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Psych: Ch. 2
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| theory | an organized system of assumptions and principles that purports to explain a specified set of phenomena and there interrelationships. |
| hypothesis | A statement that attempts to predict or to account for a set of phenomena; scientific hypotheses specify relationships among events or variables and are empirically tested. |
| operational definition | A precise definition of a term in a hypothesis, which specifies the operations for observing and measuring the process of phenomenon being defined. |
| principle of falsifiability | The principle that a scientific theory musc make predictions that are specific enough to expose the theory to the possibility of disconfirmation; that is, the theory must predict not only what will happen but will not happen. |
| confirmation bias | The tendency to look for or pay attention only to information that confirms one's own belief. |
| representative sample | A group of individuals, selected from a population for study, which matches the population on important characteristics such as age and sex. |
| descriptive methods | Methods that yield descriptions of behavior but not necessarily casual explanations. |
| case study | A detailed description of a particular individual being studies or treated. |
| observational studies | A study in which the researcher carefully and systematically observes and records behavior without interfering with the behavior; it may involve either naturalistic or laboratory observation. |
| naturalistic observation | Observation within the organisms natural habitat. |
| laboratory observation | observation where researchers have control of the situation. |
| psychological tests | Procedures used to measure and evaluate personality traits, emotional states, aptitudes, interests, abilities, and values. |
| standardization | In test construction, to develop uniform procedures for giving and scoring a test. |
| norms | In test construction, established standards of performance. |
| reliability | In test construction, the consistency of scores derived from a test, from one time and place to another. |
| test-retest reliability | giving a test twice—drawback that people usually test better the second time. |
| alternate-forms reliability | giving two different tests with the same information to the same group of people two separate times. |
| validity | The ability of a test to measure what it was designed to measure. |
| content validity | When a test broadly represents the traits in question. |
| criterion validity | the ability to predict independent measures of the trait in question. |
| surveys | Questionnaires and interview that ask people directly about their experiences, attitudes, or opinions. |
| volunteer bias | A shortcoming of findings derived from a sample of volunteers instead of a representative sample; the volunteers may differ from those who did not volunteer. |
| correlational study | A descriptive study that looks for a consistent relationship between two phenomena. |
| correlation | A measure of how strongly two variables are related to one another. |
| variables | Characteristics of behavior or experience that can be measure or described by a numeric scale. |
| positive correlation | An association between increases in one variable and increases in another—or between decreases in one and in another. |
| negative correlation | An association between increases in one variable and decreases in another. |
| coefficient of correlation | A measure of correlation that ranges in value from -1.00 to +1.00 |
| illusory correlations | Apparent associations between two things that are not really related. |
| experiment | A controlled test of a hypothesis in which the researcher manipulates one variable to discover its effect on another. |
| independent variable | A variable that an experimenter manipulates. |
| dependent variable | A variable that an experimenter predicts will be affected by manipulations of the independent variable. |
| control condition | In an experiment, a comparison condition in which participants are not exposed to the same treatment as the experimental condition. |
| random assignment | A procedure for assigning people to experimental and control groups in which each individual has the same probability as any other of being assigned to a given group. |
| placebo | An inactive substance or fake treatment used as a control in an experiment or given by a medical practitioner to a patient. |
| single-blind study | An experiment in which participants do not know whether they are in an experimental or a control group. |
| experimenter effects | Unintended changes in a study participants' behavior due to cues inadvertently given by the experimenter. |
| double-blind study | An experiment in which neither the people being studied nor the individuals running the study know who is in the control group and who is in the experimental group until after the results are tallied. |
| field research | Descriptive or experimental research conducted in a natural setting outside the laboratory. |
| descriptive statistics | Statistical procedure that organize and summarize research data. |
| arithmetic mean | An average that is calculated by adding up a set of quantities and dividing the sum by the total number of quantities in the set. |
| standard deviation | A commonly used measure of variability that indicates the average difference between score in a distribution and their mean. |
| inferential statistics | Statistical procedures that allow researcher to draw inferences about ow statistically meaningful a study's results are. |
| significance tests | Statistical tests that show how likely it is that a study's results occurred merel by chance. |
| statistical significance | When the chance is low that a result came out the way it did. |
| cross-sectional study | A study in which people (or animals) of different ages are compared at a given time. |
| longitudinal study | A study in which people (or animals) are followed and periodically reassessed over a period of time. |
| effect size | The amount of variance among scores in a study accounted for by the independent variable. |
| meta-analysis | A procedure for combining and analyzing data from many studies; it determines how much of the variance in scores across all studies can be explained by a particular variable. |
| informed consent | The doctrine that anyone who participates in human research must do so voluntarily and must know enough about the study to make an intelligent decision about wither to take part. |
Created by:
brbchanel
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