ap psych review

• psychology


  the scientific study of behavior and mental processes
• behavior


  an observable action
• monism


  seeing mind and body as different aspects of the same thing
• dualism


  seeing mind and body as two different things that interact
• eclectic


  use of techniques and ideas from a variety of approaches
• empiricism


  the view that knowledge should be acquired through observation and often an experiment
• science


  way of getting knowledge about the world based on observation
• theory


  a collection of interrelated ideas and facts put forward to describe, explain, and predict behavior and mental processes
• scientific method


  in psychology, the techniques used to discover knowledge about human behavior and mental processes
• hypothesis


  a tentative statement or idea expressing a causal relationship between two events or variables that is to be evaluated in a research study
• experiment


  a procedure in which a researcher systematically manipulates and observes elements of a situation in order to test a hypothesis and make a cause-and-effect statement
• independent variable


  the variable in a controlled experiment that the experimenter directly and purposefully manipulates to see how the other variables under study will be affected
• dependent variable


  the variable in a controlled experiment that is expected to change due to the manipulation of the independent variable
• experimental group


  in an experiment, the group of participants to whom a treatment is given
• control group


  subjects and not exposed to a changing variable in an experiment
• variable


  a condition or characteristic of a situation or a person that is subject to change (it varies) within or across situations or individuals
• sample


  a group of participants who are assumed to be representative of the population about which an inference is being made
• random sample


  selection of a part of the population without reason; participation is by chance
• operational definition


  a definition of a variable in terms of the set of methods or procedures used to measure or study that variable
• participant


  an individual who takes part in an experiment and whose behavior is observed as part of the data collection process
• double-blind procedure


  technique in which neither the persons involved for those conducting the experiment know in what group to participate is involved
• debriefing


  a procedure to inform participants about the true nature of an experiment after its completion
• ethics


  rules of proper and acceptable conduct that investigators use to guide psychological research
• ethnocentrism


  tendency to believe that one's own group is the standard, the reference point by which other people and groups should be judged
• case study


  a highly detailed description of a single individual or a vent
• ex post facto study

  describes differences between groups of participants that differ naturally on a variable such as race or gender
• naturalistic observation


  observing and recording behavior naturally without trying to manipulate and control the situation
• correlational research


  establish the relationship between two variables
• survey research


  the measurement of public opinion through the use of sampling and questioning
• experimenter bias


  expectation of the person conducting an experiment which may be affect the outcome
• observer bias


  expectations of an observer which may distort an authentic observation
• response bias


  preconceived notions of a person answering [a survey] which may alter the experiments purpose
• informed consent


  the agreement of participants to take part in an experiment and their acknowledgement that they understand the nature of their participation in the research, and have been fully informed about the general nature of the research, its goals, and methods
• normal distribution


  approximate distribution of scores expected when a sample is taken from a large population, drawn as a frequency polygon that often takes the form of a bell-shaped curve, called the normal curve
• placebo


  typically a pill that is used as a control in the experiment; a sugar pill
• pseudoscience


  an unscientific system which pretends to discover psychological information that his means are unscientific or deliberately fraudulent
• representative sample


  selection of a part of the population which mirrors the current demographics
• significant difference


  in an experiment, a difference that is unlikely to have occurred because of chance alone and is inferred to be most likely due to the systematic manipulations of variables by the researcher
• self-fulfilling prophecy


  when a researcher's expectations unknowingly create a situation that affects the results
• statistics


  branch of mathematics that deals with collecting, classifying, and analyzing data