Ch. 1
Scientists make observations about the world. ____ is the process of making formal observations about the world around them
Empiricism
A coherent explanation or interpretation of one of more phenomena
Theory
the assignment of scores to individuals so that the scores represent some characteristic of the individuals
Measurement
Studies that focus on one individual
Case studies
A phrase that I introduce at the beginning of the chapter on correlation
Correlation is not causation!
"Money can't buy happiness" is an example of this
Intuitive thinking or "common sense"
A good hypothesis must be able to be disconfirmed (evidence can show that it is NOT confirmed). What is this called?
Falsifiability
The consistency of a particular measure
Reliability
The positive effect of a simulated treatment that has no real effect
The placebo effect
What the sign (+ or -) indicates in a correlation coefficicent
Direction
The tendency to exaggerate how confident you are after a result is known
Hindsight bias
The quality of a thing feeling true whether or not it is actually true
"truthiness"
Taking a concept that can't be observed directly and describing it in a way that can be observed directly
Operational definition
The idea that extreme outcomes tend to be followed by less extreme outcomes
Regression to the mean
A problem with correlation involved another variable that explains the relationship between two measured variables
The third variable problem
Good scientists suspend judgment of the validity of a claim until they collect enough evidence to verify the claim. This is called _____
Skepticism
This process involves scientists reading other scientist's work and critiquing it before it gets published
Peer review
This form of validity deals with whether a measure is measuring what it's supposed to be measuring
Construct validity
Accepting vague, general descriptions as representative of one's personality
The Barnum Effect
Does altruism cause happiness or does happiness cause altruism? This issue is an example of ______
These are logical arguments that are meant to arrive at conclusions based on two propositions
Syllogisms
Psuedoscience
Logical and succinct conclusions without leaping to wild conclusions
Parsimony
One of the main limitations of Freud's work
Actually testing his theories
A cognitive shortcut that can occur when a successful subgroup is mistaken as the entire subgroup
Survivorship bias