STRESS
According to Selye (1983), this is a negative psychological response to a stressor that can inhibit performance or cause a person to become overwhelmed.
What is distress?
Researchers must protect participants from experiencing physiological or psychological harm as a result of taking part in research.
What is protection from harm?
Noise levels, temperature, time of day and other aspects of the research setting are examples of this type of extraneous variable.
What are environmental variables?
This occurs when the person conducting an experiment influences the performance of participants or the interpretation of the data.
What is the experimenter effect?
A researcher gives the same test to the same group of participants two weeks apart. The scores are very similar on both occasions.
What is test-retest reliability?
According to Selye (1983), this is a positive psychological response to a stressor that can improve performance and motivation.
What is eustress?
Participants must understand the procedure and purpose of the research they are agreeing to, and this consent must be given in writing.
What is informed consent?
A researcher unintentionally gives more encouragement to participants in one experimental group because they expect that group to perform better.
What is a researcher variable?
Participants alter their behaviour because they perceive what the experimenter expects or wants them to do.
What are demand characteristics?
A researcher wants to determine whether changes in participants' behaviour were actually caused by the independent variable rather than uncontrolled extraneous variables.
What is internal validity?
Stressors caused by emotional and cognitive factors that are internal to the individual are classified as this type.
What are psychological stressors?
Participants have the right to remove themselves and their data from an experiment at any time without negative consequences, pressure or coercion.
What are withdrawal rights?
A researcher identifies the temperature of the testing room as a variable that could affect participants' performance. They ensure that the room remains at exactly the same temperature for every participant.
What is a controlled variable?
A participant reports feeling better after receiving a treatment that has no actual therapeutic effect, simply because they believe the treatment will work.
What is the placebo effect?
A psychology study produces reliable results in its laboratory setting, but the researchers want to know whether the findings can also apply to different populations, settings and times.
What is external validity?
A student becomes stressed because of loud construction noise, extreme temperatures and uncomfortable conditions in their physical surroundings.
What are environmental stressors?
Participants are not told the true purpose of an experiment because knowing it could influence their behaviour. The researcher has obtained ethical approval and explains the true purpose and procedures to participants afterwards.
What is deception?
A researcher identifies participants' intelligence as a possible extraneous variable but does not control for differences in intelligence between the experimental groups. The resulting differences in intelligence could provide an alternative explanation for the results.
What is a confounding variable?
In a drug trial, participants do not know whether they have received the actual treatment or the placebo, but the researchers do know. Which procedure is being used to reduce the influence of participant expectations?
What is a single-blind procedure?
Two researchers independently observe the same participants and record very similar results.
What is inter-rater reliability?
A student experiences stress because their cultural values and identity conflict with expectations placed on them by the wider community.
What are cultural stressors?
A research team stores participants' data securely and ensures that information collected during the study is not made available to people outside the research without the participants' consent.
What is confidentiality?
A researcher investigates whether sleep duration affects reaction time. Participants complete the task at different times of day, and time of day may independently affect reaction time. The researcher has not controlled for when participants complete the task.
What type of variable is time of day?
What is an extraneous variable?
In a drug trial, neither the participants nor the researchers working directly with them know who has received the actual treatment and who has received the placebo. This helps prevent expectations and biases from influencing both groups.
What is a double-blind procedure?
A study carefully controls extraneous variables and finds that the independent variable caused the change in the dependent variable. However, the participants all came from one very specific group, making it difficult to apply the findings to other populations. Which two concepts are demonstrated?
What are high internal validity and limited generalisability?