Thinking Like a Psychologist
This way of knowing emphasizes observation and data rather than intuition.
What is empiricism?
“20% of college students drink energy drinks daily” is an example of this type of claim.
What is a frequency claim?
Obtaining informed consent from participants upholds this Belmont principle.
What is respect for persons?
A measure that yields consistent results shows this property.
What is reliability?
When two variables increase together, the relationship is called this.
What is a positive association?
A broad explanation that organizes findings and generates predictions is called this.
What is a theory?
A statement like “exercise is related to better mood” is this type of claim.
What is an association claim?
Minimizing harm and maximizing benefits reflects this ethical principle.
What is beneficence?
A measure that truly reflects the construct it is intended to measure shows this property.
What is validity?
When one variable increases while another decreases, the relationship is called this.
What is a negative/inverse association?
A specific, testable prediction derived from a theory is known as this.
What is a hypothesis?
The type of claim that requires one variable to be manipulated is called this.
What is a causal claim?
Ensuring that groups of people are not unfairly burdened by research risk demonstrates this principle.
What is justice?
If two observers record the same behavior and agree on their ratings, the measure demonstrates this type of reliability.
What is interrater reliability?
The strength and direction of a relationship between two variables is summarized with this statistic.
What is the correlation coefficient (r)?
People often focus on cases that support what they believe while ignoring counterexamples, showing this bias.
What is confirmation bias?
If a study doesn’t establish which came first, for example, whether stress leads to illness or vice versa; it lacks this element.
What is temporal precedence?
Explaining the true nature of the study after participation, especially when deception is involved, is known as this.
What is debriefing?
A survey question asking, “I enjoy sports and cooking” suffers from this design flaw.
What is a double-barreled question?
A correlation of r = .10 is typically interpreted as this size of effect.
What is small?
For a theory to be considered scientific, it must be possible to design a study that could show it is wrong. This is called this principle.
What is falsifiability?
A study may have strong statistical conclusions but fail to represent the population of interest, showing weak evidence for this validity.
What is external validity?
Fabricating data or misrepresenting findings violates this APA ethical principle.
What is integrity?
A participant who always picks the “neutral” option on surveys is demonstrating this response pattern.
What is fence sitting?
Researchers cannot claim causation from a correlation study because of issues such as directionality or this type of problem.
What is a third-variable problem?