Psych 205

  1. What are the 4 approaches to kowlege?
    • authority
    • personal experience
    • rationalism (suing reasoning and logic)
    • empiricism (systematic observations)
  2. Five Limitations of Personal Experience (commonsese psychology)
    • 1. Confirmation Bias and the DIscounting Problem
    • 2. The Limited Data Problem
    • 3. The Expectations Problem
    • 4. The Baserate/Comparison group problem
    • 5. The Pleasant Truth Problem
  3. confirmation bias and the discounting problem
    limitation in comonsense psychology

    we tend to try to seek out information that is consistent with our expectations/beliefs and we tend to discount information that is inconsistent with those expectations
  4. The Expectations Problem
    limitation to commonsense psychology

    our expectatiosn tend to influence the way we interpret events
  5. the pleasant truth problem
    • a limitation of commonsense psychology
    • we tend to belive things that make us feel good (things that seem right)
    • this could influnece the conclusions we make abotu beavior
  6. scientific method
    a method that is more likely to lead to the right answer, and a process for understanding the world that enables to correct inevitable mistakes

    process of constructing, testing, refining theories about natural phenomena through use of systematic and empirical observations

    theory --> generate predictions --> empircal observations --> test the observations with the theory
  7. what makes a theory good
    • generative - generates new ways to think abotu the world
    • makes predictions - risky ones
    • can be tested (Falsifiable)
    • are simple (parsimonious)
  8. the process of reasoning in research
    • have a theory - develop predictions based on theoreticcal principles
    • design an experiment and take observations
    • get data
    • this data is consistent/inconsistent with the theory
    • then we make a new or better theory
  9. whats the best way to test your theory?
    • more useful to test cases in which the theory is disproven rather than rpoven
    • provides boundaries
    • theories must be testable!!
  10. signals that it is actually pseudoscience rather than science
    • failures are rationalized or explained away
    • reliance on anecdotes - personal experiences
    • lack of tests
    • lack of supporting evidence
    • the 5 limitations of commonsense psychology!
  11. Hypotheses
    • informally - an explanation of a behavior/event
    • formaly - a prediction concerning the relationship between variabls (IF... then)

    like theories they must be testable, falsifiable, parsimonious
  12. Research things to be aware of
    • uninteresting studies - obvious outcomes
    • unimportant research - who cares
    • unnecessary research - why spend money on that?
  13. Sources of Ideas for Research
    • everyday life
    • practical issues - try to solve a problem
    • based off of past research (refine it, increase generality, better control)
  14. How to develop a hypothesis
    • 1. state the hypothesis in gneral terms - the question/problem
    • 2. operationalize the hypothesis - what are you measuring, what are you manipulating
    • 3. what methods will be employed - how to test, look at the relationship
    • 4. what results do you anticipate - how will they confirm/disconfirm your hypothesis?
  15. Theory Vs Hypothesis
    • Theory - organized framework of principles that tries to explain some set of facts about the world - must be tested and evidence shown for it
    • Hypothesis - a specific, testable prediction, related to a particular study, describes expectations abotu outcomes
  16. 1947 Nuremburg Code
    • 26 Nazi physicians tried for research atrocities
    • resulted int eh Nuremburg Code - first internationally recognize code of research ethics
    • voluntary/informed consent
    • favorable risk/benefit analysis
    • right to withdraw without penalty
  17. 1964 Declaration of Helsinki
    • same principles of Nuremburg code and
    • interest of the subject is a higher priority than the interests of society (can't just do a study that will benefit the common good)
    • every subject should get the best known treatment
  18. National Research Act of 1974
    • established the IRB - to regulate research on humans
    • required IRB approval for most research studies
    • defined the procedures an IRB must follow
    • established criteria that an IRB must use to approve studies
  19. US Belmont Report - 1979
    • 3 basic ethical principles
    • Respect For persons - individuals as autonomous agents
    • Beneficence - protect persons from harm, maximize benefits
    • Justice - benefits and risks must be distributed fairly
  20. respect for persons
    • 1st principle in Belmont Report
    • decisions abotu participation must be voluntary
    • people are able to exert their autonomy
    • must give informed consent - understands/accepts their role as a subject
    • explain teh purpose/procedure/risks/alternatives/ability to withdraw/duration
    • privacy/confidentiality
    • protecting those peopel who are not autonomous
  21. informed consent
    • understanding and willingness to participate
    • understanding of possible risks and benefits and knowing that one does nto have to volunteer
  22. Beneficence
    • Principle #2 of The belmont report
    • must secure teh well being of the subject - protect from harm and make sure that they experience the possble benefits of involvement
    • maximize possible benefits/minimize possible harms
  23. Justice
    • Principle #3 in Belmont Report
    • justice is raised when we attempt to decide who will be given an opportunity to participate and who will be excluded
  24. Deception
    • its often times used but its not very nice
    • you must make the case why deception is important to your study
    • the reason for deception MUST outweight the possible risks - cannot affect their willingness to participate
    • requires debriefing! - deception must be explained
  25. animal welfare
    • an IACUC - institutional animal care and use committee (like an IRB - but for animals)
    • same kinds of ehtical standards as for human - there are protectiosn for animals!
  26. Why write abotu research?
    • to communicate research findings
    • enable critical evaluation
    • enable replication and extension
  27. good scientific writing is...
    • objective
    • concise and precise (doesn't mean dull)
    • unbiased
  28. what does the research report do...
    • adds to scientific knowledge (related to old, rpovides new)
    • conveys information clearly and consisely
  29. why use a standard style for writing research?
    • clairty of presentation
    • ease of evaluation
    • readers know what to expect
  30. what does the introduction say?
    • the reserach questions - general terms - why important
    • review of previous work
    • overview of current work - hypothesis, design/variables of interest
  31. what does the discussion say?
    • summary of patterns
    • what the results mean
    • how do the results relate to initial hypotheses
    • implications/take home message
  32. what is a construct?
    • an inference based on a theory of behavior
    • sometimes we can't observe directly teh things we want to study (like amount of motivation)
    • requires operationalization
  33. operationalization
    • translating abstract concepts into concrete variabels that can be mainpulated and/or observed
    • decision about translation so that you can take the abstract concept and transfer it into a concrete observation of behavior
  34. reliability vs. validity
    • reliability - consistency or dependability of measurement (compare occasion to occasion and measured via correlations)
    • validity - whether hte measure actually related to expected behavior
  35. types of validity
    • face validity
    • content validity
    • criterion validity
    • construct validity
  36. face validity
    it appears on the surface to measure what is intended (weakest)
  37. criterion validity and the two types
    • accurately predicts behavior
    • predictive - predicts future performance like SAT
    • concurrent - predicts present performance (driving tests)
  38. construct validity
    • measures the intended construct in a theoretically-motivated way - like the IQ test
    • is what you are measuring really related to what you want to measure in terms of your construct?
  39. extraneous variables
    anything else that may influence the outcomes
  40. Systematic influences
    when the effects of the extraneous variables are systematic (influence certain conditions/measures more than others) they are very hazardous to experimental validity
  41. confounding influences
    other factors systematically vary along with teh variables of interest
  42. the threats to internal validity
    • history - influnced by a past event?
    • maturation - internal changes?
    • testing - effects of test they've seen before
    • instrumentation - changes in how its collected?
    • regression - groups preselected to represent extremes?
    • selection - lack of random assignment?
    • attrition (mortality) - did subjects drop out or otherwise disappear?
  43. what is control/why do we need it
    true experiments require that the researcher have contorl over as many aspects as possible - get rid of extraneous variables (so validity is not htreatened)
  44. 3 sources of variability
    • physical
    • social - demand characteristics, experimenter bias
    • personality of the particpants and the experimenters
  45. hawthorne effect
    an effect in the direction expected but not for the reason expected
  46. demand characteristics
    • behavior is shaped by expectations abotu how they should behave (cues from the situation or attempts to guess the hypothesis)
    • use single blind studies, or use cover stories (deception)
  47. single blind studies
    • a way to control demand characteristics
    • participants aren't told which conditino theya re in
  48. experimenter bias
    • cues from teh experimenter abotu hwo the subject should respond
    • self-fulfilling prophecies (teh Rsenthal effect with the good vs. bad students)
  49. how would you control for experimenter bias?
    • double-blind studies
    • standardized coding or something
  50. why use random assignment?
    • eliminate self-selection bias
    • make it likely that the differences between teh groups wash out
  51. independent samples
    • important for the samples to be random
    • equal chance of being assigned to either of the groups
  52. Main effects
    • the effect of a single IV on a DV
    • if A changes, it will affect B
  53. Interactions
    • how effect of one IV changes across levels of another IV
    • the impact of one IV on the DV changes across levels of the other IV
  54. the four types of reliability
    • test/retest reliability
    • alternate-forms reliability
    • split-half reliability
    • interrater reliability
  55. confounds
    uncontrolled extraneous variables, or flaws in an experiment
Author
sj3990
ID
63034
Card Set
Psych 205
Description
Psych 205 Test 1
Updated