AP PSYCH Unit 1 (Mod 1-8)

What are the 3 basic attitudes that helped make modern science possible?

Curiosity, Skepticism, and Humility

Critiical Thinking helped avoid what?

Biases

What were the early school of thought’s?

Structuralism, functionalism, and behavioirlsim.

What issue contemplates the difference between genetics and enviroment?

Nature vs Nuture.

Overconfidence

The tendency to exaggerate the correctness or accuracy of our beliefs and predictions.

Perceiving Order in Random Events

Seeing order or patterns in things that are completly random.

What tempts people to overestimate the value of common sense-thinking?

Hindsight Bias “I-knew-it-all-along”, Overconfidence, and Perceiving order in random events.

Replication is what?

Confirmation

How can case studies be misleading?

If it is individual. Unrepresentative information can lead to mistaken judgements and false conclusions.

What has enabled “big data” observations?

Facebook, Twitter, and Google.

Naturalistic observation does and does not do what?

Does not explain behavior, it describes it.

Because wording is such a delicate matter, critical thinkers do what?

Reflect on how the phrasing of a question might affect people’s expressed opinions.

Correlation coefficient helps us figure how closely what?

Two things vary together; how well either one predicts the other.

Positive Correlation

When the two variables rise and fall together

Negative Correlation

When one variable rises, the other falls (inverse)

Correlation does NOT explain what?

Relationships

Correlation DOES NOT prove

Causation

If an experiment tests what it is supposed to test, it is said to have?

Validity

Descriptive Research Method

Purpose: To observe and record behavior

How: Case studies, naturalistic observations, or surveys.

Nothing is being manipulated

Weakness: No control of variables; single cases may be misleading.

Correlational Research Method

Purpose: To detect naturally occurring relationships; to assess how well one variable predicts another

How: Collect data on 2 or more variables; no manipulation

Nothing is being manipulated

Weakness: Cannot specify cause & effect

Experimental Research Method

Purpose: To explore cause and effect

How: Manipulate one or more factors; use random assignment

Independent variable manipulated

Weakness: Sometimes not feasible; results may not generalize to other contexts; not ethical to manipulate certain variables.

Why do psychologists study animals?

They want to understand how different species learn, think, and behave. Also they study animals to learn about people, humans are also animals.

What 4 things must researchers do when testing humans?

1. Get potential participants’ informed consent to take part

2. Protect participants from greater-than-usual harm and discomfort

3. Keep information about individual participants confidential

4. Fully explain the research after, including any temporary deception

Why do some people think psychology can be dangerously powerful?

Psychology might be used to manipulate people → knowledge can be used for good and evil

Off-the-top-of-the-head estimated often do what?

Misread reality and mislead the public.

What feeds needless health scares?

Statistical illiteracy

In a normal “bell shape” curve 68% of scores fall within what?

One standard deviation of the mean.

In a normal “bell shape” curve 95% of scores fall within what?

Two standard deviations of the mean.

In a normal “bell shape” curve 99.7% of scores fall within what?

Three standard deviations of the mean.

Standard Deviation

Measure of how much the scores vary around the mean score (high SD = data points spread out far from mean)

What 3 principles make it safe to generalize from a sample?

1. Representative samples are better than biased samples

2. Less variable observations are more reliable than those that are more variable

3. More cases are better than fewer

Less variability leads to more?

Reliability