Approaches to Research
What are the 3 elements of the scientific attitude?
Curiosity, humility, skepticism
True or false: Temperament is a relatively stable trait.
True
What 2 parts of the brain are most involved with implicit memory?
Cerebellum and basal ganglia
Difference between a phoneme and a morpheme?
A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a language that can change meaning, like the “b” in “bat.” A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning, which can be a word or a meaningful part of a word, like “un-” in “undo.”
What's the difference between a population and a sample?
A population includes all individuals the researcher wants to understand, while a sample is the smaller group selected from that population to actually study. .
Give 2 physical changes you'd expect to find in late adulthood.
Declines in strength, balance, vision, hearing, and immune function. Bones become fragile; muscle mass decreases.
What's the difference between effortful and automatic processing?
Effortful processing requires conscious attention and deliberate effort to encode information, like studying for an exam. Automatic processing happens without conscious effort, such as remembering familiar routes or recognizing faces.
Describe 2 problem solving strategies
Trial and error, algorithms, insight, heuristics
What is the purpose of having a representative sample?
A representative sample is used so that the group being studied accurately reflects the larger population researchers want to draw conclusions about. This allows findings to be generalized more confidently beyond the specific individuals who were sampled.
Give 2 "life tasks" you'd expect to be completed in early adulthood.
Establishing Personal Identity
Achieving Independence
Launching a Career
Forming Intimate RelationshipsDeveloping a Value System
Building Social Responsibility
Motivated forgetting, retrieval failure, encoding failure, proactive/retroactive interference, storage decay
Describe 2 obstacles that can hamper our problem solving
Confirmation bias, fixation and mental set
What's the difference between an hypothesis and a theory?
A hypothesis is a specific, testable prediction about how variables are related, while a theory is a broader explanation that organizes and predicts a wide range of observations.
What term fits the following definition: Teens believe everyone is constantly watching and judging them.
Imaginary audience
Saying memory is "reconstructive" means that remembering is not like playing back a perfect recording, but rather we actively rebuild memories each time we recall them. During this process, details can be altered, added, or forgotten based on current knowledge, beliefs, or expectations. This explains why memories can be vivid yet sometimes inaccurate.
What is the framing effect?
The framing effect is a cognitive bias where people’s decisions are influenced by how information is presented rather than just the facts. For example, people may react differently to a choice described as a “90% success rate” versus a “10% failure rate,” even though they mean the same thing.
Give 3 major reasons we need ethics in psychological research
Research is never completely value-neutral and can cause harm without proper ethical consideration
Ethical principles establish field-wide guidelines that everyone follows
Ethical practices increase scientific integrity and public confidence in psychological findings
Erikson's Stage: Competence vs. Inferiority refers to what?
Erikson's stage of Competence vs. Inferiority occurs in middle childhood and focuses on children developing a sense of skill and achievement. Success leads to feelings of competence, while repeated failure can result in feelings of inferiority.
Describe the role of the amygdala in memory processing
It enhances the storage of these memories, making them more vivid and long-lasting, but can also contribute to "tunnel vision," where attention and memory focus narrowly on central emotional details while peripheral information is less accurately remembered.
What is the representativeness heuristic?
The representativeness heuristic is a mental shortcut where people judge the likelihood of something based on how closely it matches a typical example or stereotype. While it can make quick judgments easier, it can also lead to errors by ignoring actual probabilities or relevant information.