Unit 1 APEX Flashcards

descriptive studies

do not test specific relationships between variables; general or specific behaviors and attributes are observed and measured

factorial design

every level of one independent variable is joined with every level of others to create every combination

correlational study

shows the relationship between 2 variables; can be positive, negative, or none; strength from -1 to 1; only used to describe or predict behavior

experiment

proves a hypothesis about cause and effect

null hypothesis

a prediction of no change in dependent variable

directional hypothesis

a prediction of when the independent variable changes, the dependent variable will change

naturalistic observation

studying organisms in their natural habitat or environment without manipulating or controlling anything

lurking variable

a variable not known that may cause a response in an experiment

confounded variable

can’t tell which variable might be causing an effect in an experiment

Hawthorne effect

people change their behavior because they are being observed

quasi-experiment

all experimental processes are followed, but not with a random sample; useful for preliminary studies

significance test

a calculation that answers “how likely is it that my results occurred due to chance alone?”; accepts or rejects the tested hypothesis

P-value

the probability of being due to chance; has to be below 0.5 (5 out of 100 random)

Rene Descartes

a rationalist who developed the Mechanical-Hydraulic theory, which was wrong but came close to describing a reflex. Also believed that the mind and body are separate entities

Rene Descartes

“I think, therefore I am.”

William Wundt

founder of psychology as a science and established the first scientific laboratory to study psychology in 1879; used introspection; believed consciousness is made of basic sensations and elements

introspection

looking inward to examine one’s conscious experience and then reporting it

structuralism

focus on analyzing conscious experience in term of its fundamental structures; named by Edward Titchener

functionalism

consciousness studied according to the functions it serves, not its structures; what someone does is more important than the brain’s structure; founded by William James (the “father of American psychology’)

Gesalt psychology

developed in Germany in 1912; individuals perceive objects and patterns in whole unites and the whole is more than the sum of its parts

Sigmund Freud

a founder of psychoanalysis; rejected structuralism; people don’t consciously control their thoughts and behaviors

Carl Jung

a founder of psychoanalysis; the struggle of emotional pain was natural

Carl Jung

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.”

behaviorism

a theoretical perspective that focuses on observable, quantifiable behavior and relationships between behavior and environmental variables; look at someone’s stimuli and responses

John B. Watson

founder of behaviorism; believed it was unscientific to look inside the mind because it can’t be directly observed

bell curve

a normal curve where most things fall near the middle and less at the edges

cultural tendency

the term for the midpoint/center of distribution; can be measured through the mean, mode, or median

percentile

the percentage of scores in a distribution below a particular score

standard deviation

measures the variability (degree of spread) of a distribution

statistical significance

a condition where the difference between the experimental and control groups is so large that it is unlikely to occur by chance alone

z-score

a standardized score with a mean of 0 and standard division of 1

descriptive statistics

describing/summarizing things you definitely know

inferential statistics

more than just describing; comparing groups, testing a hypothesis, making predictions

mode

use the ___ for describing qualitative data

mean

use the ___ for describing quantitative data that is symmetric

median

use the ___ for describing quantitative data that is skewed to be resistant to outliers