Terms : Hide Images
| 151915509 | psychology | the scientific study of behavior and mental processes | |
| 151915510 | Wilhelm Wundt | set up the first psychological laboratory in an apartment near the University of Leipzig, Germany; trained subjects in introspection, subjects were asked to accurately record their cognitive reactions to simple stimuli | |
| 151915511 | John Watson | 1878-1958; Field: behaviorism; Contributions: generalization-inductive reasoning, emphasis on external behaviors of people and their reactions on a given situation; Studies: Little Albert | |
| 151915512 | empiricism | the view that (a) knowledge comes from experience via the senses, and (b) science flourishes through observation and experiment. | |
| 151915513 | behaviorism | looks at only behavior and causes of behavior - stimuli and responses - not concerning themselves with describing elements of consciousness | |
| 151915514 | psychoanalysis | Freud's theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions | |
| 151915515 | Sigmund Freud | believes he discovered the unconscious - examined through dream analysis and word association; has been criticized for being unscientific and creating unverifiable theories | |
| 151915516 | biological approach | concerned with the links between biology and behavior | |
| 151915517 | behavioral approach | emphasizes the scientific study of observable behavioral responses and their environmental determinants. | |
| 151915518 | cognitive approach | behavior is a result of information processing, such as perception, memory, thought, judgment, and decision making | |
| 151915519 | psychoanalytic approach | psychological perspective concerned with how unconscious instincts, conflicts, motives, and defenses influence behavior | |
| 151915520 | experimental psychology | the branch of psychology that uses experimental methods to study psychological issues | |
| 151915521 | clinical psychology | a branch of psychology that studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders | |
| 151915522 | cognitive psychology | branch of psychology that focuses on such mental processes as thinking, problem solving, decision making, and use of language | |
| 151915523 | school psychology | psychological testing, referrals, emotional and vocational counseling of students, detects and treats learning disabilities, improves classroom learning | |
| 151915524 | counseling psychology | a branch of psychology that assists people with problems in living (often related to school, work, or marriage) and in achieving greater well-being | |
| 151915525 | social psychology | the scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another | |
| 151915526 | industrial/organizational psychology | the application of psychological concepts and methods to optimizing human behavior in workplaces | |
| 151915527 | developmental psychology | a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span | |
| 151915528 | psychometric psychology | a way of studying intelligence that emphasizes analysis of the products of intelligence, especially scores on intelligence tests | |
| 151915529 | experiment | only research method that can show a casual relationship; compare two groups - experimental and control group that differ based on the independent variable | |
| 151915530 | hypothesis | a statement that expresses a relationship between two variables; experimental hypothesis - dependent depends on independent variable; testing a hypothesis - researchers manipulate the independent variable and measure the dependent | |
| 151915531 | theory | aims to explain some phenomenon and allows researchers to generate testable hypothesis with the hope of collecting data that supports the theory; hypotheses often grow out of theories | |
| 151915532 | sampling | process by which participants are selected; identify population from which sample will be selected, goal to represent larger population | |
| 151915533 | population | group from which a sample is selected; includes anyone or anything that could possibly selected to be in the sample; goal in selecting sample is to represent the larger population | |
| 151915534 | independent variable | the experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied | |
| 151915535 | dependent variable | the outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable | |
| 151915536 | operational definition | explanation of how variables are measured | |
| 151915537 | experimental group | in an experiment, the group that is exposed to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable. | |
| 151915538 | control group | in an experiment, the group that is not exposed to the treatment; contrasts with the experimental group and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment. | |
| 151915539 | placebo | results cause by expectations alone; recipient assumes it is an active agent; sugar pill | |
| 151915540 | double-blind procedure | neither the participant nor the researcher are aware of who is in the experimental or control groups while the experiment is going on | |
| 151915541 | random selection | method of selecting a sample from a population; increases the likelihood that the sample represents the population | |
| 151915542 | case study method | used to get a full, detailed picture of one participant or small group of participants; focusing on a single individual or small group means that the findings cannot be generalized to a larger population | |
| 151915543 | survey method | often used to gather opinions or attitudes and for correlational research; response rate refers to the proportion of a surveyed group who responded and returned a survey | |
| 151915544 | naturalistic observation method | involves observing participants in their natural habitats without interacting with them; goal - realistic and rich picture of the participants behavior; cannot establish cause and effect relationship between variables | |
| 151915545 | correlational study | a research project designed to discover the degree to which two variables are related to each other | |
| 151915546 | ex post facto method | an experiment where the researcher examines the effect of a naturally occurring treatment after it has occurred | |
| 151915547 | descriptive statistics | ways of describing a set of data; measure of central tendency are a common descriptive statistic: mean, median, mode | |
| 151915548 | inferential statistics | numerical methods used to determine whether research data support a hypothesis or whether results were due to chance | |
| 151915549 | central tendency measures | locate the center of a distribution of response (mean, median, mode) | |
| 151915550 | mode | the most frequently occurring score in a distribution | |
| 151915551 | median | the middle score in a distribution; half the scores are above it and half are below it | |
| 151915552 | mean | the arithmetic average of a distribution, obtained by adding the scores and then dividing by the number of scores. | |
| 151915553 | measures of variability | in a set of numbers, how widely dispersed the values are from each other and from the mean | |
| 151915554 | standard deviation | a computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score | |
| 151915555 | range | the difference between the highest and the lowest scores | |
| 151915556 | frequency distribution | a chart or array of scores, usually arranged from highest to lowest, showing the number of instances for each score | |
| 151915557 | normal distribution | bell-shaped curve that results when the values of a trait in a population are plotted against their frequency | |
| 151915558 | skewed distribution | an asymmetrical but generally bell-shaped distribution of opinions; its mode, or most frequent response, lies off to one side. | |
| 151915559 | statistical significance | a statistical statement of how likely it is that an obtained result occurred by chance |
