Ethical Guidelines
Why is ensuring ethical guidelines important?
To protect participants and ensure experiment/research is managed responsibly. As well as trust between the researcher and the participant.
Define what the mean, median, mode, and range are.
The mean is the average value of a set of data.
The median is the number in the middle of the numbers dataset in order.
The mode is the most repeated value.
The range is the difference between the highest and lowest value.
What is the main purpose of correlational research?
To examine the relationship between two or more variables.
In a case study, researchers studied a girl, Genie, who was isolated and abused during childhood. They studied her social behavior and language skills. They observed how her language and social skills she could develop. They found if language development is not is not conducted at a certain point earlier it can not be fully learned later in life.
Can the results be generalizable? Why?
No, because her experience/situation was one of a kind and extreme as well as not a regular thing.
Give 3 types of research methods.
Structured Interviews
Survey Technique
Naturalistic Observation
Case Study
Experimental Method
In a study of a volunteer patient, S.M., they informed her about how they would study how damage to the amygdala affected its function of emotional response, specifically fear. Her identity was protected and researchers ensured her no harm. They found that she could not recognize fear in others and she would not induce fear in situations where people would.
What ethical guidelines were followed?
Confidentiality, informed consent, and protection from harm.
What is the difference between descriptive statistics and inferential statistics?
(Hint: They both help make conclusions to understand data)
Descriptive statistics are a numerical measure that summarizes and describes data characteristics.
Inferential statistics uses data to make conclusions or predictions about a larger population.
1. Listening to country music and spice preference
2. Hours studying and exam score
3. Speed of a car and the time to reach the destination
Identify whether there is a positive, negative, or no correlation.
1. No correlation
2. Positive correlation
3. Negative correlation
A research group wants to find out how effective the new version of a headache pill is compared to the old version. Therefore, they separate participants into two groups.
Determine the experimental group and the control group.
The experimental group receives the new pill.
The control group is given the old pill to compare it to the new pill.
In an experiment, participants were asked about a video of a car accident. Researchers asked how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other but others were asked how fast were the cars going when they hit each other. Researchers found that the participants who were asked the "smashed" question reported faster speeds and broken glass even though there was not any. How is that?
The wording effect.
The Monster Study was conducted by Wendall Johnson to study the causes of stuttering. They selected 22 orphan children some of who had speech impediments. The kids were divided into two groups: the first group received positive speech therapy being praised for their fluency, and the second group received negative speech therapy being belittled/criticized for their speech impediments even if they were fluent. This caused the negative feedback group to have speech issues and severe psychological stress.
What ethical guideline issues did the Monster study have?
Lack of informed consent and lack of protection for participants from harm because of the long-term effects on their mental health and self-esteem.
Test scores of 7 students from an English test:
100, 45, 67, 94, 88
Calculate the mean, median, mode, and range
Mean = 78.8
Median = 88
No mode
Range = 55
Draw a scatterplot of a strong positive correlation, a weak positive correlation, a strong negative correlation, and a weak negative correlation.
..
In a study, researchers take a participant who is an alcoholic. They tell the participant they want him to test how drunk the new alcoholic drink will get him. In reality, they just gave him apple juice but the participant acts like the "alcohol" is making him drunk.
What technique is being used?
The placebo effect
In the Stanford Prison Experiment by Philip Zimbardo, college students were assigned as guards or prisoners in a prison environment. They recorded the number of rule violations, the frequency of aggressive behavior, and the duration of the experiment. They had interviews and recordings of the behavior and interactions of the participants. The study raised concern for stricter ethical guidelines due to the bad effect it had on participants' well-being.
What is the qualitative data and the quantitative data?
The qualitative data are the interviews and recordings of participants' behavior and interactions.
The quantitative data are the duration of the experiment, the number of rule violations recorded, and the frequency of aggressive behavior recorded.
In the Little Albert study by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner, they experimented on a baby to see if they could cause a fear response. They put the baby with a white rat. At first, the baby was not scared but then they paired the rat with loud and scary noises. After a while, Albert was afraid of the rat even without the noise. They found that fear could be conditioned.
What are the benefits and potential harms of the case study?
Benefits: We understand that fear can be learned and emotional responses can be set in humans.
Potential harms: The study caused Albert distress and a fear of white rats and no informed consent.
Draw the positive or negative skew when a test is difficult therefore only a few people did well.
(Hint: data clusters)
...
There are correlations between hot sunny days and the increase in ice cream sales, swimming, picnics, sports, etc.
What is a possible third variable problem?
Possible answer: due to the increase in swimming there could be a potential increase in shark attacks.
In a study conducted by Pavlov, he measured how much the dog would salivate to the sound of a bell after ringing a bell paired with food repeatedly. He found that the dog would start to salivate at the sound of a bell because of the repeated action of ringing a bell before receiving food.
What is the independent variable and the dependent variable?
The independent variable would be the sound of a bell.
The dependent variable would be the dogs' salivation.
In the Stanley Milgrams obedience experiment, participants believed they were part of a study on learning. There was a "learner" strapped to a chair that gave electric shocks. Each time they got the answer wrong they would have to turn up the shock voltage and shock the "learner". The authority figure kept convincing them to go on and they did even if they saw the apparent pain on the person in the shock chair. Milgram found that people are likely to follow orders from authority figures even if it cause harm to others.
What is the hypothesis? How is it falsifiable?
Hypothesis: People would obey authority figures' orders even if it caused actions that conflict with their conscience.
Falsifiable: If the majority of the participants refused to continue it would have disproved his hypothesis.