BBH 310 - Research Strategies for Studying BBH: Scientific Understanding of Behavior

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms and definitions from BBH 310 lecture notes on scientific understanding of behavior, ways of knowing, pseudoscience, goals of behavioral science, elements of causation, and research types.

Research

Social and intellectual activity that involves systematic inquiry aimed at accurately describing and explaining the world.

Performance Management

The practice of measuring how well an organization or program is doing to identify areas for improvement.

Evaluation Research

Research designed to assess whether specific actions or interventions implemented to improve a program actually work.

Intuition

The understanding of something without the need for conscious reasoning.

Anecdote

A story about a real event or person.

Illusory Correlation

A cognitive bias that occurs when focusing on two events that stand out and occur together, leading to a false conclusion that they are related.

Scientific Skepticism

The principle that ideas must be evaluated on the basis of careful logic and the results of well-conducted scientific investigations.

Empiricism

The practice of relying on observation and experiment, especially in natural sciences, requiring knowledge to come from collected and analyzed data.

Falsifiability

The property of a scientific idea or theory that it should be testable using scientific methods and capable of being shown to be false.

Peer Review

The process of judging the merit of research by other scientists who possess the expertise to evaluate it.

Pseudoscience

The use of seemingly scientific terms and demonstrations to support nonscientific claims.

Facilitated Communication

A pseudoscientific procedure where an individual holds the hand of a person with severe autism to facilitate typing on a keyboard.

Astrology

A pseudoscientific belief system linking astronomical phenomena to events or personality types in the human world.

Feng Shui

An ancient Chinese system of mysticism and aesthetics based on astronomy, geography, and the putative flow of qi.

Carnivore Diet

A fad diet that strictly includes only meat and other animal products.

Aromatherapy

The practice of using aromatic materials, including essential oils and other compounds, with claims for improving psychological or physical well-being.

Temporal Precedence

An element of inferring causation requiring a specific order of events in which the cause precedes the effect.

Covariation of Cause and Effect

An element of inferring causation stating that when the cause is present, the effect occurs, and when the cause is not present, the effect does not occur.

Elimination of Alternative Explanations

An element of inferring causation requiring that all other potential causes for an observed effect must be ruled out.

Reverse Causation

An alternative explanation for correlation where the assumed outcome variable actually causes the predictor variable.

Common Cause Theory

A scenario in which an unmeasured third variable causes two separate variables, giving rise to a spurious relationship or correlation between them.

Basic Research

Scientific inquiry that addresses fundamental questions about the nature of behavior and theoretical issues concerning basic phenomena.

Applied Research

Scientific inquiry that addresses practical problems and potential solutions, such as program evaluation and implementation science.