PSYC 3980 Exam 1 Vocab

Producer

someone who conducts scientific research (researcher, scientist)

Consumer

someone who reads about research and applies it to their lives

Empiricism

knowledge that comes from observation, experience, and evidence

Intuition

knowledge that comes from gut feelings and is influenced by biases/cultural norms/emotions

Theory-Data Cycle Steps (5)

1. theory

2. research question

3. hypothesis

4. data collection

5. compare data with theory

Parsimony/Occam’s Razor

idea that the simplest explanation is usually the best choice

Peer-Review Cycle Steps (4)

1. submission

2. review

3. accepted, rejected, or revise + resubmit

4. publication or not

3 sources of distortion

press release, peer-reviewed article, news and social media

Confound

unmeasured variable that influences both cause and effect

Confederate

a research assistant who is secretly “in on” the study

Probabilistic

findings are not expected to explain every situation every time

Availability Heuristic/Good Story Bias

bias where things that come to mind easily and are more “available” to memory can guide thoughts

Present/Present Bias

bias where you only notice what is present and fail to see absences

Confirmation Bias

bias that is the tendency to only look at information that confirms what we believe (cherry-picking)

Blind Spot Bias

bias that is the belief that we are unlikely to fall victim to any biases

variable

something that varies in a study, has 2+ levels or values

constant

something that could vary, but only has 1 level or value in a study

Construct/conceptual variable

variable that is abstract or theoretical

operational definition

how a construct variable is measured or manipulated

3 ways to operationalize variables

observation, self-report, physiological

3 types of claims

frequency, association, causal

frequency claim

type of claim that uses 1 variable and a statistic/percentage to provide context for a topic

association claim

type of claim that uses 2 related variables and uses terms such as “linked to, at risk for, associated with, correlated with, related to, tied to, tends to, predicts”

causal claim

type of claim that uses 2 variables, with one causing the other. uses terms such as “causes, affects, changes, exacerbates, worsens, increases, reduces, leads to”

3 criteria for casuality

1. covariance

2. no confounding variables

3. temporal precedence

covariance

term used when variables are associated with each other

temporal precedence

idea that the independent variable must come before the dependent variable because you need a suspected cause before having the effect

4 big validities

1. construct

2. external

3. internal

4. statistical

construct validity

type of validity that questions how a variable is being measured/manipulated, and if the operationalization is appropriate

external validity

type of validity that questions if a claim represents other people/contexts or is generalizable

internal validity

type of claim that questions whether there are alternative explanations for the results, stronger when there is no 3rd variables

statistical validity

type of validity that questions whether statistical conclusions are precise, reasonable, and replicable

descriptive statistics

type of statistic that uses percentages, proportions, and means/avg.

inferential statistics

type of statistic that collects data from a small group and uses it to make inferences about a larger group

correlation coefficient (r value)

shows the strength of a relationship or effect

direct replication

when the original study is repeated as closely as possible

conceptual replication

when a study is repeated with the same research question and conceptual variables, but uses different procedures to operationalize the variables

replication-plus-extraction

when an original study is replicated but has additional variables to test more questions

underreported null findings/file drawer problem

research practice where researchers only include significant or strong results

HARKing

research practice where researchers hypothesize after the results are already known

p-hacking

research practice where researchers manipulate participant numbers or data until the p-value is < 0.05

meta-analysis

quantitively combines the results of the study and examines the overall effect size (r and d values)

2 modes of generalizing results to other participants

theory-testing and generalization

theory-testing mode

generalization mode where correlational or experimental research is designed to test a theory

generalization mode

mode used when researchers want to generalize findings from a sample in a previous study to a larger population

nuremburg trials

caused the creation of the nuremburg code (1947)

nuremberg code principles

1. voluntary and informed consent

2. address important questions

3. no unecessary harm

4. right to discontinue

tuskegee syphilis study

study that wanted to see the effects of untreated syphylis on men’s health

milgram obedience studies

study that wanted to see how authority influences obedience

stanford prison experiment

study that wanted to see how people conformed to authority and submission in a simulated prison environment

belmont report principles

1. respect for persons

2. beneficence

3. justice

respect for persons principle

principle that allows individuals to have informed consent and choose whether or not they want to participate in a study

beneficience principle

principle that balances the risk to participants vs. the benefit to society

justice principle

principle protects certain groups from being disproportionately targeted for a study

data fabrication

inventing data to support your hypothesis

data falsification

selectively deleting data or influencing participants

nominal/categorical measurement

measurement type where the data value represents a classification/group/category, has no meaningful numbers, and doesn’t imply a specific order

quantitative ordinal measurement

measurement type where the data represents a rank/order, but the distance between levels don’t have meaning

quantitative interval measurement

measurement type where the data value has order and equal units between each level, but has no true zero

quantitative ratio measurement

measurement type where the data value has order, equal units, and a meaningful zero

face validity

type of subjective construct validity when the measure contains all the parts that your theory says it should

criterion validity

type of empirical construct validity which uses correlational evidence to determine whether a measure actually predicts real-world outcomes (known-groups paradigm)

convergent validity

type of empirical construct validity demonstrating that measures of the same construct are highly correlated (uniform line on graph)

discriminant validity

type of empirical construct validity demonstrating that measures of different constructs are not correlated (scattered plots on graph)

barnum effect

the belief that a general description is accurate about oneself because statements are broad enough to apply to almost everyone