MHS AP Psych Modules 7-8

Ap psych workbook answers for modules 7-8

How does animal research help psychologist better understand human behavior?

• Animals share a common biology with humans

• They can be used to test experimental treatments like surgeries or vaccines

• Many animals share the same behaviors as humans

Describe each ethical guideline:
Informed consent

• Participants need to know what they are getting into before volunteering

• Parents give informed assent if their children can’t consent (not 18)

Harm

Avoid all unneeded harm/discomfort mentally and physically

Confidentiality

Do not share info/data/results about the student. Hippocrates’ Oath

Deception

Keep deception to a minimum, but sometimes deception is necessary for a study to work (Using a confederate). Afterwards, participants must be told they were decepted

Debriefing

Participants must be told of the research/methodology/findings the researchers found after the study is over

IRB

Group that reviews and approves research studies based on if they are humane/ethical

What are descriptive stats?

They describe characteristics, and provide different ways to describe the data. Includes mean, median, mode, range, and standard deviation

Mean

Average. Sum of all data and divide by # of data points

Mode

The most common datapoint in a dataset

Median

Sort the data from least to greatest and pick the value in the middle. (Average the 2 middle ones if the dataset is even)

What is data skew?

Data skew is when the data is influenced by a few way out or outlier scores. 

Positive Skew

The outliers boost the mean up. the mean is less than the median which is less than the mode. For example, 65% of households make less than the average annual income because the average is increased by the # of billionaires

Negative Skew

The outliers bring the mean down. Mean is less than median which is less than mode. A baby in a group of elderly people

Bimodal distribution

More than one “peak”/mode in the graph

Range

Span of scores in a dataset. Biggest-smallest

Std. Dev.

Way to describe how spread out the data is.

What is a normal curve?

A normal curve is when the mean, median and mode are all equal. 

68-95-99% rule

68% of the data is between -1 sigma (unit for 1 standard deviation) or +1 sigma.

95% of the data is between -2 and +2 sigma

99% of the data is between -3 and +3 sigma

Percentile:

If something is +1 sigma, then it is in the 84% percentile

If it is +2 sigma, then it is 13.5% above that, 97.5% percentile

If it is +3 sigma, than it is 2% above that again, so 99.5% percentile

Inferential statistics.

Allows someone to infer or draw conclusions. Determines how reliable/relevant the data is. Statistical significance and effect size.

Stat. Significance

How likely the results of a study were due to chance. This simply means that the results are consistent/reliable not that there is an actual significant effect. The measurement is p and p<0.05 for the research to be taken seriously.

Effect size

Term that quantifies the actual significance of the difference between 2 groups. Sometimes the p value might be low, but there will be no noticeable difference because the effect size is small.

3 things to keep in mind when generalizing conclusions

1. Representative samples are better than biased ones

2. Less variable observations are more reliable (not better) than more variable ones

3. More cases are better than fewer