Psychological Research Methods and Ethics

These flashcards cover key concepts related to psychological research methods, including definitions, committees, and reasoning.

Experimental Group

Group designed to answer the research question; experimental manipulation is the only difference between the experimental and control groups.

Experimenter Bias

Researcher expectations that skew the results of the study.

Fact

Objective and verifiable observation established using evidence collected through empirical research.

Falsifiable

Able to be disproven by experimental results.

Informed Consent

Process of informing a research participant about expectations, risks, and implications of the research before obtaining their consent to participate.

Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC)

Committee that reviews proposals for research involving non-human animals.

Institutional Review Board (IRB)

Committee that reviews proposals for research involving human participants.

Inter-Rater Reliability

Measure of agreement among observers on how they record and classify a particular event.

Introspection

Process by which someone examines their own conscious experience to break it into its component parts.

Illusory Correlation

Seeing relationships between two things when no such relationship exists.

Independent Variable

Variable that is influenced or controlled by the experimenter; it is the only crucial difference between the experimental and control group.

Inductive Reasoning

Conclusions drawn from observations.

Generalize

Inferring that the results for a sample apply to the larger population.

Functionalism

Focuses on how mental activities help an organism adapt to its environment.

Hypothesis

Tentative and testable statement about the relationship between two or more variables.