Thinking Critically w/ Psychological Science
Terms : Hide Images
| 460201758 | biopsychosocial approach | considers influence of biological, psychological, & social-cultural factors | |
| 460201759 | neuroscience | how the body/brain enable emotions, memories, & sensory experiences | |
| 460201760 | evolutionary | how natural selection of traits promotes perpetuation of one's genes | |
| 460201761 | behavior genetics | how much our genes/environment influence our individual differences | |
| 460201762 | psychodynamic | how behavior springs from unconscious drives/conflicts | |
| 460201763 | behavioral | how we learn observable responses | |
| 460201764 | cognitive | how we encode/process/store/retrieve information | |
| 460201765 | social-cultural | how behavior/thinking vary across situations/cultures | |
| 460201766 | hindsight bias | the tendency to believe after learning an outcome, that one would have forseen it | |
| 460201767 | critical thinking | thinking that doesn't blindly accept arguments/conclusions, but examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, assesses conclusions | |
| 460201768 | theory | explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations/predicts behavior or events | |
| 460201769 | hypothesis | testable prediction, often implied by a theory | |
| 460201770 | operational definitions | statement of the procedures used to define research variables | |
| 460201771 | case study | observation technique in which one person is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles | |
| 460201772 | anecdotal cases | stories/personal experiences/psychological case examples can overwhelm general truths | |
| 460201773 | survey | technique for ascertaining self-reported attitudes/behaviors of people, usually by questioning a representative, random sample of them | |
| 460201774 | false consensus | tendency to overestimate others' agreement with us | |
| 460201775 | representative sample | only way to accurately know experiences/attitudes of whole population | |
| 460201776 | population | all the cases in a group, from which samples may be drawn for a study | |
| 460201777 | random sample | sample that fairly represents a population b/c each member has an equal chance of inclusion | |
| 460201778 | naturalistic observation | observing/recording behavior in naturally occurring situations w/o trying to manipulate/control the situation | |
| 460201779 | correlation | measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other | |
| 460201780 | scatterplot | graph clustered of dots, each of which represents values of two variables | |
| 460201781 | illusory correlation | perception of a relationship where none exists | |
| 460201782 | experiment | research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior/mental process (dependent variable) | |
| 460201783 | double-blind procedure | experimental procedure in which both the research participants & the research staff are ignorant about whether the research participants have received the treatment of a placebo; commonly used in drug-evaluation studies | |
| 460201784 | placebo effect | experimental results caused by expectations alone; any effect on behavior caused by the administration of an inert substance or condition, which is assumed to be an active agent | |
| 460201785 | experimental condition | condition of an experiment that exposes participants to treatment, that is to one version of the independent variable | |
| 460201786 | control condition | condition of an experiment that contrasts with the experimental condition and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment | |
| 460201787 | random assignment | assigning participants to experimental and control conditions by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between those assigned to the different groups | |
| 460201788 | independent variable | experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied | |
| 460201789 | dependent variable | outcome factor; variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable | |
| 460201790 | bar graphs | display distribution; can make differences look small/big depending on desired emphasis | |
| 460201791 | mode | most frequently occurring score(s) in a distribution | |
| 460201792 | mean | arithmetic average of a distribution, obtained by adding scores & dividing by # of scores | |
| 460201793 | median | middle score in distribution | |
| 460201794 | range | difference between highest/lowest scores in distribution | |
| 460201795 | standard deviation | computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score | |
| 460201796 | culture | enduring behaviors/ideas/attitudes/traditions shared by large group of people & transmitted from one generation to next | |
| 463454496 | replication | process of repeating an experiment, often w/ different participants and in different situations, to see whether the basic finding generalizes to other people/circumstances | |
| 463454497 | statistical significance | an obtained result, such as the difference between the average ages for two samples, very likely reflects a real difference rather than sampling variation or chance factors; tests of statistical significance help researchers decide when they can justifiably generalize from an observed instance |
