Dr. Drabick's Definition of Psychology and Research Methods

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering introductory psychology terminology, research methods, experimental designs, ethics, and statistical hypothesis testing.

Psychology

The study of the mind, brain, and behavior

Biological Level of Analysis

A level of analysis that examines the physical and root bodily causes of actions, such as genetics and brain structure.

Psychological Level of Analysis

A level of analysis focusing on the individual mind and internal mental processes, including thought, cognition, emotion, and personality.

Environmental Level of Analysis

A level of analysis examining external and social influences on how people act, including social interactions, culture, and surroundings.

Confirmation Bias

A limitation to intuition where researchers notice and accept evidence that proves their favorite theory while ignoring facts that disprove it.

Availability Heuristic

A cognitive shortcut where vivid or shocking events stick out in memory, causing people to wrongly believe those dramatic events happen all the time.

Good-Story Fallacy

A logical error where people believe an idea simply because it sounds like a compelling narrative, even when there is zero data to back it up.

Verifiability

Requires that other researchers must be able to repeat the study to get similar results.

Objectivity

The requirement that researchers keep their personal biases, emotions, and opinions from affecting the data.

Hypothesis

A specific, testable prediction about the relationship between two or more variables, usually derived from theories.

Theories

Evidence-based frameworks that describe, explain, and predict human thought, emotion, and behavior.

Informed Consent

An ethical procedure ensuring psychologists protect human participants by making sure they know what to expect and agree to join freely.

Debriefing

An ethical process where researchers explain the true purpose of a study to participants after its completion.

Introspection

A method focused on internal mental processes where individuals give detailed reports of their reactions to different stimuli.

Empiricism

The belief that all knowledge comes from experience, emphasizing the importance of human observation and the senses.

Psychophysics

demonstrated human senses can deceive us by studying the relationship between physical stimuli and the perception of that stimuli.

Structuralism

attempt to describe the framework of conscious experience using introspection.

Functionalism

An early school of psychology focused on the utility or function of consciousness and how mental processes help people adapt to their environment.

Gestalt Psychology

A psychological approach emphasizing that the mind processes information as whole patterns rather than individual parts, operating on the idea that 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts'.

Cognitivism

The study of mental processes, developed because behaviorism could not fully explain human behavior without considering the mind.

Behaviorism

A school of psychology focused on observable behavior, rejecting the mind or consciousness as the primary subject of scientific study.

Operational Definition

A precise, concrete description of how a researcher intends to observe and measure an abstract concept or variable within a specific study.

Falsifiability

A requirement ensuring a hypothesis can be ruled out and tested, meaning there must be a possible outcome that could prove the prediction wrong.

Occam's Razor (Parsimony)

The principle stating that when two competing theories explain data equally well, the simplest explanation fitting all facts is usually the best.

Validity

how accurately a study measures what it claims to measure

Internal Validity

The accuracy of the cause-and-effect relationship inside a study, achieved by eliminating alternative explanations or confounding variables.

External Validity

The extent to which study findings can be generalized to real-world settings, other people, and different times.

Correlation Coefficient ($r$)

A statistical value falling between $-1.00$ and $+1.00$ that measures the strength and direction of a relationship between two variables.

Positive Correlation

A relationship between two variables where both move in the same direction; as variable A increases, variable B also increases.

Negative Correlation

A reciprocal relationship between two variables where as variable A increases, variable B decreases.

Zero Correlation

A condition in which there is no relationship between two variables, represented graphically by a flat line or random scatter plot dots.

Experimental Study

The only research method capable of proving a cause-and-effect relationship by actively manipulating one variable to observe direct changes in another.

Experimental Group

The group of participants in an experiment who receive the treatment or active manipulation of the independent variable.

Control Group

The baseline group in an experiment that does not receive treatment (or receives a placebo) to serve as a benchmark against the experimental group.

Confounds

Unmeasured outside factors that change systematically alongside the independent variable, damaging internal validity by creating alternative explanations for results.

Random Assignment

A procedure where every participant has an equal chance of being placed in any study group, balancing individual differences across groups.

Law of Large Numbers

A statistical principle stating that as the number of independent trials increases, the observed results get closer to the expected theoretical outcome.

Independent Variable

The variable that a researcher systematically changes or manipulates in an experiment (the hypothesized cause).

Dependent Variable

The variable measured by a researcher to see how it responds to changes in the independent variable (the hypothesized effect).

Null Hypothesis

The statistical claim that there is no difference between groups or no relationship between variables, assumed true until data overwhelmingly contradicts it.

Alternative Hypothesis

The statistical claim that a real effect or relationship exists between variables.

Hypothesis Testing Outcomes Table

Type I Error

A false positive decision where a researcher rejects the null hypothesis even though no real group difference exists in reality.

Type II Error

A false negative decision where a researcher accepts the null hypothesis even though real group differences exist in reality.

Quasi-Experiment

A study that compares groups based on pre-existing variables (e.g., smokers vs. non-smokers) without random assignment or researcher manipulation of the independent variable.

Case Study

An in-depth, detailed examination of a single individual, group, or unique event over an extended period.

Narrative Analysis

A qualitative research approach used to interpret the stories people tell to structure their lives, world, and personal identity.

Distributional Thinking

A statistical approach shifting focus away from just the average (mean) to examine the entire shape, spread, and variation of data.

$p$-value

A metric used to determine whether an observed finding represents a genuine effect or just a random statistical fluke.

Statistically Significant ($p < 0.05$)

A statistical outcome where the researcher rejects the null hypothesis and concludes that the independent variable had a meaningful effect.

($p \ge 0.05$)

Not Statistically Significant

A statistical outcome where the researcher fails to reject the null hypothesis, indicating insufficient evidence to claim a discovery.