Research Terms
This word describes when there is a clear, direct relationship between two things. When one variable in a study is changed, it changes another.
What is Causation
This is an in-depth narrative about a single person or group. In this type of research, nearly every aspect of the subject’s life and history is analyzed to look for patterns and causes for their behavior
What is a Case Study
During the early 1960s a great debate began regarding the ways in which genetics, environmental factors, and social learning shaped a child’s development. This debate still lingers and is commonly referred to as the Nature vs. Nurture Debate. Albert Bandura conducted this Experiment to prove that human behavior is largely based upon social imitation rather than inherited genetic factors.
What is the Bobo Doll Experiment
This looks at psychopathology. It involves the study of people's emotional, thought, and behavior patterns to identify, understand, and potentially resolve any issues that may be negatively affecting a person's life.
What is Abnormal Psychology
the variable that is being measured in an experiment
What is the Dependent Variable
This involves observing subjects in their natural environments. This type of research can be used when doing lab research would be unrealistic, cost-prohibitive, or have an unwanted effect on the subject's behavior
What is Naturalistic Observation
Although this experiment was conducted very unethically, many psychologists believe that the findings showed how much human behavior is situational. People will conform to certain roles if the conditions are right. This experiment remains one of the most famous psychology experiments of all time.
What is the Stanford Prison Experiment
This is a theory of learning based on the idea that all behaviors are acquired through conditioning. Strategies such as classical conditioning and operant conditioning are often utilized to teach or modify actions.
What is Behavioral Psychology
the variable of interest that the researcher varies systematically
What is the Independent Variable
This descrives a study that takes place over a period of time.
Data is first collected at the beginning of the study, and may then be gathered repeatedly throughout the length of the study.
What is Longitudinal Research
The results of this study are important when we study social interactions among individuals in groups. This study is a famous example of the temptation many of us experience to conform to a standard during group situations and it showed that people often care more about being the same as others than they do about being right.
What is the Asch Conformity Study
Professionals who work in this type of psychology typically study functions such as perception, motivation, emotion, language, learning, memory, attention, decision-making, and problem-solving.
What is Cognitive Psychology
when researchers use chance procedures to group participants in a study. This means that every participant has the same opportunity to be assigned to any group, rather than the researchers assigning patients to specific groups
What is Random Assignment
This takes place at a single point in time.
All tests, measures, or variables are administered to participants on one occasion. This type of research seeks to gather data on present conditions instead of looking at the effects of a variable over a period of time.
This 1961 study was designed to measure people’s willingness to obey authority figures when instructed to perform acts that conflicted with their morals. The study was based on the premise that humans will inherently take direction from authority figures from very early in life.
What is the Milgram Experiment
This focuses on how people change and grow throughout life. This area of psychology seeks to understand and explain how and why people change
What is Developmental Psychology
A ___________is a well-established principle that has been developed to explain some aspect of the natural world. It arises from repeated observation and testing and incorporates facts, laws, predictions, and tested hypotheses that are widely accepted.
What is a Theory
This is a type of study in which neither the participants nor the experimenters know who is receiving a particular treatment.
This type of research design eliminates the possibility that the researchers will give subtle clues about what they expect to find or influence the behavior of the participants.
What is a Double Blind Study
This experiment showed that love, as demonstrated by physical body contact, is a more important aspect of the parent-child bond than the provision of basic needs. These findings also had implications in the attachment between fathers and their infants when the mother is the source of nourishment.
What is the Surrogate Mother Experiment
This area (also sometimes called medical psychology or behavioral medicine) focuses on how biology, psychology, behavior, and social factors influence health and illness. This area of psychology involves the promotion of health across a wide variety of domains, as well as the prevention and treatment of disease and illness.
What is Health Psychology