CLPS 0010 Readings - Chapter 2

Question 1

What does it mean to use operational definitions?

Answer 1

To define variable by quantifying them so that they can be measured

Question 2

What are descriptive studies?

Answer 2

Research method that involves observing and noting the behavior of people or other animals to provide a systematic and objective analysis of the behavior

Question 3

What is a naturalistic observation?

Answer 3

A type of descriptive study in which the researcher is a passive observer, making no attempt to change or alter ongoing behavior

Question 4

What is a participant observation?

Answer 4

A type of descriptive study in which the researcher is actively involved in the situation

Question 5

What are the two types of descriptive studies?

Answer 5

Naturalistic observation and participant observation

Question 6

What are some problems with participant observation?

Answer 6

Might lose objectivity, might change behaviors if know you’re being observed

Question 7

What are cross-sectional studies?

Answer 7

Research method that compares participants in different groups at the same time

Question 8

What is observer bias?

Answer 8

Systematic errors in observation that occur because eof an observer’s expectations

Question 9

What is the cohort effect?

Answer 9

The potential difference in groups of a cross-sectional study that are due to some external third variable

Question 10

What is the experimenter expectancy effect?

Answer 10

Actual change in the behavior of the people or nonhuman animals being observed that is due to the expectations of the observer

Question 11

What are correlational studies?

Answer 11

Research method that examines how variable are naturally related in the real world without any attempt by the researcher to alter them or assign causation between them

Question 12

What is the disadvantage of a correlational study?

Answer 12

Can’t be used to support causal relationships or show the direction of the cause/effect relationship between variables or identify third variable confound

Question 13

What is the directionality problem?

Answer 13

The problem encountered in correlational studies where you can’t determine which variable may have caused changed in the other

Question 14

What is the third variable problem?

Answer 14

A problem when the researcher cannot directly manipulate the variables; this they can’t be confident that there’s not a confounding third variable at play

Question 15

What kind of situations in experiments often lead to a lack of external validity?

Answer 15

Overly artificial situations

Question 16

What is culturally sensitive research?

Answer 16

Research that takes into account the role that culture plays in determining thoughts, feelings, and actions

Question 17

What are observational techniques?

Answer 17

A research method of careful and systematic assessment and coding of overt behavior

Question 18

What is coding?

Answer 18

Determining what previously defined category the behavior fits into

Question 19

What is reactivity?

Answer 19

When the knowledge that one is being observed alters the behavior being observed

Question 20

What is the Hawthorne effect?

Answer 20

Reactivity (workers at the Hawthorne plant)

Question 21

What are the advantages and disadvantages of case studies?

Answer 21

Can provide extensive data about one or a few individuals/organizations, but can be very subjective and can’t be generalized to the population

Question 22

What are the advantages and disadvantages to interactive methods?

Answer 22

Can gather lots of data like through self-report methods, inexpensive, easy to give, fast, can explore new lines of questioning; BUT can include self-report bias, social desirability bias, or incorrect information recall

Question 23

What is experience sampling?

Answer 23

When researchers take several samples of the participants’ experiences over time and determine how the responses vary over time

Question 24

What is the better-than-average effect?

Answer 24

When people tend to describe themselves in especially positive ways because they believe things about themselves that aren’t necessarily true

Question 25

What is the response performance method?

Answer 25

A research method in which researchers quantify perceptual of cognitive processes in response to a specific stimulus; uses reaction times and response accuracy

Question 26

What are advantages/disadvantages of the response performance method?

Answer 26

It's easy to study cognition/perception, less affected by observer bias or subject reactivity; BUT it’s costly and time-consuming and less likely to be useful in real world settings

Question 27

Why are reaction times particularly good as dependent measures?

Answer 27

You can't fake them.

Question 28

What else, in addition to reaction time, can be measure in response performance studies?

Answer 28

Response accuracy

Question 29

What are stimulus judgments?

Answer 29

Judging whether the two stimuli are the same or different in some way, like size, color, shape, etc.

Question 30

What are some examples of psychophysiological assessment?

Answer 30

When researchers examine how physiology changes in association with psychology; EEG, CAT, PET, MRI, fMRI, etc.

Question 31

What is electrophysiology?

Answer 31

A data collection method that measure electircal activity in the brain using electrodes; measured by an EEG

Question 32

What are the advantages/disadvantages of body/brain activity methods?

Answer 32

Identify physical responses to external events: changes in bodily activity (polygraphs), electrical brain activity (EEG), localizing brain activity (PET, fMRI, TMS) or brain structure (MRI); BUT deemphasize brain localization, are better for speed of response but not activity, or vice versa, and are correlational and have the third variable problem and directionality problem

Question 33

What is brain imaging?

Answer 33

Measures changes in the rate of blood flow to different brain regions to monitor which regions are active during tasks/events

Question 34

What is PET for?

Answer 34

Computer-aided reconstruction of the brain's metabolic activity; requires injection of radioactive substance

Question 35

What is MRI for?

Answer 35

Producing a high-res image of the brain, brain structure, location of brain damage or tumors

Question 36

What is fMRI for?

Answer 36

Uses blood flow to map the working brain, measures blood oxygen level, allows comparison of images to examine difference in blood flow and brain activity

Question 37

What is TMS for?

Answer 37

Uses magnetic coils to disrupt the electrical signals of specific brain areas, like over the language area to impair speech; can only be used for short durations; very useful for examining which brain regions are necessary for specific psychological functions

Question 38

What are transgenic mice?

Answer 38

Mice produced by manipulating the genes in developing mouse embryos by inserting foreign DNA into the genes

Question 39

What are four main issues evaluated and regulated by the IRBs?

Answer 39

Privacy, access to data, informed consent, and relative risks of participation

Question 40

Describe the ethical issues surrounding privacy.

Answer 40

Observing people without them knowing it; what topics are too personal or inappropriate; how the studies will affect the participants' sense of privacy

Question 41

Describe the ethical issues surrounding access to data.

Answer 41

Keeping things confidential; keeping the data quality and accurate; promising anonymity if the data can't be confidential

Question 42

Describe the ethical issues surrounding informed consent.

Answer 42

Respect and trust for participants; voluntary knowledgeable decision to participate; special considerations for minors/mentally ill regarding legal guardians; using deception only when other methods aren't appropriate and when deception doesn't involve situations that would strongly affect people's willingness to participate; careful debriefing after the deception

Question 43

Describe the ethical issues surrounding relative risks of participation.

Answer 43

No enduring pain or discomfort; appropriate trade-off between risks and benefits if necessary

Question 44

What is internal validity?

Answer 44

Whether the data you collect address your question

Question 45

What is reliability?

Answer 45

The extent to which a measure is stable and consistent over time in similar conditions

Question 46

What are the three characteristics of good data?

Answer 46

Validity, reliability, and accuracy

Question 47

What is accuracy?

Answer 47

The extent to which the measure is error free

Question 48

What are descriptive statistics?

Answer 48

Stats that summarize the data collected in a study

Question 49

What is central tendency?

Answer 49

A measure that represents the typical response of the behaviors of a group as a whole

Question 50

Which kind of error is more harmful, systematic or random?

Answer 50

Systematic, because usually random will average out eventually

Question 51

What are the elements of descriptive statistics?

Answer 51

Mean, median, mode, variability, standard deviation, range

Question 52

What is the variability?

Answer 52

How widely dispersed the values in a set of numbers are from each other and from the mean

Question 53

What are inferential statistics?

Answer 53

A set of procedures used to make judgments about whether difference actually exist between sets of numbers

Question 54

What is an accurate description of the rationale for inferential statistics?

Answer 54

When the means of two sample groups are significantly different, we can infer that the populations the groups were selected from are different