Studied by 3 people
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
Note 
Flashcard (86)