A form of research that can demonstrate causal relationships because (1) the experimenter has control over the events that occur and (2) participants are randomly assigned to conditions

Independent Variable

 A variable which is manipulated to see if it affects the dependant variable

Dependant Variable

A variable which experimenters use to see if it’s affected by the independent variable

Confound

A factor other than the independent variable that varies between experiments which caused affected the dependant variable

Subject Variable

A variable that characterizes the preexisting differences between the participants of a study such as gender, race, ethnicity or religion

Internal Validity

 The degree to which there can be reasonable certainty that the independent variables in an experiment caused the effects obtained on the dependent variables

Experimenter Expectancy Results

Due to the experimenter’s own expectations of what results an experiment should yield, they may accidentally have changed behaviour towards participants which thereby results in changed participant responses

External Validity

The degree in which there is reasonable confidence that experiment results would be the same even with different people/situations