AP Psych Unit 1 - Research Methods

hindsight bias
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Terms in this set (35)
hindsight bias
looking back in time makes an event seem as though it were inevitable to happen

ex "i knew it all along"

after smth happens it can seem so obvious that ppl tend to believe they saw it coming
overconfidence
when we are more confident that we know smth than we are correct
the scientific attitude
the main principle of science is to let facts speak for themselves and theres 3 underlying parts to science: curiousity, skepticism, and humility
scientific method
hypothesis, procedure, observation, conclusion, report findings
theory
explanation that organizes observations and tries to predict outcomes
hypothesis
prediction that can be tested

experimental bias can be a problem when testing a hypothesis -> see what they want to see
operational definition
used to cut down on bias

2 parts: a precise statement of the experimenter's procedures and concepts and something that is measured numerically

a good OD should be detailed enough to enable other scientists to replicate the experiment if they wanted -> this way other scientists can support or debunk hypothesis
case study
a thorough study of one person in hopes of learning about ppl in general

problem: one singular person might not exemplify all ppl

purpose: gather info
strengths: inexpensive, only one person
survey
ask questions and details with many more people than case studies but in less depth

can easily quantify data while a case study can not -> this is critical to meet the OD

problems: wording (diff question order, wording or survey), random sampling (surveys must be from a representative sample of the group theyre trying to represent)

purpose: gather info
strengths: inexpensive, can gather info fast
random sampling
every person in the group has the same chance of being selected for the survey

ways:
1) the bigger the number in the original group the better
2) use a computer or machine to do the picking

very accurate at predicting the entire population
naturalistic observationwatching a person or animal behave in its normal surroundings think of a person squatting in a jungle taking notes on monkeys the idea is to interfere or be as little intrusive as possible so the subject behaves normally, then record only what is observed purpose: gather info strengths: handle large numbers of ppl and data weakness: doesnt show causationcorrelationwhen 2 things are related or they go together, they are correlatedcorrelation coefficientmeasure how closely two things go together and is seen either numerically or in scatterplots numerically: scale or one to negative one with pos 1 representing most correlated and neg 1 being most inversely correlated and 0 is not correlation at all scatterplots: bottom left to top right line = positively correlated top left to bottom right = negatively correlated or inverselycorrelation and causationjust bec 2 things correlated does not mean one causes the other, cant prove things from correlation -> could be another factor involved only an experiment shows causation because it isolates one variable to be tested ex: a persons shoe size and vocabulary correlated highly but it is not causationillusionary correlationsppl see correlations that are not there when 2 things happen randomly we link them together however we always remember the times things work and forget the times they do not (when we wrongly conclude the correlate)experimentationthe gold-standard research method is the experiment. all other methods have their pluses but experiments alone show cause and effect purpose: to find cause and effect strengths: shows cause and effect weaknesses: costly, ethical factors may make experiments more impracticalparts of a good experimentrandom selection, random assignment, double-blind procedure, placebo effect, independent, dependent, and confounding variablerandom selectionThe participants come from a large population and are randomly selected to be involved.random assignmentonce chosen to be in the study, participants are randomly assigned to either the control or experimental groupdouble-blind proceduretechnique in which neither the persons involved for those conducting the experiment know in what group to participate is involved cuts down biasplacebo effectppl are often given a placebo in double-blind experiments; tho fake, they believe its real and have real positive benefitsindependent variablewhat the experimenter manipulates. the only thing diff between the experimental and control groupsdependent variablewhat the independent variable supposedly affects -> what is measuredconfounding variablesother factors that might make the experiment go wrong. ones that might effect the DV. we want an experiment where only the IV effects the DV or else we wont know what caused the effect. if the factor occurs the results are confounded random selection, assignment, and good procedures filter out confounding variablescentral tendencyrefers to the center of a bunch of numbers. there are 3 usual measurements of central tendency: mean (average), mode (most frequent number), and median (middle number)measures of variationrange, standard deviation, normal/bell curverangeDistance between highest and lowest scores in a set of data.standard deviationmeasurement of how much the numbers vary from the mean, if all numbers are close the SD will be low and if there is a wide range it will be highnormal/bell curvea graph that often occurs in nature with things like height and intelligent scores on testsvaliditya test or bit of research measures what it's supposed to measure ex: when taking a math test it covers algebra and not sciencereliabilitythe test yields the same results over and overstatistical significancethat the observed difference is probably not due to chance. it is measured by the p value and goes by a 5% rule. the numbers are statistically significant in there is less than a 5% chance they were caused by chancepsychology appliedresearch in a laboratory can test principles that can be applied to everyday life culture comes into play during research; a study in one culture may not be able to be applied to anotheranimal researchscientists study animals bec: their biological systems are similar to humans, life-cycles are short so its faster to study life spans, and bec of ethic to experimenting on humans but controversial unoffical ranking of animals: humans, primates and household pets, mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, insectshuman researchEthical considerations must be made the APA suggest: informed consent and debriefing