AP Psychology Unit Zero Vocab

Hindsight Bias

The habit of seeing past events as obvious or predictable after they happen.

Peer reviewers

Independent experts in the same specialty or subject who evaluate a researchers manuscript before publishing.

Theory

A well supported idea that describes a phenomenon of human behavior.

Operational Definition

A precise, measurable explanation of an abstract concept or variable. (I.E, hunger, anger, tiredness.)

Replication

Repeating a past research study to test accuracy.

Case Study

An in depth, detailed examination of a single person, small group or rare event.

Naturalistic Observation

A research method where people/animals are observed in their real-world environments without interference.

Survey

Research tool that uses self reported data from participents about their thoughts, feelings, behaviors and opinions.

Social Desirability Bias

The tendency of people to answer questions or act in ways that make them look good.

Self-Report Bias

When people give inaccurate information about themselves on surveys or interviews.

Sampling Bias

When a study group does not accurately represent the population.

Random Sample

A subset of participants are selected from a larger population with an equal chance of selection.

Population

Total group of people/things a researcher wants to study.

Correlation

A statistical measure that describes association/relationships between two or more variables.

Correlation Coefficient

A statistical number from -1.0 to +1.0 (usually written as r) that shows the relationship between two variables.

Variable

Any factor, trait or condition that can change or have different values across people or situations.

Scatterplot

A type of graph that uses dots to sow the relationship between two different numerical values.

Illusory Correlation

A cognitive bias where a person thinks a relationship exists between two things, events or groups when no true connection is real.

Regression Towards The Mean

When you measure something and get a very high/low number, the next time you measure said number, it will likely be closer to average.

Experiment

A controlled study to find a cause and effect link between actions, thoughts or feelings.

Experimental Group

The set of participants who are exposed to a specific manipulation of the independent variable.

Control Group

A set of participants who do not recive the experimental treatment or test intervention.

Random Assignment

The use of chance procedures to put study participants into different groups (i.e. treatment vs control.)

Single-Blind Procedure

An experiment where only the researchers and not the participants know who i being given the real treatment.

Double-Blind Procedure

An experiment where neither the researchers or participants know who gets the real treatment.

Placebo Effect

When a person’s mental/physical health improves after receiving a false treatment, due to their expectations/beliefs that the “medication” will work.

Independent Variable

The factor that a researcher deliberatly changes, controls or manipulates to test its impact.

Confounding Variable

An unmeasured outside factor that changes along with your independent variable and influences the dependent variable.

Experimenter Bias

When a researchers, hopes, beliefs or expectations change how they run a study/view data.

Validity

How accurate a test, tool or study measures what it claims to measure.

Quantitative Research

Collecting, measuring and analyzing numerical data to understand human thought and behavior.

Qualitative Research

Non-Numerical data (I.E. words, thoughts and feelings) used to understand human thought and behavior.

Informed Consent

An ethical/legal process ensuring that therapy clients or research participants understand the goals, risks, benefits and their rights before taking part.

Debriefing

An ethical procedure used after a research study to explain deception and goals to participants.

Descriptive Statistics

Tools used to organize, summarize and show the main features of a data set.

Histogram

A type of graph that shows how often numbers or scores show up in a set of data.

Mode

A term for the numbers/score that shows up most often in a data set.

Mean

The numerical average of a set of scores or data points.

Median

A measure of central tendency defined as the exact middle score or value in a data set.

Percentile Rank

The percentage of scores in a specific comparison (norm) group that fall at or below a given individual’s score.

Skewed Distribution

A set of research data or scores that are not spread evenly in a symmetrical bell curve. (I.E. A test is easy, so 90% of students score well, but 5 fail).

Range

The simplest statistical measure of dispersion or variability in a data set.

Standard Deviation

A descriptive statistic that measures how much individual scores or data points spread out from the group average or mean.

Normal Curve

A smooth, symmetrical graph that shows how data spreads out.

Inferential Statistics

Math tools used in psychology to take data from a small group (a sample) and use it to make guesses/rules about a much larger group (population).

Meta-Analysis

A statistical method used to combine and compare the results of multiple independent studies on the same topic.

Statistical Signifigance

Tells if a study’s result is accurate or a coincidence.

Effect Size

A quantitative measure of the magnitude of difference between groups or the strength or a relationship between variables.