Scientific Practices

Why do we need psychological science?   

• To understand human behavior in a way that avoids  bias

-overconfidence- intuition that we overestimate

-hindsight bias- the belief that we hold on to despite knowing the outcome (I knew it all along)

-perception of order in random events- believing that a pattern is occurring in a situation when its actually random

-need for critical thinking- help psychologists from immediately jumping into conclusions without more observation 

*false consensus effect- the tendency to believe that others are thinking the same way as us 

*bias:  expectancy, experimenter, sampling- 

*Expectancy bias- when the researcher allows his or her expectations to affect the outcome of the study  

Ex. A teacher unconsciously giving a student more opportunities to succeed because they believe in them  (distorts one’s events to match their expectations) 

• Guy controlling the horse how he can read letters and etc s

 *Experimenter bias/confirmation bias- when research allows his or her personal beliefs to affect his/her study  

Ex. The owner of the horse influencing the horse’s behavior in order to multiply and divide (this fact lead to people rejecting it and believing that the horse is naturally gifted)

*Sampling bias- the participants of the research are not randomly assigned (unrepresentative)

Module 5 - The Scientific Method and Description

-theory and hypothesis 

- Theory- an explanation of organized ideas  

- hypothesis- an testable prediction 

*empirical investigation- collecting objective information first by making careful measurements based or experience (uses evidence to come with a conclusion through experience or careful measurements of people)

-operational definitions - a carefully/particularly worded statement that can be used in a study 

- a good operational definition can be replicated and gain the same results  

- be extremely specific when stating hypothesis 

- explain how variables will be measured in real life in context of the study 

-replication- the recreation of a study with different people in different situations 

 Differentiate types of research with regard to purpose, strengths and weaknesses

-case study– a study of a particular individual or group in depth

-naturalistic observation- an observation of  naturally occurring behaviors without controlling or manipulating anything 

*Hawthorne effect- the idea of working better when you are watched

-survey- a researching technique used to produce a self-reported attitudes or behaviors of  participants of a group usually by questionnaires 

*longitudinal studies- studies that last for a long period of time 

*cross-sectional studies- studies that experiments on a individuals in different stages of their life (snapshots)

Random Sampling

-sampling bias-  a flawed sample processing that creates an unrepresentative sample of the whole population

-population- everyone in the group that is being studied 

-random sample- an sample of a population that equally represents everyone in the population (equally have the chance to be included in the study)

*representative sample- a sample that equally has a chance to include everyone in the population 

*random assignment- people being randomly assigned be in an experimental group or control group in an experiment 

* random selection- the process of randomly selecting people to make an random sample 

Discuss the value on the reliance of operational definitions as a measurement in research.

Operational definitions make the variables in the study  specific enough to be applied in real life. These studies can be replicated and can gain the same results.  

replication - a recreation of a study with different situations and subjects 

Module 6 - Correlation and Experimentation

Describe how research design drives the reasonable conclusions that can be drawn

Correlation: the relationship between two or more variables predict each other 

-scatterplots- used to gather data to find correlations (the less scattered the data points are, the more correlation they have with each other)

*positive correlation- variables that go in the same direction (+1.00 max) 

Ex. the more you smoke, the higher risk you are of getting lung cancer 

*negative correlation- variables that go in opposite directions (-1,00 max) 

Ex. The less amount of sleep I get, the more sleep deprivation I have 

-correlation coefficient- counts by (-1,00-+1.00) on how correlated both variables are (degree of correlation) 

-illusory correlation- the perception of a false correlation (believing it exists)  

-We believe that random occurrences are a pattern of sort, which makes us think that two variables are correlated with one another when their not 

Experiments:

-experimental group- a group that receives special treatment in the experiment 

-control (group)- the group that doesn’t receive any special treatment and are used to compare with the experimental group 

-random assignment- participants being randomly assigned to be an experimental group or control group  

-independent variable- a variable that can be changed/manipulated 

-dependent variable- a variable that is affected by the independent variable 

-confounding variables - factors that affect the dependent variable other than the independent variable

*placebo effect- the belief  of a person upon taking the treatment  thinks the treatment is actually effective (stronger the connection with the brain and body to have pain relief)

*order effect- participants response in various conditions are affected by other factors that they were exposed to

-blind  vs  double blind procedures - double bind procedures is when both the participants and researchers don’t know who got the treatment or not while blind is when the participants don’t know if their the experimental group or not 

*applied  vs  basic research-   

• Applied research is when the research is applied for practical reasons  while basic research is the pure science (basic understanding of psychology) 

Module 7 - Statistical Reasoning in Everyday Life

Apply basic descriptive statistical concepts, including interpreting and constructing graphs and calculate simple descriptive statistics 

-*measures of central tendency- a single score that represents the entirety of scores 

-variation- the variety of scores 

-frequency distribution- number of observations of a particular variable   

Frequency polygon- graph that represents the frequency distribution 

Histogram- a bar graph that contains data from descriptive statistics

Scatter Plot- graph created to see how clustered data points are

-range- the difference between the highest and lowest values in the set of data 

*outliers- numbers that are way off from the usual distribution 

-normal curve- bell-shaped, symmetrical curve 

-standard deviation- the deviation between each of the data points 

-mean, median and mode 

 - Mean - arithmetical average 

- Median - the middle number that is half of the values greater than average and half of the values less than average 

Mode- the value that most frequently occurs in data 

-statistical significance (P value)- the % of an event resulting a certain way by chance  

- less than 5% means that they are statistically significant (not caused by chance)  

- the lower the P value is the stronger the evidence 

*z scores- a statistical measurement that describes a value’s relationship to the mean of group values (think of the what Ms.Belotti taught you)  Observed value- mean/ standard deviation= z score  

• How many deviation scores away from the mean 

positive and negative correlation- 

positive skew and negative skew- representations of scores that are outliers of other values  

Positive skew- long tail first then goes back into standard deviation 

negative skew- standard deviation then transitions to long tail 

*inferential statistics- statistics where they make a generalization that the data can be applied to the real world (other scenarios)

-descriptive statistics- numerical data which is basically a summary that describes characteristics of the groups 

 Distinguish the purposes of descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. 

Inferential statistics makes generalizations about the data to be applied to reality, meanwhile descriptive statistics are general summaries of data and measures central tendency to gain characteristics of the data. 

Module 8 - Frequently Asked Questions About Psychology

Identify how ethical issues inform and constrain research practices

Ethical issues such as human and animal abuse need to be avoided as much as possible. Research must be as harmless to the participants as possible.  

Describe how ethical and legal guidelines protect research participants and promote sound ethical practice.  

Ethical and legal guidelines by the American Psychological Association avoids experimentation from becoming unethical/inhumane. 

-American Psychological association- an association that controls the study of psychology 

-Institutional Review Board- Division of APA  (approves experimentation for humans) 

Ethical Principles for humans - 

Informed consent- explain the experiment enough for people to make a choice if they want to participate or not    

• Avoid deceptions (lying) about the experiment  

• Keep personal information of participants private (confidentiality) 

• Debriefing them on what happened  

• Debriefing- post-experiment explanation ( includes explaining deceptions and manipulation to the participant) 

-Institutional Animal Care- Division of APA (approves experimentation on animals) 

3 Rs 

Replace- Try  to use animals that are not invertebrates and are less responsive alternatives as much as possible 

Refinement- regulations to avoid harming animals as much as possible 

Reduction- use as less animals as possible   

Culture- the shape of ideas, behavior, attributes, traditions from a group of people (affects people’s behaviors/beliefs)

• Individual cultures- focuses on personal achievements/ goals  

• Collective cultures- emphasizes on group goals, cooperation   

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• Psychology brings us answers to general questions about society and life