Research Methods
CARDUD (informed consent, anonymity and confidentiality, right to withdrawal, deception, debriefing, and undue hard)
What is Localization of Function?
The principle that specific areas of the brain are responsible for specific functions in behaviour or cognition.
What is the dual processing model? Define and explain how it works.
Dual Processing describes how humans use two distinct thinking systems: System 1 (Intuitive), which is fast, automatic, and emotional (gut feelings), and System 2 (Rational), which is slow, deliberate, effortful, and analytical. Both are important in life.
The change that occurs when individuals or groups come into prolonged contact with a new culture.
This term describes a research flaw where participants change behavior due to awareness of being observed
Demand characteristics (the Hawthorne Effect)
What does the hippocampus “do” in relation to memories?
It acts as a temporary storage and organizing center, helping to convert short-term memories into long-term
Describe the aim of the research that was done to support dual processing. (Hint: we replicated this in class with a repeated measures experiment)
Alter and Oppenheimer (2007): Aim: To investigate whether making information harder to read (disfluent) would lead people to engage in more careful, System 2 thinking.
Describe the results of Lueck and Wilson's (2010) study.
Participants who maintained strong ties to both their heritage culture and the new culture (integration) experienced lower levels of acculturative stress. Also- Higher English proficiency, positive attitudes toward the host culture, and strong family support were protective factors, while discrimination and cultural isolation predicted higher stress levels.
What's the acronym to help us evaluate a study or theory? Name each aspect
GRAVE (Generalizable, reliability, applicability, validity, ethical)
What is a Cognitive Model?
A simplified, theoretical representation of how mental processes work (explains how the mind handles information)
Why can system 1 thinking be problematic?
System 1 happens fast- humans must rely on heuristics (shortcuts) to make fast decisions. These can be based on biases or incomplete information
Define compliance technique. Give an example of one.
A psychological strategy used to persuade someone to agree to a request or follow a suggestion, even if they might not have to.
"Foot-in-the-door" technique
What is a dependent variable (DV)? And what type of research do we use it for?
The DV is the variable that is being measured in the experiment. It is thought to change as a result of the manipulation of the independent variable.
What model of memory would best explain this scenario. WHY? A student crams vocabulary words for an exam by repeating them 20 times, but forgets them a week later despite no further study, as they weren't transferred to long-term memory via elaborate processing.
Multi-Store Memory model.
They have rehearsed the information into the short term memory store, but have not strongly encoded the information into the long term memory store.
Name and describe one cognitive bias.
Anchoring bias: When people rely too heavily on the first piece of information they receive (the "anchor") when making a decision — even if it's irrelevant.
Confirmation bias: When people look for, interpret, or remember information that supports what they already believe, and ignore or downplay information that doesn’t.
Define conformity and give an example of who studied it.
The tendency to adjust one’s thoughts, feelings, or behaviour to match those of a group or social norm.
Asch (1951)
Operationalize this hypothesis: The lower an athlete's self-esteem the poorer their performance.
Something like: The lower an athlete’s total self-esteem score (rated through a self-reported questionnaire), the fewer successful free throws they make out of 20 attempts.
Give an example from research that investigates the WMM. Explain the aim.
Baddeley, Thomson, & Buchanan (1975) or Baddeley et al.
This study showed shorter words are recalled better than longer ones due to rehearsal time in the phonological loop, a key WMM component explaining short-term memory limits by articulation
According to the Social Learning Theory, before people will imitate behaviour, we need certain conditions. Explain each aspect of ARRM.
Attention – Noticing the behaviour of the model.
Retention – Remembering what the model did.
Reproduction – Being physically and mentally able to copy the behaviour.
Motivation – Having a reason to imitate the behaviour (often influenced by seeing rewards or punishments).
Integration (maintain own culture and engage with new one).
Assimilation (abandon own culture, adopt new one).
Separation (maintain own culture, avoid new one).
Marginalisation (lose connection with both cultures).