Experimental Psychology and the Scientific Method Flashcards

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers the fundamental concepts of experimental psychology, the scientific method, research designs, and historical pseudosciences as presented in the lecture notes.

Commonsense psychology

The kind of everyday, nonscientific data gathering that shapes our expectations and belief and directs our behavior towards others.

Confirmation bias

The tendency to overlook instances that might disconfirm our beliefs and seek, instead, confirmatory instances of behavior.

Overconfidence bias

The tendency for our predictions, guesses, and explanations to feel much more correct than they actually are, often increasing with the amount of data available.

Scientific method

The steps scientists take to gather and verify information, answer questions, explain relationships, and communicate this information to others.

Scientific mentality

The belief that behavior must follow a natural order and therefore can be predicted.

Determinism

The belief that there are specifiable causes for the way people behave and that these causes can be discovered through research.

Empirical data

Data that are observable or experienced, which can be verified or disproved through investigation.

Laws

General principles that have the generality to apply to all situations.

Theory

An interim explanation devised and tested to advance understanding.

Hypothesis

A testable prediction.

Principle of parsimony

Also called Occam’s razor; the approach that entities should not be multiplied without necessity and researchers should stick to a basic premise.

Replication

The ability to repeat procedures and get the same results again when data is gathered objectively and through good thinking.

Description

A systematic and unbiased account of the observed characteristics of behavior.

Prediction

The capacity for knowing in advance when certain behaviors would be expected to occur because linked conditions have been identified.

Explanation

Knowledge of the conditions that reliably reproduce the occurrence of a behavior, allowing for an understanding of what causes it.

Control

The application of what has been learned about behavior.

Applied research

Research designed to solve real-world problems, such as helping patients deal with grief or improving employee morale.

Basic research

Research designed to test theories or to explain psychological phenomena in humans and animals.

Observation

The systematic noting and recording of events that are observable.

Measurement

The assignment of numerical values to objects or events or their characteristics according to conventional rules.

Experimentation

A process undertaken to test a hypothesis that particular behavioral events will occur reliably in certain, specifiable situations.

Antecedent conditions

Also called antecedents; the circumstances that come before the event or behavior that we want to explain.

Treatments

Specific sets of antecedent conditions created by the researcher for comparison.

Psychology experiment

A controlled procedure in which at least two different treatment conditions are applied to subjects.

Random assignment

A technique used to assign subjects to different treatments to avoid the possibility that subjects in one condition are systematically different from those in another before treatments are presented.

Between-subjects design

An experimental design in which subjects receive only one kind of treatment.

Within-subjects design

An experimental design in which all treatments are presented to each subject to rule out systematic differences.

Temporal relationship

A cause-and-effect relationship established through experiments characterized by a time difference between the cause and the effect.

Sufficient condition

A condition that, when present, produces an effect (e.g., being in a good mood increases helpfulness) but is not required for the effect to occur.

Mental philosophy

The study of consciousness and mental processes based on the premise that the human mind begins as a blank slate.

Phenomenology

The process of reporting our own thoughts and feelings.

Pseudoscience

Any field of study that gives the appearance of being scientific but has no true scientific basis and has not been confirmed using the scientific method.

Phrenology

A pseudoscience involving the assessment of traits and dispositions by measuring the size and location of bumps on the skull.

Faculties

Individual traits believed in phrenology to reside in specific areas of the brain.

Physiognomy

The practice of using facial features, such as the appearance of the eyes, nose, chin, and forehead, to evaluate traits and mental capacity.

Mesmerism

The belief that body fluids ebb and flow by magnetic principles and that illnesses could be cured by realigning these fluids using magnets or electrodes.

Spiritualism

A field involving purported contact with ghosts and spirits of the dead.