AP Psychology - Unit 0 Assessment: Psychology as a Science

Defining Psychology: What is PSYCHOLOGY?

• Psychology is the scientific study of behavior (actions) and mental processes (thoughts).

  • social science that involves the study of people

Enduring Issues in Psychology: Nature vs. Nurture

• Nature: we are the way we are because of genetics

  • Ex> born shy

• Nurture: we are the way we are because of our experiences

  • Ex> we become shy; your mom tells you to stop asking questions after a long day of work, so you begin to believe asking questions is wrong

Enduring Issues in Psychology: Person vs. Situation

• Person: to what extent are you the same regardless of situation

  • Ex> the way you act in school is the same way you act with your parents

• Situation: we change who we are based on the situation

  • Ex> the way you act in period 2 is different from the way you act in period 3 because the peers in the class

Enduring Issues in Psychology: Mind vs. Body

• Mind: to what extent do our thoughts affect our physical being

  • Ex> stress compromises immune system

• Body: your body affects your thoughts

  • Ex> sleep deprivation causes hallucination; how much you eat affects your mood

Enduring Issues in Psychology: Status Quo vs. Change

• Status Quo: to what extent are you the same over our life span

  • Ex> never becoming more willing to voice opinions over time

• Change: to what extent do you change over our life span

  • Ex> becoming more willing to voice opinions over time

Enduring Issues in Psychology: Diversity

• Diversity: to what extent are we more similar or different from each other

  • Ex> IQ

Enduring Issues in Psychology: Are these debates RESOLVED or UNRESOLVED?

• These debates are unresolved

  • → because some people can believe a combination of 2 factors

Schools of Thought in Psychology: Structuralism (oldest school of thought in psychology)

• Founder(s): Titchener

• Beliefs/Contributions: Old School

  • Introspection: encouraged people to introspect or to reflect on the thoughts that are passing through your mind

  • Psychologists categorized those thoughts by breaking them down into basic elements of consciousness, immediate sensations, past memories, feelings → each element/thought has a structure in the brain

• Example Demonstrating School’s Beliefs:

  • Describing an Apple: Instead of saying “it’s an apple,” psychologists ask subjects to break down eating an apple into sensory components (like how sweet it is, its shape, how juicy it is, its texture, how crisp it is, its color, etc.).

Schools of Thought in Psychology: Functionalism

• Founder(s): James

  • Darwin’s influence → applies his ideas of biology to the mind

• Beliefs/Contributions: Old School

  • Conscious experience is adaptive

  • Stream of consciousness: people say whatever comes to mind

    • What purpose do those thoughts have?

  • Why did humans evolve to have different structures of the brain responsible for different thoughts (from structuralism)?

• Example Demonstrating School’s Beliefs:

  • Hot Stove: If you touch a hot stove, functionalism would ask Why do you feel pain? → Pain helps you quickly pull your hand away, protecting you from injury.

    • Structuralism would say What sensations do you feel when you touch the stove? → sharp pain, heat, etc.

Women in Early Psychology: What were the EARLY CONTRIBUTIONS of Women?

• Limited access to education and advanced degrees

  • once banned from getting doctorates

• Exclusion from psychological societies

  • Calkins - 1^st female President of APA (1905)

  • Washburn - 1^st woman to receive PhD in psychology (1894)

• Now, more female psychologists than male

Times have changed (kind of…): What is the role of women in psychology TODAY?

• More women than men graduate with degrees in psychology. But, there is still inequity in terms of money, status, and power (CWP 2017).

Schools of Thought in Psychology: Psychodynamic (Psychoanalytic)

• Founder(s): Freud

• Beliefs/Contributions: Classics

  • Role of the unconscious: there are thoughts that you are aware of, but others that happen subconsciously

    • Sex and aggression

  • Importance of early childhood events

    • What happens to you as a kid is going to shape you forever → nurture

  • Eventually becomes the psychodynamic school

• Example Demonstrating School’s Beliefs:

  • Test Anxiety: A psychodynamic psychologist would say that a student’s test anxiety is coming from childhood experiences of failure in school. They may be having unconscious fears after their parents were upset with them over a previous poor test grade.

Schools of Thought in Psychology: Behavioral

• Founder(s): Watson, Pavlov, Skinner

• Beliefs/Contributions: Classics

  • Observable, measurable behavior: the way I know what you’re thinking is through your behaviors

  • Reaction to…

    • Rejects Freud that we have unconscious thoughts

• Example Demonstrating School’s Beliefs:

  • Relationships: You get your significant others flowers x # of times during the week. Yelling at your spouse can be measured with decibels of volume, so if it exceeds a certain number, it can be concluded that the relationship is unhealthy.

  • Parenting: You compliment your child x # of times per week.

Schools of Thought in Psychology: Gestalt

• Founder(s): Perls, Wertheimer

• Beliefs/Contributions: Classics

  • Primarily concerned with perception: 2 people can perceive the same situation differently

  • Whole is greater than the sum of its parts

• Example Demonstrating School’s Beliefs:

  • Grades: An 80% may seem like a good grade to one person, but the worst grade possible to another person.

  • Relationships: A couple goes in for marriage counseling (Bob & Susan) and they’re having some difficulties. The psychologist asks them what brings them in, and the couple recounts this story where Bob says that Susan had a work trip in LA. He says he’s always wanted to go to California. He thought this would be a great opportunity to enjoy CA together, but his wife didn’t invite him. Bob’s perception of his wife doing this is that she might be having an affair with someone in CA or might not be in love with him anymore. Susan didn’t invite her husband on the work trip because she was going to be in meetings all day. Her perspective is that she knew she wouldn’t be able to spend much time with him, so she believed it would be a waste of his time.

Schools of Thought in Psychology: Humanistic

• Founder(s): Rogers, Maslow

• Beliefs/Contributions: Classics

  • Human potential for growth

    • Doesn’t matter what happened to you as a child (not a victim of a negative childhood), everyone has the power to be successful and live a more purposeful life

  • Importance of free will and acceptance

  • Reaction to…

    • Freud, thinking he is too pessimistic

• Example Demonstrating School’s Beliefs:

  • School: If a student did poorly in elementary school, they are still able to study hard in middle and high school as a way to improve themselves and reach their full potential.

Schools of Thought in Psychology: Cognitive

• Founder(s): Piaget, Ellis, Beck

• Beliefs/Contributions: Classics

  • Focuses on thoughts and thought processes

    • Do you have an optimistic slant?

    • Do you tend to see things in a negative light?

  • Thinking, memory, language, perception

• Example Demonstrating School’s Beliefs:

  • Interview: You can go into an interview thinking you won’t get the job because there are so many other applicants or you can go into an interview thinking you have a good chance to get the job since you prepared well for the conversation.

  • Language: Why do babies learn languages easily but adults have a harder time?

Schools of Thought in Psychology: Evolutionary

• Founder(s): N/A

• Beliefs/Contributions: New Schools

  • Evolutionary psychologists try to explain human behavior and thoughts through looking back at how we have evolved as a species to explain why we are the way we are today

  • At one point, a typical relationship had a big age gape (between 89 and 23)

  • → Nature

• Example Demonstrating School’s Beliefs:

  • Mating Habits (Why does one choose to form a relationship and reproduce with someone else?): Over 1000s of years, men and women have evolved certain traits that they like in the other gender.

    • Men have sought to reproduce with women of child-bearing age.

    • Women have always sought a man of protection, especially during pregnancy, because in the past, women needed protection from cavemen.

    • Today, a relationship between an 89 year old male and 23 year old female would be justified as love for money.

Schools of Thought in Psychology: Biological/Physiological/Neurological (Neuroscience)/Behavioral Genetics

• Founder(s): N/A

• Beliefs/Contributions: New Schools

  • You can understand the mind and behavior by looking at biology and the biological processes happening within someone

  • Focuses on hormones

    • Serotonin (more serotonin → better mood)

    • Dopamine (more dopamine → more alert, energy, focus)

  • Nature

• Example Demonstrating School’s Beliefs:

  • Violence: Why is Bob engaging in violent crimes? Maybe he is having higher levels than average of testosterone, which might be why the majority of violent criminals happen to be men.

  • Brain Injury: If you suffer a brain injury and part of your brain is lost, your mood (mood swings) and personality changes because the part of the brain you lost was responsible for those functions.

Schools of Thought in Psychology: Social-Cultural

• Founder(s): N/A

• Beliefs/Contributions: New Schools

  • These psychologists focus on to what extent does the society and culture you grow up in affect your thoughts and behavior

  • Nurture

• Example Demonstrating School’s Beliefs:

  • NJ v. China: If you were born in NJ, to what extent would you act and think the same way if you were born in China? Would you be a totally different person because the circumstances are different in Shanghai?

Schools of Thought in Psychology: Biopsychosocial Approach (most psychologists fall within this school of thought today)

• Founder(s): N/A

• Beliefs/Contributions: Current Trend

  • Borrows from multiple perspectives

  • Behaviors and thoughts influenced by:

    • Biological Factors

    • Psychological Factors (thought processes, habits of mind)

    • Socio-Cultural Factors (society we live in, culture we live in, friend groups)

• Example Demonstrating School’s Beliefs:

  • Eating Disorder:

    • Biological Factors

      • Diseases (autoimmune deficiency, thyroid issues) that you are genetically prone to and could affect your weight

      • Weight

      • Hormones (can change appearance, and one’s perception of this could make them more prone to developing an eating disorder)

        • Neurotransmitters: Biological predisposition towards lower levels of serotonin (--> more stress)

      • Appetite

      • Food allergies might affect your relationship with food (ex> Celiac Disease)

      • History of anxiety (inhibits appetite, struggling with body image) or depression in the family

    • Socio-Cultural Factors

      • Friends making fun of someone

      • Seeing other people on social media (unreasonable body standard online)

      • Family and their eating habits

      • Cultural customs and food norms

    • Psychological Factors

      • Being unhappy with one's appearance / lack of self-confidence

        • In comparison to yourself with others (“I am _____ compared to my siblings”)

      • Being self-conscious of what you eat

      • Lack of sense of control

      • Anxiety, depression, & OCD

      • Trauma

      • Societal expectations

Psychology Research: Intro - Goals of Psychology

• Describe → what is happening

• Explain → why it is happening

• Predict → use trends, patterns for when it might happen again

• Control → make sure that there isn’t a third factor affecting the 2 factors you are studying before making conclusions (positive outcome)

The Scientific Attitude: What are SCIENTISTS like?

• Be empirical

  • Curiosity

  • Skepticism

  • Humility

• Ultimately, psychologists (and everyone else) must be critical thinkers

  • Do not accept “truths” without first testing them

  • Look at evidence, question assumptions, filter out bias

Scientific Method: What are the STEPS?

Generate a question

↓

Formulate a theory (general, not specific)

↓

Develop a hypothesis (specific, testable)

↓

Test hypothesis

• Operational definitions

• Clear and concise

↓

Replicate (repeat study for validity) → Test hypothesis

OR

Revise → Develop a hypothesis

• Ex>

1. Question: Why do some people not use their turn signal when making a turn in their car?

2. Theory: The usage of turn signals is related to gender.

3. Hypothesis: Male drivers are less likely to use the car's turn signal when making a right-handed turn at an intersection than women.

4. Test: Sit on a park bench

Descriptive Research Methods: Case Study

• a non-experimental technique in which one individual or group is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles

  • ADVANTAGES: in-depth information

  • DISADVANTAGES: time-consuming, small group of people/one person, change behavior because you know you’re being studied (hawthorne effect)

• Ex> a therapist follows one patient with a rare disease for 10 years to track progress and coping mechanisms; locked in syndrome patient is interviewed

Descriptive Research Methods: Survey

• a non-experimental technique for obtaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a particular group, usually by questioning a representative, random sample of the group

  • ADVANTAGES: large sample size, quick and easy to get out

  • DISADVANTAGES: not accurate, lead-in questions where wording causes favorable answers, social desirability bias, not everyone will answer, sampling bias

• Ex> sending out an email to the student body to see who eats breakfast before school; see what % of students favor each food in the international cafeteria

Descriptive Research Methods: Naturalistic Observation

• a non-experimental technique of observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation

  • ADVANTAGES: captures authentic behavior because the subjects are unaware that they’re being observed (minimizes Hawthorne effect)

  • DISADVANTAGES: time-consuming, lack of control

• Ex> a researcher watches customers in a coffee shop to see how often they use their phones while alone vs. with friends; studying mating habits or social hierarchy amongst gorillas

Incorporate the following psychological terminology in your responses…: Hawthorne Effect

• acting differently when you know you’re being observed

Incorporate the following psychological terminology in your responses…: Social Desirability Bias

• giving answers that make you seem like a better person

Incorporate the following psychological terminology in your responses…: Sampling Bias

• only certain people are likely to respond to surveys, creating an unrepresentative sample of population

Correlational Research: What is the GOAL?

• Goal: To identify a relationship between 2 factors (want to see if 2 things are associated/related)

  • Ex> absent days + grade level

• CORRELATION DOES NOT PROVE CAUSATION!!!!

  • just because 2 things are related, doesn’t mean one thing causes another (better attendance ≠ higher GPA)

  • need an EXPERIMENT for cause and effect

• Ex> Instances of polio and ice cream sales had a strong positive correlation in the early part of the 1900s

  • Therefore ice cream causes polio??!!

Correlational Coefficient (r): What does the CORRELATIONAL COEFFICIENT indicate?

• Indicates the strength of a relationship (something about the results of your study)

• Must be between -1 and 1

• Closer to -1 or 1 = strong relationship

  • 1: 2 factors move in same direction (low values on x-axis → low values on y-axis, high values on x-axis → high values on y-axis)

    • Ex> high GPA = high attendance

  • -1: factors move in opposite directions (low values on x-axis → high values on y-axis)

• Closer to 0 = weak or no relationship

  • Ex> Bob = 3.7 GPA → no way of predicting attendance

• Graphed with a scatterplot

Positive or Negative Correlation?

positive

Positive or Negative Correlation?

negative

Match the LETTER to the SCATTERPLOT.

Correlational Research - Pitfalls: What causes PITFALLS in CORRELATIONAL RESEARCH?

• Illusory Correlation: Perception of a relationship when one does not exist (or finding a correlation just because you’re looking for one)

  • Brought on by confirmation bias (only looking for data that confirms your hypothesis = cherry picking data)

    • Ex> if you believe “Crime increases under a full moon”, you will only look at deaths on full moon nights

• Third factor (THIRD VARIABLE/FACTOR PROBLEM) could be the causal factor, causing both factors you’re studying

• Coincidence

Experimental Method: What are its COMPONENTS?

• Manipulate variable and then measure the effect of the manipulation.

• Only research method in psychology that can establish causation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• Results generalizable to outside the lab?

• Ethics

Who is involved?: Experimenter

• Experimenter - person who manipulates a variable and then measures the effect of that manipulation on subsequent behavior

Who is involved?: Subjects (participants)

• Subjects (participants) - individuals whose reactions or responses are observed in an experiment

Who is involved?: Subjects (participants)

• Sample

• Sample: All participants in an experiment (sample size = n)

Who is involved?: Subjects (participants)

• Random Sample

• Random Sample: All potential participants have an equal chance of being selected to be a part of the experiment

  • participants will be recruited through random sampling (use a Random Number Generator)

Who is involved?: Subjects (participants)

• Convenience Sample

• Convenience Sample: Sample drawn from the part of the population that is easy to access for the researcher

  • Ex> psych prof. recruits kids in their psych class as participants

Who is involved?: Confederates

• Confederates: actors in an experiment who pretend to be participants but are actually working for the experimenter

Variables: Independent Variable (IV)

• in an experiment, the factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied

Variables: Dependent Variable (DV)

• in an experiment, the outcome that is measured; the variable that may change when the independent variable is manipulated

Variables: Confounding Variable

• any variable other than IV that could affect DV (bad, don’t want any)

• Goal is to minimize these via experimental controls

• Ex> NuYu drug testing focus → confounding variable = time of day in which test is administered (8 PM for placebo vs. 8 AM for experimental)

  • control by testing both groups at same time

Operational Definitions: What are they?

• What are we measuring and how?

  • How is IV administered

  • How is DV measured

• Allows experiment to be replicated by others

Who goes where?: Experimental Group

• Experimental Group: the group exposed to the independent variables

  • Ex> given NuYu

Who goes where?: Control Group

• Control Group: Group not exposed to the change in the independent variable; used for comparison with the experimental group

  • Ex> given placebo

Who goes where?: How do random assignment and placebo fit in?

• Random Assignment: each participant has an equal chance of being in experimental/control group

  • random sampling → random assignment

  • Experimenter Bias: when you pick and choose who is in each group

• Placebo (Effect): expecting an outcome out of something fake, enhancing performance

  • received by control group, which is used for comparison

Types of Procedures & Placebos: Double vs. Single Blind

• Single - subject doesn’t know who is in control group and who is in experimental group

  • for ANIMAL research

• Double - subject & experimenter don’t know who is in which group

  • ALWAYS use for experiments

• to avoid bias

Types of Procedures & Placebos: Placebo benefits

• Reduces demand characteristics

  • Demand Characteristics: subject guesses hypothesis of study so they act differently

    • Ex> Mr. D’Elia gets debrief form to guess hypothesis of psych study → he guesses it correctly so his data is thrown out

• Reduces chance of confounding variable

Analyzing Results: Statistical Analysis - Statistics Defined

• Branch of mathematics used to organize & analyze data

• Necessary to use stats to understand what results actually MEAN - if they mean anything at all…

  • need to be specific so statistics are used

• Be skeptical of sweeping generalizations

  • Ex> “Males are better at math and science than females”

  • How was this measured?

Descriptive Stats: Scales of Measurement - Nominal Scale

• Set of categories for classifying

• No ranking, just categorizing

• Ex> 12 BMWs, 32 Mercedes, 18 Hondas, 10 Toyotas in student parking lot; conducting a study on what color shoes students tend to wear

Descriptive Stats: Scales of Measurement - Ordinal Scale

• Scale that indicates relative position; ranks data

• Put into an order where items are not equidistant

  • who’s higher and who’s lower

• Ex> GPA; How satisfied are you with the food in the café? (Very Unsatisfied, Unsatisfied, Neutral, Satisfied, Very Satisfied)

Descriptive Stats: Scales of Measurement - Interval Scale

• Scale with equal distance between values, but without a true zero (0 doesn’t mean absence of measurement)

• Ex> degrees (0 degrees doesn’t mean there isn’t a temperature); SAT Scores (Scores range from 400-1600)

Descriptive Stats: Scales of Measurement - Ratio Scale

• Scale with equal distance between values, but WITH a true zero (0 actually means absence of what’s being measured)

• Ex> 0 in of rainfall in August; A correlational study looking at years of job experience and life satisfaction

Descriptive Stats: Scales of Measurement - Likert Scale

• odd # of possible responses (5,7 = common)

• Ex> rate 1-5; strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree

Descriptive Statistics: Frequency Distribution

• A count of the number of scores that fall within each series of intervals

• AKA Frequency histogram and frequency polygon (curve)

• y-axis = ALWAYS frequency

Descriptive Stats: Measures of Central Tendency

• This is a single score that represents a set of scores

  • Mode: most common #, highest frequency

    • Ex> most students got 86 on test

  • Mean: average

    • Ex> class average is an 86 on Unit 0 test

  • Median: middle value (when values are in order)

    • Ex: 92 for data set with 64, 88, 92, 94, 100

Descriptive Stats: Measures of Central Tendency - NORMAL CURVE / NORMAL DISTRIBUTION

• This is a NORMAL CURVE, where all measures of central tendency are equal (mean = median = mode)!

Regression Towards the Mean: What does it mean?

• A variable that is far from the mean will tend closer towards the mean

  • Over time, data will move back towards mean (outliers won’t persist)

  • Regression towards mean is for long term

    • Ex> Bob’s average is a 94 for semester 1, but receives a 22 on the first test of semester 2 → on the next test, his grade should go back up towards a 94 (if not, the average will change); Roulette wheel spun 10 times (9 red, 1 black → 90% red) vs. Roulette wheel spun 1,000 times (522 red, 478 black → 52% red)

Descriptive Stats: Skewed Distributions

• Frequency distribution is asymmetrical (curve isn’t centered in middle)

• Mean, median and mode are different values

  • The mean is dragged in the direction of the outlier

  • Median won’t change because of outlier but mean will (mean is affected by the weight of all the values)

• Skew Left / Negative Skew: Elongated tail at the left with more data in the left tail than would be expected in a normal distribution (mean < median → low outliers bring mean down)

  • Ex> Unit 0 Test Scores: 99, 99, 98, 97, 94, 3

• Skew Right / Positive Skew: Elongated tail at the right with more data in the right tail than would be expected in a normal distribution (mean > median → high outliers bring mean up)

  • Ex> Unit 0 Test Scores: 0, 1, 2, 3, 99

Descriptive Stats: Bimodal Distribution

• As the name implies, a bimodal distribution has TWO modes

Descriptive Stats: Measures of Variation - Range

• max - min

• Not very useful because you are unable to know much about each individual value/average

• Ex> 62-100 range on Unit 0 Test

Descriptive Stats: Measures of Variation - Standard Deviation

• how much do scores vary from the mean in a distribution

• average distance each value lies from mean

• how spread out the data set is

Descriptive Statistics: Measures of Variation - Empirical Formula

• In a normal curve, this number reveals the percentage of scores that fall within a particular range

  • 68% fall within 1 standard deviation from the mean

  • 95% fall within 2 standard deviations from the mean

  • 99% fall within 3 standard deviations from the mean

Inferential Stats: Significant Difference

• Statistically Significant Difference (= difference in means)

  • Ex> experimental group scored an average of an 85% and the control group scored an average of a 77%, so their difference is 8%

  • A component of internal validity - do the results measure

Inferential Stats: Significant Difference - p-value

• p-value: the likelihood that the difference in the DV for the experimental and control groups is due to chance.

  • = probability the results are due to chance

• p < .05 (5% chance results are by chance)

Inferential Stats: Significant Difference - What does it mean to be STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT?

• “Statistically significant” is code for “not likely due to chance”

• “statistically significant” vs. “important”

Inferential Stats: Significant Difference - Difference WITHIN v. BETWEEN Groups

• WITHIN (standard deviation) vs. BETWEEN (statistically significant difference) group variation?

Practice! You’re reading the results of a study:

“Attention scores in the group that used the new drug were 55% higher than in the control group that received a placebo. The results were statistically significant (p = 0.02).”

• In plain language, this means, “The new drug boosts attention. The results of this study were ___ ______ ___ __ ______.”

not likely due to chance

Inferential Statistics: Reliability - When can we generalize about a population based on the results from our sample?

• Sample is a representative sample

• The less variation in the data, the more reliable (if variability is high in a distribution, the mean becomes less meaningful)

• The more examples the better! (ask 2 friends how they like the class vs. asking 25)

• There are no cohort effects present

→ more representative, more generalizable

Inferential Statistics: Reliability - What are COHORT EFFECTS?

• Something happens in time to skew the results 

• Ex> an annual survey about safety given the day after the intruder incident is going to have a lot of responses from students who feel unsafe, but the results would be different if the survey was given the day before

Inferential Statistics: Reliability - To what extent are the findings of the study generalizable?

Beware of Pitfalls!: Hindsight Bias

• When an event has already happened and you know the outcome, easy to say as results are confirmed

• Ex> I knew the Cowboys were going to win (after the game was over)!

Beware of Pitfalls!: Gambler’s Fallacy

• Idea of regression to the mean (something hasn’t happened, so it’s bound to happen)

• Ex> 10 blacks in a row, so the next one has to be red (FALSE, still 50% chance)

Beware of Pitfalls!: How is EXPERIMENTER BIAS minimized?

• Minimized with double blind procedure, random assignment, use of a placebo

Research & Ethics: Consider the studies you read in the summer assignment. Were these studies ethical? Why or why not?

• No, because…

  • MILGRAM (1963): participants led to believe they were administering shocks to a “learner,” but there wasn’t actually anyone on the other side; a tape recording of screaming played as the learner had to increase the voltage everytime they got something wrong; once the recording stopped and there was silence, the subjects assumed they had killed the learner; took place during WWII to determine why the Nazis were so evil → obedience, control

    • undue long-term psychological distress, no true informed consent

  • ZIMBARDO: participants were divided into guards and prisoners to simulate being in a prison where Zimbardo was the “Warden”; study was canceled

    • physical and psychological harm, no good informed consent

      • screaming, dehumanizing names/comments

Who is WILHELM WUNDT?

• German physician, psychologist, and philosopher

• One of the founders of modern psychology

• Established the first laboratory for psychological research at Leipzig University in Germany

What is RESEARCH vs. APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY?

• Research: study of behavior and mental processes, often driven by curiosity for knowledge

• Applied Psychology: uses the findings from that research to solve real-world problems in areas like health, education, and the workplace

What are the differences between: Ph.D./Psy.D./M.D./M.A./B.A.?

• Ph.D.: Doctor of Philosophy

• Psy.D.: Doctor of Psychology

• M.D.: Doctor of Medicine

• M.A.: Master of Arts or Master of Science

• B.A.: Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science

Scientific Method: THEORY

• an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors of events

Scientific Method: HYPOTHESIS

• a testable prediction, often implied by a theory

Scientific Method: FALSIFIABLE

• the possibility that an idea, hypothesis, or theory can be disproven by observation or experiment

Scientific Method: TESTING

• evaluating something to gather information, determine its effectiveness, or make a judgment (conducting experiments/studies to investigate hypotheses)

Scientific Method: OBSERVATION

• act of attentively watching someone else's behavior or a particular event without directly participating in it

Descriptive Methods: POPULATION

all those in a group being studied, from which random samples may be drawn (Note: Except for national studies, this does not refer to a country’s whole population.)

Descriptive Methods: META-ANALYSIS

• a statistical procedure for analyzing the results of multiple studies to reach an overall conclusion

Correlational Methods: SCATTERPLOTS

• a graphed cluster of dots, each of which represents the values of two variables

  • the amount of scatter suggests the strength of the correlation (little scatter indicates high correlation)

Experimental Method: EXPERIMENT

• a research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process (the dependent variable)

  • By random assignment of participants, the experimenter aims to control other relevant factors

Single/Double Blind: QUANTITATIVE vs. QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

• Quantitative Research: a research method that relies on quantifiable, numerical data

  • Ex> likert scale, where questionnaire responses fall on a continuum (“strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”)

• Qualitative Research: a research method that relies on in-depth, narrative data that are not translated into numbers

  • Ex> structured interviews to understand the causes and consequences of individuals’ aggression

What is a HISTOGRAM?

• a bar graph depicting a frequency distribution

What is the difference between DESCRIPTIVE VS. INFERENTIAL STATISTICS?

• Descriptive Statistics: numerical data used to measure and describe characteristics of groups; include measures of central tendency and measures of variation

• Inferential Statistics: numerical data that allow one to generalize—to infer from sample data the probability of something being true of a population

What is GENERALIZABILITY?

• extent to which research findings or conclusions drawn from a specific study can be applied to broader populations

  • determines how much we can trust the results of a study to reflect real-world scenarios

What is EFFECT SIZE?

• the strength of the relationship between two variables; the larger the effect size, the more one variable can be explained by the other

What is a REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE?

• group of individuals that accurately represents the larger population from which it is drawn

What is OVERCONFIDENCE?

• the tendency to be more confident than correct, meaning one overestimates the accuracy of their own beliefs and judgments

  • Ex> A student believes they aced a test, but then receives a grade lower than they expected.

What is SELF-REPORT BIAS?

• bias when people report their behavior inaccurately

Research and Ethics: Setting Standards

• APA

• American Psychological Association

• sets psychological standards

Research and Ethics: Setting Standards

• PsyETA

• Ethical Treatment of Animals

• regulations for animal use in psych studies

  • must prove that this particular study is the only way to validate hypothesis