AP Psychology: Unit 0 Review

Intro to psych: ethics, experimentation, data analysis

1. Informed consent/assent

Participants must know they are being researched and give consent, have the right to leave the study (informed assent - parents of people under 18 must give consent)

2 - Debriefing procedures

Participants must be told true purpose of the study and be able to receive results to that study

If deception is involved…

Must not be so extreme that it invalidates the informed consent and only allowed if necessary

3 - Confidentiality

participants information and data must be kept private and only known/used by research team

4 - Anonymity

Identities of participants must not be revealed in any way by researchers

5 - Protection from harm

participants must not be placed in significant mental/physical harm, subject to IRB approval

Descriptive studies

Describes behavior and mental processes, case studies, observations, metanalysis, non experimental method

APA sets guidelines for

research involving human participants

All studies must get approved by

An IRB board

Scientific method

System of gathering data so that error and bias in measurement are reduced

Theory

integrated set of principles that explains, organizes, and predicts behavior and events ex. “eating breakfast makes a difference in academic performance”

Hypothesis

How do we test that theory? Ex: If somebody eats breakfast everyday before their classes, their grades will improve by at least 2% in two weeks (must be very specific, and use numbers)

Operational definition

Specific identification of all variables in a study ensures data is not flawed, allows for replication of a research study, uses different participants in different situations to see if those circumstances apply to different people, and leads to generalizability Ex: Tall is over 72 inches in height

Correlation research

Predicts relationships between 2 things when studying behavior and mental processes

Experimental research

Shows cause and effect (explains and controls) in studies involving behavior and mental processes

Replication

Repeating a research study with different participants and circumstances, Why we need operational definitions

Generalizibility

Replicating studies to the general population from your sample

Representative sample

accurate sample that truly represents the members of the population

Sampling/confirmation Bias

Using the first 50 people you know for a study, under-represented/bad replication

Descriptive research: Metanalysis

Descriptive studies: Case studies

In-depth study of a sample, usually used when something is unique/unusual

Psychodynamic approach

How unconcious and unresolved childhood conflicts greatly affect how you think today Keywords: unconcious, unresolved, unaware, buried

Behavioral approach

Things you DO (observable), opposite of biological, Keywords: actions, behaviors, learned

Humanistic approach

People are born “good” and society either blocks or helps these goals Keywords: growth,”everyone is good”, how people grow

Cognitive approach

Mental process that can’t be seen Keywords: Thinking, knowing, memories, making decisions

Biological Approach

Based off genetics, nervous system, brain chemicals/physical reasons explainations ONLY PHYSICAL

Socio-Cultural Approach

How social groups affect individuals, individual behaviors influenced by peer groups/family/culture Keywords: social groups, unresolved conflicts

Evolutionary Approach

Certain behaviors people have due to survival Keywords: Natural Selection, Survival of the fittest, mate selection

Eclectic approach

analyzes same human behavior from different perspectives

Biopsychosocial approach

explained from biological, cognitive/behavioral and social cultural perspectives

Critical Thinking: 1. Curiosity

Does it work? When put to the test can its predictions be confirmed?

Critical Thinking: 2. Skepticism

How do you know? What do you mean?

Critical thinking: 3. Humility

What do we need to explore furthur/”The rat is always right”

Non-Experimental Studies

Coorelation and Descriptive Studies

Case studies

a study used for an unusual group Issues include:Generalizibity (how does this apply to a general population?)

Number scales: Nominal

Qualatative (descriptive, interpretation based) ex. 1-democrat 2-republican

Number scales: Ordinal

Quantatative information, intervals are not related

Number scales: Interval

Change in numbers means something, ex. 10 pt difference in ACT score, A and B scores

Number scales: Ratio

Quantatative information, ex. 4x as happy, 2x as sad, etc

Descriptive statistics

Describing a set of data and making it meaningful (How do we communicate the data we gather/the descriptive studies to others?)

Measure of central tendency

middle/average data, “What does the data set typically look like?”

Measures of central tendency: Mean

Can be found by adding up all data and dividing It by the number of people whose data is collected (3+3+3+3=12/4=3 mean) also average of all data

Measures of central tendency: Median

Middle data/number, can be found by ordering data in high/low order, and get middle number (ex. 10,9,8,7,7=8)

Measures of central tendency: Mode

Largest amount of one number, aka “most”, (ex. six of =7, one of= 8, 3 of = 6 Mode=7 because largest amount of the group of 7s

Bimodal Distrobution

2 different groups on the same graph (The smaller the standard deviation, the more alike the scores are, the larger, the more spread apart)

Empirical distrobution on a normal curve

68,95,99

Coorelation studies usually have…

tied to..related to…connected..tends to…gets…has..more/less..

Coorelation studies: Directionality

How variables go in one direction, indicated by a blank or a - on r (same direction=postitive, opposite=negative)

Coorelation studies: Coorelation Coefficent

indicated by absolute value between 0-1.0 on r (How strong is the relationship on a scale of 0-1?)

Coorelation is not..

Causation

Population

group in which you got your sample

Sample

represents people in experiment

Control

group for comparison in experiment

Independent Variable (IV)

Variable that is manipulated in experiment

Dependent Variable (DV)

variable that researcher(s) observe and measure for an effect/result

Things studies have to have: Reliability

consistent/same results and can be replicated

Things studies have to have: Validity

accurately measured results

Convinience sampling

experimenting people you know/first 20 people, inaccurate sample of population

Null hypothesis

Hypothesis that claims that the effect studied does not exist. “Tooth flossing does not affect the number of cavities.)

Experiment

has independent and dependent variables, a control group, and things are being manipulated. (does A cause B to happen?) ONLY STUDY THAT SHOWS CAUSATION/CAUSE-EFFECT

Illusionary Coorelation

Seeing a connection between 2 variables when there is none (NOT Gambler’s Fallacy, that’s seeing a distinct pattern in something random)

A Hypothesis is in..

If….Then….

Bias: Percieving events in random order

seeing patterns in random events when there is none, also called “Gambler’s Fallacy” (not to be confused with illusionary coorelation, which is seeing a connection with two variables when there isn’t one)correlation

Bias: Hindsight bias

tendency to believe that you forsaw an outcome after it happened “I knew it all along”

Bias: Overconfidence

Tendency to be more confident than correct

Critical thinking

Thinking that doesn’t automatically accept arguments and conclusions without evidence

Peer-Reviewed Research

research evaluated by scientific experts to verify originality, theory and accuracy

Replication

Repeating the same study swice with different participants to see same/different results

Scatterplot

Graphed cluster of dots that represents the relationship of a coorelation

Positive coorelation

both variables rise or fall together (→→) (←←)

Negative coorelation

variables relate inversely, one goes up the other down, (←→)(→←)

Third variable prolem

Third reasoning/coorelation for problem or causation

Survey

Research technique that questions a sample of people to collect information ex. Survey on if people are Democrats or Republicans

Self-report Bias

Bias when people report their own behavior inaccurately

Social Desirability bias

survey respondents answer questions favorably to the public

Confounding variable

Factor other than factor being studies that influences results (not 3rd variable problem, this applies to all studies not just coorelation)

Single Blind procedure

experimental procedure where participants are unaware they received treatment/anything

Double-blind procedure

experimental procedure where both participants and researchers are unaware if participants recieve treatment/placebo

Qualitative tools

tools based off indepth, narrative data that cannot be translated into numbers

Structured interview

set questions set in advance for an interview

Quantative tools

tools to measure peoples emotions/feelings with numbers and data

Likert scales

something to quantify how people feel about something

Range

lowest score subtracted by highest score, shows the difference between variables (100-50=50)

Positive skew (distribution of scores)

Only a few scores are in upper range (mean>median> mode

Negative skew

All high scores, only a few low scores (mode>median>mean

Percentage rank

percentage of scores lower than a given score

Regression Towards the mean

“Line of best fit”, more groups, more regression towards average

Statistical Significance (P value 0.5)

how likely it is that a result occurred by chance assuming there isn’t a difference in populations