Vocab
Derived prior to experimentation, this tentative, testable prediction specifies the expected relationship between two or more variables.
What is a hypothesis?
This mathematical relationship indicates that as the value of one variable increases, the value of the second variable increases as well.
What is a positive correlation?
Calculated by subtracting the lowest value from the highest value in a data set, this measure provides an index of variation.
What is the range?
Before an experiment begins, prospective subjects must agree to participate after being informed of the study's nature and potential risks in this procedure.
What is informed consent?
This cognitive error occurs when individuals selectively gather evidence that aligns with their preexisting beliefs while ignoring contradictory data.
What is confirmation bias?
Derived from Greek roots for "mind" and "study," psychology is formally defined as the scientific study of these two elements.
Behavior and mental processes.
The phrase Mrs. Efird made you repeat as it relates to correlation and causation
What is "correlation does not imply causation."
Commonly known as the arithmetic average, this measure of central tendency is calculated by summing all scores and dividing by the total number of scores.
What is the mean?
Ethical guidelines require researchers to maintain this condition, ensuring participant identity and private data are never publicly disclosed.
What is confidentiality?
This cognitive bias describes the widespread human tendency to be more confident in one's knowledge and predictive accuracy than objective facts warrant.
What is overconfidence?
A clear, precise, quantifiable definition of how a variable is measured or manipulated in a research study.
What is an operational definition?
Researchers employ this quantitative technique to combine and analyze statistical findings from multiple independent studies on a single topic.
What is a meta-analysis?
Identified as the peak frequency in a distribution graph, this statistic represents the single most frequently occurring score in a dataset.
What is mode?
Before human testing can begin, researchers must submit their proposed study for formal ethical review and approval by this institutional committee.
What is IRB approval?
Colloquially known as the "I-knew-it-all-along" phenomenon, this bias leads individuals to view an outcome as predictable after learning that it occurred.
What is hindsight bias?
In empirical research, this term refers to the entire target group of interest from which a representative sample is drawn.
What is a population?
The process through which participants are assigned to a control and experimental group to avoid confounding variables.
What is random assignment?
Representing approximately 68% of scores in a normal distribution within one unit above and below the mean, this statistic measures how much scores deviate from the average.
What is the standard deviation?
Participants in a psychological study must be explicitly informed that they have the freedom to stop participating and leave the experiment at any time without penalty, a principle known as this right.
What is the right to withdraw?
This perspective compares the human mind to a computer, focusing on how we process, store, remember, and retrieve information.
What is the Cognitive perspective?
The type of statistics that establish whether the results are significant (meaningful).
What are inferential statistics?
When a researcher mistakenly attributes a participant's cognitive improvement to a new supplement rather than the participant's mere expectation that the pill would help, the study's conclusions are undermined by this phenomenon.
What is the placebo effect?
Expressed as a p-value, this standard threshold in psychological research indicates that there is a 5% or lower probability that the observed results occurred merely by chance.
What is p < .05
The process that must occur after the research is done if the research involves deception.
What is debriefing?
Based on Charles Darwin’s ideas, this perspective explains human behaviors—like fear of heights or universal facial expressions—as traits passed down because they helped our ancestors survive.
What is the Evolutionary perspective?