AP Psych (Study Guide)

Unit 0

Its a experimental method that is used on very special cases. ex: child who’s prodigy at math

Case study

Case study are for unique cases so it’ll be hard to replicate the same condition and conduct a experiment with it

Why use case study instead of experiment?

A careful worded statement used for the procedures in study. ex For this test, intelligence consist with studying every night

What is operational definition? Give an example.

Self-report bias is when the person inaccurately reports their behavior

What is self-report bias?

result in inaccurately because the participants had falsely reported their behavior

How can self-report bias effect survey results?

To ONLY search for information that supports along with your beliefs

ex: republicans watching Fox News

What is confirmation bias?

Naturalistic observation is when a researcher is watching a animal’s habitat without any sorts of conflicts

What is a naturalistic observation?

It means that an idea, hypothesis can be proven wrong by observation or experiment

What does it mean for a theory to be falsifiable?

a equal opportunity that you’re chosen from the population, doesn’t represent bias

What is a random sample? (0.3)

A group of people chosen because they’re easy to reach an close by hand

What is a convenience sample? (0.3)

It only relies on easy reach people then using random selection

What are issues with this convinence sampling?

When the participants respond in a way they presume the researchers want them to

What is social desirability bias? (0. 3)

An experiment is where you take two group (experiment and control) to test out hypothesis ex: caffeine makes you more alert

Define an experiment. (0.4)

When there are two groups being compared to

How do you know if a study is an experiment?

To test cause and effect

When is the most appropriate times to use an experiment?

Can show us the cause and effect relationship between two variables

What can experiments tell us that other studies cannot?

The variable that is being manipulated. Caffeine is the independent variable

What is an independent variable? Give an example. (0.4)

The outcome ex: the alertness of the people after intaking caffeine

What is a dependent variable? Give an example. (0.4)

because correlational is when two variables have a relationship but that doesn’t indicate why they cause one another.

Why can we not infer causation from correlation? (0.4)

A third variable is something that has an influence on the results of the experiment

What is a third variable in correlational research? Give an example (0.4)

Placebo is when the control group receives a fake substances that a replicate of the actual one. Used to deceive.

What is the placebo effect? What’s an example? (0.4)

scale from +1.00 to -1.00 with 0 being no correlation

What is a correlation coefficient? (0.4)

the amount of hours you study and good grades

What are examples of strong correlations coefficients?

How big your feet is vs how much you make

Weak correlation coefficients?

variable that is consistent and not change ex: age or size of pill

What is a confounding variable in experiments? Give an example. (0.4)

use randomization or statistical methods

How do we avoid confounding variables?

Radom assignment is when a group is randomly put into a group without knowing if they’re experimental or control group. It’s differ from random sampling because it’s a group and not a sample. We need it to compare and contrast.

What is random assignment and how does it differ from random sampling? Why do we need to do it?  (0.4)

Correlational study is the study of two variable and their relationship between each other

What is a correlational study? (0.4)

The experimental group is the group given the treatment

What is an experimental group/condition? (0.4)

The control group is the group given a placebo and served as a comparison group

What is a control group/condition? (0.4)

It’s when the researchers or participants don’t know what they’re getting their selves into

What are blind procedures? (0.4)

Because sometimes it doesn’t show bias as to what the researchers believe

Why do we need blind procedures?

it’s when the results fall back to the average which could throw off the results. happens during repeated measurements whenever a system or variable is involved and chance or high variability

What is regression to the mean? When does this happen? (0.4)

For a study to be generalizable, you would need to have a sample that doesn’t represent bias

How do we ensure that a study is generalizable?

Informed consent: if a participant is under the age of 18, their guardian also needs to have agreement to it

Protection from harm & discomfort: subjects cannot be exposed to unnecessary harm or discomfort

Debriefing: sometime true purpose cannot be relieved leads to → deception ( a form of lying in order to hide the truth because it can influence the result)

What are the ethical guidelines required by the APA for research? (0.5)

Its important because its one of the ethical guidelines to be followed and not expose their private information

Why is anonymity/confidentiality of participants important? (0.5)

Interventional Review Board. we need this because they look over the experiments and researches

What is an IRB? Why do we need them? (0.5)

high variability on a graph is a low curve meanwhile a low variability is a high curve

What do distributions look like that have high variability (higher SD) vs low variability (Lower SD)? (insert graphs here) (0.6)

standard deviation is how widely the numbers are spreaded out. Helps us how spread out the numbers are to find out the mean and standards between scores.

What is standard deviation? How do we use standard deviation information to help us understand the data? (ex: Mean is 75, SD=5). (0.6)

68, 95, 99.7

What is the percentages for normal distributions? (within one SD, 2 SD, 3 SD?) (0.6)

Positive: Both variable goes up

Negative: One goes down and one goes up

Zero relationship: no correlation

In scatterplots, what do different types of relationships look like? (positive, negative, zero relationship) (0.6)

is how likely it is that a result of an experiment is due to the unlikely chance of it happening and set to 5% or lower

What does it mean if a research finding is statistically significant?(0.6)

What do skewed distributions look like? What does a normal distribution look like? (0.6)

add all values and divide by the number of values

Understand how to calculate mean

your behavior and mental processes are affected by past experiences and your childhood

ex: drug addiction mat occur because someone experienced a traumatic event in their childhood

Psychodynamic/psychoanalytic

mental processes used in thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

ex: explore why drug addiction may impair memory function

Cognitive

behavior and though processes are learned through observation and conditioning

ex: someone sees a person use drugs, and wants to be popular for theirselves

behavioral

free will and self-actualization

ex: someone chooses to use drug with free will due to their emotional and psychological needs not being met

Humanistic

behavior, thoughts, and feelings

ex: someone is born with a genetic predisposition to become addicted to drugs

Biological

social and cultural influences on behavior and mental processes

ex: someone does drugs because their friends do drugs

Sociocultural

human behaviors and thought patterns required for survival/reproduction have adapted from the environment and evolution

ex: ancestors practiced behaviors that brought pleasure because it meant survival, and these behaviors are passed down to offsprings

Evolutionary