What is the most powerful psychological research tool?
Experiment
Experiment
the formal process undertaken to confirm or disconfirm a hypothesis about the causes of behavior
What does an experiment entail?
Directly vary a condition you think might effect behavior, create two or more groups of subjects alike in all ways except for what you are varying
Independent variable
altered by the experimenter
dependent variable
measure the results of the experiment
extraneous variables
conditions a researcher wants to prevent from affecting outcomes of the experiment
Experimental group
participants who get independent variable
control group
participants who do NOT get independent variable
Random assignment
equal chance of being in either experimental or control group.
Balances personal differences in the two groups.
“Statistically significant”
results occur very rarely by chance alone.
To be significant, a difference must be large enough so that it would occur by chance in less then 5 experiments out of 100
Self-fulfilling prophecy
a prediction that leads people to act in ways to make prediction come true
single-blind experiment
The participants don’t know what group they’re in
double blind experiment
neither the researcher or the participants know what group they’re in
Naturalistic observation
Observing a person or an animal in the natural environmental context.
Provides descriptions of behavior
observer effect
Changes in behavior caused by an awareness of being observed.
Observer bias
Occurs when observers see what they expect to see or record only selected details.
Anthropomorphic error
Attributing human thoughts, feelings, or motives to animals
Correlational studies
- degree of a relationship between two variables.
- correlation coefficient ranges from -1.0-+1.0
- Closer to -1 or 1 the stronger the relationship
- correlation of 0.0 demonstrates no relationship
positive correlation
increases in one variable are matched by increases in the other variable. Ex. High School grades and College grades
negative correlation
Increases in one variable are matched by decreases the other variable. Ex. Hours playing video games and grades
Case Study
In-depth focus on all aspects of a single person
Natural clinical tests
Natural events, such as accidents, that provide psychological data (ex. phineas gage)
Survey method
-Using public polling techniques to answer psychological questions
Representative sample
small group that accurately reflects a larger population
Population
entire group of animals or people belonging to a particular category
problems with survey methods
- biased sample
- give polite or socially accepted answers
survey
in psychology, a public polling technique used to answer psychological questions
representative sample
a small, randomly selected part of a larger population that accurately reflects characteristics of the whole population
population
an entire group of animals or people belonging to a particular category
Who is the cutest freshman girl at MNU
Ellie Nyhus