Chapter 2: Methods

Question 1

hindsight bias

Answer 1

it’s relatively easy to explain the occurrence of an event after it occurs

Question 2

applied research

Answer 2

research that has clear, practical applications

Question 3

basic research

Answer 3

explores questions of interest that do not have clear, practical applications

Question 4

hypothesis

Answer 4

expresses a relationship between two variables

Question 5

dependent variable

Answer 5

variable that changes as a result of the independent variable

Question 6

independent variable

Answer 6

a variable that is independent

Question 7

theory

Answer 7

aims to explain a relationship between variables

Question 8

operational definitions

Answer 8

explains how to measure a variable

Question 9

valid

Answer 9

if it produces an accurate result

Question 10

reliable

Answer 10

if it continues to produce similar results over time

Question 11

participants

Answer 11

people that participate in the study

Question 12

population

Answer 12

anybody that could potentially become a participant, or part of the sample

Question 13

sample

Answer 13

the group of participants

Question 14

sampling

Answer 14

process of selecting a sample

Question 15

random selection

Answer 15

each member of the population has an equal chance of being selected; is done best via a double blind procedure

Question 16

representative

Answer 16

must represent the larger population

Question 17

stratified sampling

Answer 17

random sampling from subgroups; if you wanted an experiment to be racially representative, you could divide the population into smaller subgroups and then sample from each subgroup individually in proportion to their representation in the population

Question 18

laboratory experiments

Answer 18

conducted in a controlled laboratory environment

Question 19

field experiments

Answer 19

conducted in the ‘real world’

Question 20

confounding variables

Answer 20

any difference between experimental and control conditions except for the independent variable

Question 21

assignment

Answer 21

process by which participants are put into a group

Question 22

participant-relevant confounding variables

Answer 22

confounding variable introduced by allowing the participant some control of the experiment; e.g. allowing them to choose a violent movie rather than randomly placing them in a group

Question 23

group matching

Answer 23

making control and experimental groups equal for some criteria; assigning equal numbers of the female population to the two groups

Question 24

situation-relevant confounding variables

Answer 24

any difference in the setting of the control v the experimental (except for the independent variable) that could affect the outcome

Question 25

experimenter bias

Answer 25

unconscious difference in the way they treat groups

Question 26

double-blind procedure

Answer 26

neither participants or researcher are able to affect the outcome of the experiment

Question 27

demand characteristics

Answer 27

when participants form a preconceived notion about the way the experiment is supposed to go and behave accordingly

Question 28

Hawthorne effect

Answer 28

participants alter their behavior because they know they are being studied

Question 29

naturalistic observation

Answer 29

observing in natural habitat/in the field

Question 30

case study

Answer 30

intensively studying one case or individual to get an idea of how things work on a larger scale

Question 31

descriptive statistics

Answer 31

describe a set of data via statistics

Question 32

frequency distributions

Answer 32

histograms, etc, graphical representations of frequencies

Question 33

measures of central tendency

Answer 33

mean, median, mode; attempt to mark the center of a distribution

Question 34

mean

Answer 34

average 90, 60, 20, 53 is the mean

Question 35

median

Answer 35

central score, middle one in the number of scores. 90 60 20, 60 is the median

Question 36

outliers

Answer 36

values that are extreme scores

Question 37

positively skewed

Answer 37

skew caused by a particularly high score, more scores on the low end

Question 38

negatively skewed

Answer 38

skew caused by a particularly low score, more scores on the high end

Question 39

measures of variability

Answer 39

depict diversity of a distribution; range, variance, standard deviation

Question 40

z scores

Answer 40

distance of score from mean in units of standard deviation

Question 41

within one standard dev

Answer 41

approx 68 percent of scores

Question 42

within 2 standard devs

Answer 42

approx 95 percent of scores

Question 43

within 3 standard devs

Answer 43

approx 99 percent of scores