Research Methodology

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What is the main goal of psychology?

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To develop explanations for behavior and mental processes

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What are the three key attitudes of scientific inquiry?

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Curiosity, Skepticism, and Humility

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Flashcards to help review research methodology lecture notes

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50 Terms

1
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What is the main goal of psychology?

To develop explanations for behavior and mental processes

2
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What are the three key attitudes of scientific inquiry?

Curiosity, Skepticism, and Humility

3
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What is a hypothesis?

A statement predicting the outcome of a scientific study

4
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What is a variable?

Anything that can vary among participants in a study

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What two qualities must all hypotheses have?

Testable and falsifiable

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What is an operational definition?

Describing exactly what the variables are and how they are measured

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What is the independent variable?

A stimulus condition that the experimenter changes independently

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What is the dependent variable?

The measured outcome of a study

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What does the independent variable represent?

Stimulus or cause

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What does the dependent variable represent?

Response or effect

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What occurs during the analyzing the results step of the scientific method?

Looking at the data to see if it supports or disproves the hypothesis

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What does it mean to replicate a study?

To do a study over to see if the same results are obtained.

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What is applied research?

Has clear, practical applications.

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What is basic research?

Explores questions that you may be curious about, but not intended to be immediately used.

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What is the experimental method?

A kind of research in which the researcher controls and manipulates the conditions including the IV.

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What are confounding variables?

Variables that have unwanted influence on the outcome of an experiment.

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What is random selection?

Each subject of the sample has an equal likelihood of being chosen for the experimental group

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What is a random sample?

A sample group of subjects selected by chance, or without biased selection techniques.

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What is group matching?

Ensure that experimental and control group are equivalent on some criterions

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What is a representative sample?

Reflects the distribution of important variables in the larger population

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What is ex post facto research?

Research in which we choose subjects based on a pre-existing condition

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What is a correlation study?

Researchers try to show the relationship or correlation between two variables

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What is illusory correlation?

The perception of a relationship where none exists

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What is positive correlation?

The variables go in the SAME direction

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What is negative correlation?

The variables go in opposite directions

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What is survey method?

Method for collecting information or data as reported by individuals

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What occurs in naturalistic observations?

Subjects are observed in their natural environment

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What is a case study?

A detailed picture of one or a few subjects

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What occurs in a longitudinal study?

One group or subject is studied for an extended period of time

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What occurs in cross-sectional studies?

Looks at a cross section of the population and studies them at one point in time

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What is personal/ experimenter bias?

When the researcher allows his or her personal beliefs affect the outcome of the study

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What is expectancy bias?

When the researcher allows his or her expectations to affect the outcome of the study

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What occurs in a double-blind study?

Neither the participants or the experimenters know who is receiving a particular treatment

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What is sampling bias?

The sample is not representative of the general population

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What is selection bias?

Occurs when the participants in the sample are not equally and fairly selected

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What is hindsight bias?

The tendency to believe, after learning the outcome, that you “knew it all along”.

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What is overconfidence?

We tend to think we know more than we do

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What is the Barnum Effect?

Tendency for people to accept very general or vague characterizations of themselves

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What is False Consensus Effect?

Tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors

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What is the Hawthorne Effect?

People work harder and perform better when they are participants in an experiment

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What is the Placebo effect?

Sometimes the act of taking a pill produces an effect if the person believes the pill is active

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What are Order Effects?

The positioning of question or tasks influences the outcome

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What is descriptive statistics?

Just describes set(s) of data

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What is a frequency distribution?

A summary chart which shows how frequently each of the various scores in a set of data occur.

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What is a histogram?

A bar graph that uses vertical columns to visually show frequencies.

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What is a frequency polygon?

A line graph made by connecting the top center scores of the columns of a frequency

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What is the mean?

The measure of central tendency most often used to describe a set of data.

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What is the median?

A measure of central tendency represented by the score that separates the upper half of the scores in a distribution from the lower half

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What is standard deviation (SD)?

A measure of variability that indicates the average distance between the scores and their mean

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What is a normal distribution?

A bell shaped curve