Psych 100 chapter 2

descriptive and correlation research

studies that allow researchers to demonstrate a relationship between variables without specifying a causal relationship

What is a science? (2 cores)

1. The universe operates according to certain natural laws

2. Such laws are discoverable and testable

What is psychological science

- Human mental processes and behavior operate according to certain natural laws

- such laws are discoverable and testable

- messy with humans

how is psychological science different from other sciences

- Humans are incredibly variable

- fewthings remain constant across all humans - variation in body temp

- much of psychology targets of study involve a tremendous amount of subjective judgement

Is there science in psychology

using the scientific method to study human behvaior and mental processes

is there science in pseudopsychology

no use of the scientific method when commenting on human behaviors and mental processes

Bias

distorted beliefs based on a person's subjective sense of reality

ex. Freud assumption abt ppl's unconscious mind baised by own life and worldview

Deductive reasoning (3)

resaoning proceeding from broad basic principles applied to specific situations

ex. team usually wins - tem will win this game

Inductive reasoning

reasoning process proceeding from small specific situations to more general truths

ex. collected data on away and home games - there is home arena effect

Hypothetico-deductive reasoning

process of modern science where scientists begin with an educated guesss, from previous research, about how the world works and then set about designing small controlled observations to support or invalidate that hypothesis

ex. read abt home team wins - predict - collected date to confirm prediction

Hypothesis

a general statement about the way variabes relate that is objectively flasifable

- usually prediction or if/then statement

operational definition

how we decide to measure our variables

- hundreds of ways to measure a variable

population

the entire gorup that is of interest

sample

a portion of the population that is selected for the study

- must represent the population

experimental research

controlled observations in whcih researchers manipulate that presence or amount of the independent variable to see what effect it has on the dependent variables

- allows for causal claims about the relationship between variables

Advantanges and disadvantages of case study

advantages

- helps develop early ideas about phenomena

disadvantages

- researcher bias

- you cannot generalize your results to all people

advantage and disadvantages of naturalistic observation

advantages

- more reflective of actual human behavior

disadvantages

- research bias

- Hawthorne effect - when ppl change their behavior b/c they know they're being studied

advantages and disadvantages of surveys

advantages

- gather information that can be obtained from other methods

- may be able to measure relationship strength between variables

disadvantages

- participant bias

- direction of relationship b/w variables is unknown

advantages and disadvantages experimental research

adavantages

- can establish cause and effect

- can eliminate outside influences

disadvantages

- might not be generalizable

- sometimes unethical

experimental group

the group that is exposed to the IV

control group

the group that isn't exposed to the IV; this group is used to compare how the IV changes the DV

random assignment

- the researcher should randomly assign who goes in which group

- helps groups be balanced in terms of any other factor that could influence the results

how to a avoid bias in your experiment

- treat different to distort findings of research

Double blind procedure

- neither participant or researcher knows who is in which group

statistics

describe and measure relationships between variables

descriptive research

goal is to describe the way things are and identify relationships b/w variables

- mean, std, percentages descibe the way things are

- correlation indicate if there is a relationship b/w the variables

correlation coefficient

the strength and nature of the relationship (-1 to +1)

positive correlation

one variable increases and the other increase

negative correlation

one variables increases, the other decreases

spurious correlations

accidental, meaningless correlations

experimental research data

inferential statistics indicate if hypothesis has been supported or if meaningful difference b/w groups

- mean, std, percentages describe individual variables

- T test, F tests and other tests are how we tell if one mean is truely different from another mean

mean

average of all the scores

Standard deviation

how much the participants scores vary from one another

inferential statistics

cause and effect

- help to draw conclusions about the data

- differences are statistically significant

- calc p-value - lower than 0.05 pretty unlikely if there is not difference/relationship (data is real)

replication

repeated testing of a hypothesis to ensure results from one experiment are not due to chance

- use different research methods

- helps theories and loaw to be developed and refined

- helps other researchers have more confidence in the science they're building on

code of ethics

canadian psychological association

research ethics boards (REBs)

considered the ethics police

- research oversight group that evaluates research to protect the rights of the participants in the study

obtain informed consent

obtaining permission from the participant only after they know what the study involves and the risks and benefits of participating

ethical guidelines for research

- obtain informed consent

- protect participants from harm and discomfort

- protect confidentiality

- participation must be voluntary

- deception or incomplete disclosure

- provide complete debriefing

ethical guidelines for animal research

- animals are used only if the research promises significant benefit to humans or animals

- animals are used if there is no other alternative

- humane methods must be used

- all pain and distress must be limited

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