psych is a true science because over time it has rebuilt itself on decades of research and well supported theories o Ex breakfast makes you perform better in school Research methods o Naturalistic observation A researcher unobtrusively collects information without the participants awareness Ex seatbelt observation to determine whether it varies by age sex race geographic location vehicle advantage no influence on behavior descriptive data disadvantage not everything in natural environment time consuming and expensive behavior must be interpreted by researchers and 2 can have conflicting views know very little about participants no choice in participation o Structured observation researchers can set up a situation and observe the participants behavior Ex mother leaves child and watch how child respons to departure and return judge attachment style Advantage control of situation and can keep variables under control collect other info from participants Disadvantage aware of research and can be influence researcher has to interpret behavior o Self report participants are asked to provide info or responses on a survey or structure assignment Ex students report GPA and what they eat Advantage inexpensive and efficient survey are easy to create and score computers all data collection from all over the world Disadvantage There are often differences between what people really think and do and what they believe or want the researcher to believe Participants may misinterpret a question or the answer choices Participants may be unable or unwilling to answer the questions o Controlled Experiment researchers create a controlled environment in which they can carefully manipulate one variable to test its effect on another Ex giving some patients the new pill and others an already tested pill to see which is more effective Advantage researcher is relatively sure that any difference observed was caused by whatever is being studied Disadvantage not everything can be manipulated o Longitudinal periodically collect data from same participants over time Ex Track those who smoke and those who don t and look at associated memory problems Disadvantage can track changes over time Advantage time consuming not all participants will complete some participants will have selective attrition o cross sectional diff ages and look for differences Ex language to see which age swear words begin Advantages study effect of time or experience in much less time than a longitudinal study and attrition isn t an issue Disadvantage Cohort Effects diff experiences because of o Case Study Research can conduct a detailed analysis of a particular times person group business Ex psychologist could track the progress of a patient undergoing a unique approach to therapeutic sessions like cooking therapy Advantages unusual rare and difficult to find patients and in depth study of a particular case can reveal interesting areas for future studies Disadvantages What happens with one case can not be a generalization o Archival examines already collected data Ex temp and crime stats and found there was more violence on hot nights Advantage conduct analysis of very large data sets with out the time and expense of collecting all the data Disadvantage Data may be missing incomplete have errors or is difficult to access Correllation Correlated occurrences may be due to a common cause o Postive as one increases so does the other o No relationship one has nothing to do with the other o Negative As one increases the other decreases Causation The most effective way of doing this is through a controlled study o One can only establish correlation unless the effects are extremely notable and there is no reasonable explanation that challenges causality The independent variable IV is the thing we are going to manipulate The dependent variable DV is the thing we are measuring to see if the IV had an effect Experimental group one playing video gaming doing something Control group plays no aggressive game or if no game shows video games Random Assignment how you assign the sample that you draw to different make people more violent groups or treatments in your study Random selection is how you draw the sample of people for your study from a population Preventing Research Bias Bias o Selection Bias groups within the study that are different in some way solution random assignment o Placebo Effect The mind is powerful so it causes you to experience what you expect to rather than what is really happening solution placebo control participants would be blind as to whether what they took would have an effect o Rosenthal Effect researchers own expectations of what the results will be could subconsciously influence the way that participants are treated or how things are measured o Demand characteristics aware of purpose and so may try to change behavior Especially if guessing what the researches wants to have happen Solution participant will be blind as to what the real purpose is o Social desirability People are reluctant to talk honestly in fear of negative social judgments and so they may offer what they believe is more socially desirable o Double blind procedures The participants nor the researchers know hypothesis Conceptual a way we define vaiables Operational the process of strictly defining variables into measurable factors The process defines fuzzy concepts and allows them to be measured empirically and quantitatively External validity extent to which findings from a study generalize to the population o sample o population o generalize Probability sampling Convenience sampling research ethics o beneficence and no maleficence o fidelity and responsibility o integrity o justice o respect for peoples rights
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