Psychology

• Peer review


  Evaluation of a researcher's work by others working in the same field
• Peer review process


  1. Researchers should be approved by a committee of peers before being undertaken

  2. Final paper should be reviewed before publication
• Peer review


  The most fundamental way to avoid bias
• Single-blind control


  Participants don't know whether they are in the experimental or control group
• Double-blind control


  Neither the researchers who are analysing the data nor the participants know which participant is in the experimental or control group
• Researcher triangulation


  Having more than one researcher carry out an interview or observation or interpret data
• Goal of researcher triangulation


  To have researchers work independently and, hopefully, come up with the same results
• Selection bias


  When a particular group is left out from research
• Selection bias


  • WEIRD (Western educated industrialised rich and democratic cultures)
  • YAVIS (young, affluent, verbal, intelligent and social)
• Self-selection bias


  Volunteers tend to be more highly motivated than the average person or have specific reasons why they want to be in this study
• Ascertainment bias


  When a particular group is left out from research
• Culture


  A dynamic system of rules [norms], explicit and implicit, shared by a group and transmitted across generations, that allows the group to meet basic needs of survival, pursue happiness and well-being, and derive meaning from life
• Formal culture


  Written, law or rule, specific for specific places, times, people
• Informal culture


  Unwritten, norms, specific behaviour for specific environments, places, times
• Elements of culture


  • Norms
  • Roles
  • Values
• Culture


  Gives a shared knowledge that allows you to coordinate with others and achieve goals
• Agencies of socialisation


  • Primary: parents
  • Secondary: peers, media, internet
• National culture


  Quite recent (not the only way to define your culture)
• Etic approach


  Comparison of cultures, research starts with an idea which is then tested by the researcher, often controlled experiments, often compares universal behaviours
• Emic approach


  Understand one culture alone, research starts by experiencing the culture, and then creating an idea, in-depth and sensitive, often uses observations, looks at norms, values, motives
• Surface culture vs deep culture

  Surface culture is explicit, deep culture is implicit
• Acculturation

  The meeting of two cultures, creating potential tension due to different beliefs, values, norms, roles and other behaviours
• Acculturative stress

  Reduced by protective factors
• Acculturation outcomes

  • Assimilation
  • Marginalization
  • Integration
  • Separation
• Reasons to experience acculturation

  • Immigrants
  • Sojourner
  • Students
  • Business people
  • Football
  • Diplomats & families
  • Athletes
  • Expatriates
  • Digital nomads
  • Refugees
  • Lovers
  • Adoption
  • Forced marriages
  • Military
  • Modern-day slavery
• Delocalisation


  Don't fit in
• Identity confusion


  Don't know who you are
• Levels of acculturation


  • Identity
  • Practical
  • Emotional
• Emotion


  Physiological, cognitive, behavioural
• Animals also show the same emotions
• Stress responses


  • Fight or flight
  • Rest and digest
• Emotion


  Key for memory and decision making, link for emotion and reason
• Emotion affects learning processing

  Improves learned performance, increases neural activity, speeds up processing and decisions, enhances
• Stressor


  Anything that knocks your body out of homeostatic balance
• Stress responses


  • Fight, flight, freeze or befriend
• Stress response process


  1. Fast route: goes through the nervous system and activates adrenaline

  2. Slow route: goes through the endocrine system and activates cortisol
• Flashbulb memory


  Highly detailed, exceptionally vivid 'snapshots' of the moment and circumstances in which surprising and personally relevant news was heard
• Brown and Kulik (1977) carried out a classic study on flashbulb memory
• Brown and Kulik study procedure

  Researchers asked 40 black and 40 white American male participants to fill out a questionnaire about the death of public figures and someone they personally knew
• Questionnaire items


  • Where were you when you heard about the event?
  • Who was with you when you heard about the event?
  • What were you doing when you heard about the event?
  • How did you find out about the event?
  • How did you feel when you heard about the event?
  • How important was this event in your life?
  • How often have you talked about this event?