ap psych unit 0 notes

Hypothesis

tentative explanation must be Falsifiable able to be supported or rejected.

Operational Definition

Clear, precise, quantifiable definition or your variables allows replication and collection of reliable data.

Qualitative Data:

Descriptive data (eye color)

Quantitative Data

Numerical data ideal and necessary for statistics.

Population:

everyone the research could apply to

Sample:

the people (or person specifically chosen for your study

Correlation:

identify relationship between two variables

adv: useful when experiments are unethical

dis: correlation does not equal causation

Directionality Problem:

which direction does the correlation go? depression can cause low self esteem, low self esteem causes depression, or a 3rd variable 3

3rd variable:

different variable responsible for relationship (ice cream and shark attacks) Possitive correlation:

Positive Correlation

Variable increases and decreases together.

Negative correlation

as one variable increases the other decreases

Experiments

Purposefully manipulate variables to determine cause and effect.

adv: only type that establishes cuase and effect

dis: can be unethical too artifical

Independent Variable

purposefully altered by researcher to look for effect

Experimental Group

Receive the treatment (part of the 4) can have multiple experiment groups.

Control Group:

Placebo, baseline (part of the 4) can only have 1.

Dependent Variable:

measured variable (is DEPENDENT on the INDEPENDENT variable)

Placebo Effect:

any observed effect on a behavior. that is caused by the placebo shows effectiveness of experiment treatment. Usually fixed with blinded studies

you believe it will work then it will work.

Double Blindness:

Experiment where neither the participant or the experiment or are aware of which condition people are assigned to (drug studies)

Singe Blindness:

only participant is blind used if experimenter can’t be blind (gender, age etc)

Confound

error flaw in study that is accidentally introduced (can be called a confounding variable)

Random Assignment

Assigns participants to either control or experimental group at random- increase chance of equal representation among groups )spreads the lefties across both groups) allows you to say cause and effect.

Naturalistic observation

observe people in their natural settings. Adv: real world validity

dis: no cause and effect

Case study

studies one person usually in great detail

adv: collects a lot of info

dis: no cause and effect

Meta Analysis

Combines multiple studies to increase sample size and examine effect sizes.

Descriptive Stats:

show shape of the data

Mean

Average: use in normal distibution

a measure of central tendency that represents the typical value in a dataset.

Median:

Middle number use in skewed distribution

Mode:

occurs most often

Bimodal:

has two modes: usually indicates good bad sources

Skews

created by outlers

Negative skews

mean is to the left (negative side) mode is to the right

Positive skew

mean is to the right

Range

Distance between smallest and biggest number

Standard Deviation

average amount the scores are spread from the mean

(bigger number = more spread)

Inferential Statistics

establishes significance (meningfulness)

Statisrical Significance

results not due to chance experiment manipulation caused the difference in means

Effect size

data has practical sigificance - bigger = better

confidentiality

names kept secret

informed consent

must agress to be part of study

informed assent:

Minors And their parents must agree

Debreifing

must be told the true purpose of the study (done after for deception)

Deception

when you dont tell the whole truth based on the experiment

must be warrented

Harm

There must be NO harm mentally and physically

short term is okay but not long term

surveys

usually turned into correlation. subject to self report bias

self report bias

errors when collect surve data

social desirability

people lie to look good

wording effct

the way questions are worded can impact your answers

random sample

method for choosing partciapants for your study