PSY 12.1 - Semi Final Exam

• Experimental Psychology - scientific and empirical study of the mind
• Scientific Method - standardized way of making observations, gathering data, and interpreting results.
• Goal of the experiment is to determine the cause and effect relationship between the two variables.
• Controlled experiment - done inside the laboratory with controlled setup
• Naturalistic Observation - observation in the real world.
• Phenomenology - description of an individual's direct/immediate experiences.
• Case studies - descriptive record of a single individual's experiences, behaviors, or both, kept by an outside observer.
• Field Studies - no manipulation of antecedent conditions, but the degree of constraint on responses varies. A non experimental approach.
• Participant Observer - researcher becomes part of the group being studied
• Archival Studies - examines existing records to obtain data and test hypotheses about the causes of behavior
• Qualitative research - relies on words instead of numbers and focuses on self-reports and personal narratives.
• Survey research - participants are asked to respond to a series of question about a range of topics.
• Probability sampling - every member of the population has the chance of being selected
• Non - probability sampling - subjects are not chosen at random
• Quasi-experimental - selecting subjects from different pre-existing groups and examines changes in the same group of subjects over time
• Ex Post Facto Study - examining the effects of subject characteristics but without manipulating them. Researcher makes use of changes in the antecedent condition that occurred before the study
• Longitudinal Studies - measure the same group of subjects at several points in time
• Cross - sectional study - select groups of subjects who are already at different stages and compare them at a single point in time and then compare
• Pretest/Posttest Design - explores the effects of an event by comparing behavior before and after the event.
• Internal Validity - If IV had an effect on the DV. Antecedent conditions cause the observed difference in behavior.
• External Validity - generalizability or applicability to situations outside the research setting
• High degree of imposition of units - only observes a specific behavior
• Low degree of imposition of units - no limitation of answers/data
• Hypothesis - main idea; statement about the predicted relationship between at least two variables
• Synthetic - can be true or false
• Testable - means for manipulating antecedent conditions
• Falsifiable - must be disprovable
• Parsimonious - simples explanation is preferred
• Fruitful - can lead to new and further studies
• Inductive - reasoning from specific cases to more general principles. Basic tool of theory building
• Deductive - from general principles to make predictions about specific instances
• Serendipity - knack of finding things that are not being sought. Fortunate accident
• Intuition - development of ideas from hunches, knowing directly without reasoning from objective data. Knowledge from our own experience
• Nominal - named categories
• Ordinal - categories and order
• Interval - No true zero. Placed along a scale and exact distances can be specified
• Ratio - has a true zero point
• Reliability - consistency and dependability
• Confounding variable - both extraneous and IV change value from one condition to another. Extraneous variables becomes uncontrolled
• Physical variables - tangible aspects of treatment conditions and testing situation