Chapter 2

Question 1

Prefrontal Lobotomy

Answer 1

Surgical procedure that severs fibres connecting the frontal lobes of the brain from the underlying thalamus.

Question 2

Heuristic

Answer 2

Mental shortcut or “rule of thumb” that helps us simplify our thinking and make sense of the world.

Question 3

Random Selection

Answer 3

Procedure that ensures every person in a population has an equal chance of being chosen to participate.

Question 4

Reliability

Answer 4

Consistency of measurement.

Question 5

Validity

Answer 5

How well something measures what it’s supposed to measure.

Question 6

Naturalistic Observation

Answer 6

Watching behaviour in real-world settings without manipulating the situation.

Question 7

External Validity

Answer 7

How well the results of a study can apply to the real-world (naturalistic observation is very high in External Validity).

Question 8

Internal Validity

Answer 8

Whether we can draw cause-and-effect interferences from a study.

Question 9

Case Study

Answer 9

Research design that studies one person or a small number of people in depth over an extended period of time (provides lots of details).

Question 10

Existence Proof

Answer 10

Showing that something in psychology (phenomenon) can happen.

Question 11

Response Set

Answer 11

Tendencies to distort their answers to make themselves look better.

Question 12

Correlational Design

Answer 12

Research design that examines the extent to which 2 variables are associated.
(Negative and Positive Correlation)

Question 13

Scatterplot

Answer 13

Grouping of points on a graph, each dot represents a single persons data.

Question 14

Illusory Correlation

Answer 14

When people mistakenly think 2 things are connected/related when they’re not.
(Illusory Correlation forms the basis of superstition).

Question 15

Experimental Design

Answer 15

Research design
1. Using random participants.
2. Manipulation of an independent variable.

Question 16

Random Assignment

Answer 16

Randomly sorting participants into groups.

Question 17

Experimental Group

Answer 17

In an experiment, this is the group of participants that receives the manipulation.

Question 18

Control Group

Answer 18

In an experiment, this is the group of participants that don’t receive the manipulation.

Question 19

Between-Subjects Design

Answer 19

In an experiment, when researchers assign different groups to the control or experimental condition.

Question 20

Within-Subject Design

Answer 20

In an experiment, each participant act as their own control.

Question 21

Independent Variable

Answer 21

Variable that an experimenter manipulates.

Question 22

Dependant Variable

Answer 22

Variable that the experimenter measures to see whether the manipulation has had an effect.

Question 23

Operational Definition

Answer 23

A working definition of what a researcher is measuring.

Question 24

Placebo Effect

Answer 24

When you feel better because you believe something (like a treatment) will work, power of belief.

Question 25

Blind

Answer 25

Being unaware of whether one is in the experimental or or control group.

Question 26

Experimenter Expectancy Effect

Answer 26

Researchers UNINTENTIONALLY influencing the result of an experiment because of their own biases.

Question 27

Double-Blind

Answer 27

When neither researchers nor participants are aware of who’s in the experimental or control group.

Question 28

Demand Characteristics

Answer 28

Cues that participants pick up from a study that allows them to generate guesses regarding the researchers hypotheses.

Question 29

Informed Consent

Answer 29

Informing research participants of what is involved in a study before asking them to participate.

Question 30

Statistics

Answer 30

Use of math to describe and analyze data.

Question 31

Descriptive Statistics

Answer 31

Numerical characterizations that describe data (describe data).

Question 32

Central Tendency

Answer 32

First type of descriptive statistics. Measure of the “central” scores in a dataset, or where the group tends to cluster (mean, median, mode).

Question 33

Mean

Answer 33

The average.

Question 34

Median

Answer 34

Middle score in a data set.

Question 35

Mode

Answer 35

Most frequent score in a data set.

Question 36

Variability

Answer 36

Second type of descriptive statistics. Measure of how loosely or tightly bunched the scores are.

Question 37

Range

Answer 37

Difference between the highest and lowest scores, measure of variability.

Question 38

Standard Deviation

Answer 38

Measure of variability that takes into account how far each data point is from the mean.

Question 39

Inferential Statistics

Answer 39

Math methods that allow them to determine how confident we are that we can generalize findings from our sample to the full population.

Question 40

Meta-Analysis

Answer 40

Analysis of a set of studies on a particular topic that statistically evaluates the strength of patterns across different studies.

Question 41

Base rate

Answer 41

How common a characteristic or behaviour is in the general population.