Psychology Chapter 2 Research Methods Identify Heuristics Biases that prevent us from thinking scientifically about psych surgical procedure that severs fibers connecting the frontal lobes 2 1 Prefrontal lobotomy of the brain from the underlying thalamus Leaving patients childlike and apathetic mental shortcut that helps us to streamline our thinking and make sense of Heuristic our world Probabilistic shortcuts that are rapid but may lead to false conclusion Representativeness Heuristic an event by its superficial similarity to a prototype Evaluating probability of an event based on its superficial similarity with a heuristic that involves judging the probability of prototype Judging on protoypes Doesn t take into consideration Base Rate Frequency of a trait or behavior in the general population how common a characteristic or behavior is in the general population heuristic that involves estimating the likelihood of an occurrence Availability Heuristic based on the ease which with it comes to our minds Estimating the probability of something Ex what s deadlier horses or sharks Ex Do more people die from terrorism or cancer Biases Cognitive Biases systematic errors in thinking systematic errors in thinking reasoning and judgment Tendency to overestimate how well we could have successfully Hindsight Bias forecasted known outcomes Ex Study of Supreme Court confirmation I knew it all along Overconfidence Ex studying versus test taking tendency to overestimate our ability to make correct predictions Use scientific method to keep yourself in check from these heuristics Theory Prediction Experiment Observation Quantification them as numbers increases precision and objectivity of observations by representing 2 2 Describe the advantages disadvantages of using naturalistic observation case studies self report measures surveys Reliability Validity Response Set consistency of measurement Measure what is intended tendency of research participants to distort their responses Naturalistic Observation manipulate the situation Ex dropping money and video taping it Jane Goodall Watching behavior in real world settings without trying to High in external validity Low internal validity External Validity Ability to generalize finding to real world scenarios extent to which we can generalize findings to real world settings Ex Introducing misinformation after an event leads to false memories Internal Validity study Ability to draw casual inferences as opposed only links extent to which we can draw cause and effect inferences from a Ex exercising improves cardiovascular health research design that examines 1 person or a small number of people in Case Study depth often over an extended period Provides existence proofs Limits external and internal validity Ex presence of a new strange disorder Ex uniqueness of the disorder and hard to infer causes without direct manipulation or more cases measurement instruments that consist of a series of questions that depend Survey on self report Ex opinions and attitudes information Best tool to get a lot of data Advantages easy to administer provide a unique access to personal Disadvantages Assume competent and honest responders malingering Existence Proof Random Selection chance to participate Helps draw a representative sample demonstration that a given psychological phenomenon can occur Procedure that ensures every person in a population has an equal Ex picking patients off a list using a random generator 2 3 Describe the role of correlation designs distinguish correlation from causation Correlation Designs are associated Examination of relations between variables Allows prediction ex weight relation Correlation is a statistical measure of relation s presence direction and research design that examines the extent to which 2 variables magnitude Correlation does not allow to infer causation Its necessary but insufficient condition grouping of 2 points on a 2D graph in which each dot represents a single Scatterplot person s data Shows if there is correlation or not perception of a statistical association between 2 variables where Illusion Correlation none exists Perception of a non existent association Concentrating on situations when 2 apparently related events occur Ignoring nonevents 2 4 Identify the components of an experiment the potential pitfalls that can lead to faulty conclusions Experiment research design characterized by random assignment of participants to conditions and manipulations of an independent variable Allow inferring cause effect relations Based on Random assignment of participants to experimental and control conditions Manipulation of independent variables Threats to interpretations Placebo effect Change due to expectation of improvement No cebo effect change due to expectation of harm Experimenter Expectancy Effect lead them to unintentionally bias the outcome of a study Experimenter expectancy unintentionally biasing results them to generate guesses regarding the researcher s hypothesis Demand characters use cues to guess experimenter s hypothesis Demand Characteristics cues that participants pick up from a study that allow phenomenon in which researchers hypotheses To prevent these Double Blind experimental or control group Blind When neither researchers nor participants are aware of who s in the unaware of whether one is in the experimental or control group Distractor or cover tasks prevent demand characteristics Random assignment Experimental Group randomly sorting participants into 2 groups in an experiment the group of participants that receives the in an experiment the group of participants that doesn t receive the experimenter manipulates Experimenter measures to see whether the manipulation has an manipulation Control Group manipulation effect Independent Variable Dependent Variable Operational Definition a working definition of what a researcher is measuring 2 5 Explain the ethical obligations of researchers toward their research participants Informed consent informing research participants of what is involved in a study before asking them to participate Tuskegee Study Example 1932 1972 US PHS public health service sponsored the study of syphilis progression 399 AA males from poor rural areas of Alabama Did not inform about participation diagnosis available treatment 28 dead from syphilis 100 from complications 40 wives infected passed to 19 children Legal mandates require certain procedures Central guidelines Inform participants Ask