I. Introduction to Psychological Science

George Kelly

said that we humans are little scientists

folk theories

we try to make sense of the world around us; observing it, examining it, and making inferences with what is happening in it. These everyday making sense is what we call as

Commonsense Psychology

the kind of everyday, nonscientific data gathering that shapes our expectations and beliefs and directs our behaviors

Barnum Effect

The tendency to believe personality descriptions as applicable to oneself even if the description is applicable to anybody

Gambler’s Fallacy

The belief that an opposite thing will happen after a series of consecutive phenomenon has happened

knowledge

meaning of Scientia

Psychology .

is the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes

Description of behaviors and human experiences (cognition and emotions)

Predicting psychological outcomes from psychological antecedents

Explaining why psychological phenomena happens

Controlling behavior to improve wellbeing

The Goals of Psychological Science (Bullet Points)

to know the causal factors to explain why a psychological outcome has happened

The Goals of Psychological Science

Temporal precedence

Sufficiency of the causal factor

Necessity of the causal factor

Characteristics of Causality

Temporal precedence:

An antecedent (A) precedes Y

Sufficiency of the causal factor:

Whenever A is present, Y occurs

Necessity of the causal factor:

A must be present for Y to occur

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correlation

a bidirectional relationship may happen, in which the outcome variable may have an influence to the predictor variable

causation

the dependent variable’s change happens after the effects exerted by the independent variable has occurred.

Independent variable and the dependent variable

In studying causality, there are two variables of interest

PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSTRUCT

In psychological research, the topics that we choose to study are considered as

Variable

A psychological construct that may vary between individuals

Phenomenon

A psychological construct that is understood and explored through subjective methods such as interview

INDEPENDENT VARIABLE

A construct that is theoretically assumed to exert some effect on a dependent variable

DEPENDENT VARIABLE

The construct that is measured to see if it is affected by the independent variable

Research

can be defined as “a process or steps used to collect and analyze information in order to increase our knowledge about a topic or issue

Quantitative research

is a type of research in which the researcher collects numerical data to measure a particular construct or variable

Quantitative research

is a type of research in which the researcher collects numerical data to measure a particular construct or variable

Quantitative research

Most often, cause- and-effect relationships

Nomothetic approach

is characterized by studying groups of people and their similarities.

etic approach.

They believe they are mere observers of the objective phenomena happening around them—this is called as the

Qualitative research

is a type of research wherein a researcher explores a particular phenomenon and asks participants regarding their interpretations, subjective meanings, and experiences about that phenomenon

Idiographic approaches

to research are those that give importance to uniqueness and subjective experiences of individuals instead of finding theories and principles that apply to all

emic approach.

researchers are also considered as instruments. This is called as the

Experiment

A method used to examine whether an independent variable causes some changes in the level of another variable called as dependent variable

Experiment

Quasi-experiment

Correlational design

Causal-comparative design

Test development and validation

Meta-analysis

Multivariate analysis

Common Quantitative Designs

Quasi-experiment

A method similar to true experiments wherein an independent variable is examined if it causes some changes in the dependent variable

Correlational design

A quantitative research design in which two or more variables are examined if they are associated with each other.

not equal

Correlation is???? to causation

Causal-comparative design

In this method, researchers want to examine if there are differences in the levels of a particular variable between naturally occurring categories of people

Test development and validation

For psychological tests, surveys, and instruments to be reliable and valid, they undergo rigorous statistical procedures and processes.

Meta-analysis

• A research method wherein researchers acquire data from past research (typically correlational research) and then combine their results to examine the degree of influence of one variable over another variable.

Multivariate analysis

These are quantitative methods that are correlational in nature and examines multiple variables in one analysis.

mediation analysis and moderation analysis

Common multivariate analysis designs in psychology are

mediating variable

is a third variable that explains why two variables are related

moderating variable

is a third variable that explains when or for whom two variables are related