Textbook Reading Chapter 2 Conducting Research in Psychology 2 1 The Nature of Psychology Common sense the intuitive ability to understand the world Logic tells us how the world should work not how the world actually works Scientific Thinking the process of using the cognitive skills required to generate test and revise theories 1 Question Authority 2 Open Skepticism 3 Intellectual Honesty Scientific Method the procedure by which scientists conduct research consisting of the five basic processes of observation prediction testing interpretation and communication OPTIC Observation and Prediction researchers develop expectations about an observed phenomenon o Theory a set of related assumptions from which scientist can make testable predictions o Hypothesis a specific informed and testable prediction of the outcome of a particular set of conditions in a research design Test scientists select one of a number of established research methods Interpret scientists use mathematical techniques to determine whether the results are significant Communicate communicate results o Replication the repetition of a study to confirm the results it is essential to the scientific process What Science is Not Pseudoscience with scientific method Pseudoscience claims represented as scientific that are not supported by evidence obtained 1 Lacks the cumulative progress seen in science 2 Disregards the real world observations and established facts results and contradicts what is already known 3 Lacks internal skepticism 4 Only vaguely explains how conclusions are reached 5 Uses loose and distorted logic 2 2 Research Methods in Psychology Research designs plans of action for how to conduct a scientific study o Variable a characteristic that changes or varies such as age gender weight intelligence anxiety and extraversion o Population the entire group a researcher is interested in Samples subsets of population studied in research project Descriptive Studies o Case Study a study design in which a psychologist often a therapist observes one person over a long period of time Textbook Reading Chapter 2 Conducting Research in Psychology o Naturalistic Observation a study in which the researcher unobtrusively observes and records behavior in the real world Interview and Survey o Pitfalls Inclusion of people who are not representative of group at large Biased responses Representative sample a research sample that accurately reflects the population of people one is studying Meta Analysis a research technique for combining all research results on one questions and o Effect size a measure of the strength of the relationship between two variables or the drawing a conclusion extent of an experimental effect Correlational Studies o Correlational designs studies that measure two or more variables and their relationships to one another not designed to show causation o Correlation coefficients statistics that range from 1 00 to 1 00 and assess the strength and direction of associations between two variables Experimental Studies o Experiment a research design that includes independent and dependent variables and random assignments of participants to control and experimental groups or conditions Independent variable a property that is manipulated by an experimenter under controlled conditions to determine whether it caused the predicted outcome of an experiment Dependent variable in an experiment the outcome of o response to an experimental manipulation o Random Assignment the method used to assign participants to different research conditions so that all participants have the same chance of being in any specific group Experimental group a group consisting of those participants who will receive the treatment or whatever is predicted to change behavior Control group a group of research participants who are treated in exactly the same manner as the experimental group except they do not receive the independent variable or treatment Placebo a substance or treatment that appears identical to actual treatment but lacks active substance Confounding variable a variable whose influence on the dependent variable cannot be separated from the independent variable being examined Single blind studies studies in which participants do not know the experimental condition to which they have been assigned Double blind Studies studies in which neither the researcher nor participants know who has been assigned to experimental or control group Experimenter expecting effects results occurring when behavior of participants is influenced by experimenter s knowledge of who is in which condition 2 3 Challenging Assumptions in the Objectivity of Experimental Research Textbook Reading Chapter 2 Conducting Research in Psychology self fulfilling prophecy a statement that affects events to cause the prediction to come true 2 4 Commonly Used Measures of Psychological Research Measures the tools and techniques used to asses thought and behavior self report Measures o self reports written or oral accounts of a person s thoughts feelings or actions interviews open ended questionnaires limited choices social desirability bias the tendency toward favorable self presentation which could lead to inaccurate self reports Behavioral Measures measures based on systematic observation of people s actions either in their normal environment or in a laboratory setting Physiological measures measures of bodily responses such as blood pressure or heart rate used to determine changes in psychological state 2 5 Making Sense of Data with Statistics Statistics the collection analysis interpretation and presentation of numeric data Descriptive statistics measures used to describe and summarize research o Mean the arithmetic average of a series of numbers o Median the score that separates the lower half of scores from the upper half o Mode a statistic that represents the most commonly score or value o Standard deviation a statistical measure of how much scores in a sample vary around the mean o Frequency the number of times a particular score occurs in a set of data o Normal distribution a bell curve a plot of how frequent data are that is perfectly symmetrical with most scores clustering in the middle and only a few scores at the extremes Inferential Statistics analysis of data that allow us to test hypothesis and make an inference as to how likely a sample sore is to occur in a population o T test a statistic that compares two means to see whether they could come from the same