AP Psychology Unit 1: History, Approaches, and Research Methods

Correlation

A measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and this of how well either factor predicts the other.

Dependent Variable

The outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable.

Illusory Correlation

The perception of a relationship where none exists.

Natural selection (Charles Darwin)

The principle that song the range of inherited trait variations, those that led to increased reproduction and survival will most likely be passed to succeeding generations. Darwin's 1859 "Origins of Species" explained this diversity of life by proposing an evolutionary process. From among the chance variations in organisms, he believed, nature selects those that best enable an organism to survive and reproduce in a particular environment.

Wording Effects

When a specific word used in a question effects how respondents answer the question or the order of the questions.

Debriefing

When a study or experiment ends, researchers are required to "debrief" participants. In a "debriefing" a researcher explains the purpose of the study, explains the use of deception (if any was used), encourages the participant to ask questions about the study, and allows the researcher to address any harm to the participant that may have resulted from their participation in the study. Debriefing is important to make sure the participant does not feel harmed from the the study in any way.

Control Condition

The condition of an experiment that contrasts with the experimental condition and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment.

Experimental Condition

The condition of an experiment that contrasts with the experimental condition and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effects of the treatment.

Range

The difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution.

Introspection (Wundt, Titchener)

The examination or observation of one's mental and emotional processes. Wundt and Titchener focused on inner sensations, images, and feelings. James,too, engaged in introspective examination of stream consciousness and of emotion.

Mode

The most frequently occurring score(s) in a distribution.

Psychology

The scientific study of behavior and mental process.

Cognitive Neuroscience

The study of the interaction of thought process and brain function.

Normal Curve

The symmetrical bell-shaped curve that deceived the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes. Most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fewer scared lie near the extremes.

Overconfidence

The tendency to be very sure of a fact and later finding out that the objective reality was different.

Hindsight Bias

The tendency to believe after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it (I knew it all along phenomenon).

False Consensus Effect

The tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors.

Empiricism

The view that (a) knowledge comes from experiences via the senses, and (b) science flourishes through observation and experiment.

Psychiatry

A branch of medicine dealing with phycological disorders; practiced by physicians who sometimes provide medical treatments as well as psychological therapy.

Standard Deviation

A computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score.

Negative Skew

A curve it distribution of scores that had extreme scores below the mean that are atypical of the majority of scores.

Positive Skew

A curve or distribution of scores that has extreme scores above the mean that are atypical of the majority of scores.

Variance

A dispersion of scores within a sample, where by a small variance implies very similar scores, all near the sample mean, and a large variance implies more scores at a larger distance from the mean and potentially spread over a bigger range.

Stratified Sample

A sampling method(a way of gathering participants for a study) used when the population is composed of several subgroups that may differ in the behavior or attitude that you are studying.

Operational Definition

A statement of the procedures(operations) used to define research variables. For example, human intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures.

Statistical Significance

A statistical statement of how likely it is that an obtained result occur by chance.

Survey

A technique for ascertaining the self- reported attitudes or behaviors of people, usually by questioning a representative random sample of them.

Hypotheses

A testable prediction, often implied by a theory.

Population

All the cases in a group, from which samples may be drawn for a study(note: except for national studies, this does not refer to a country's whole population).

Hawthorne Effect

Also known as subject reactivity, can be determined as changes in behavior resulting from attention participants believe they are getting from researchers, and not the variable(s) manipulated by the researchers (in the Hawthrone case, the amount of light in the work environment).

Double-Blind Procedure

An experiment procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are ignorant (blind) about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo. Commonly used in drug- evaluation studies.

Theory

An explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes and predicts observations.

Confounding Variable

An extraneous variable whose presence affects the variables being studied so that the results you get do not reflect the actual relationship between the variables under investigation. When conducting an experiment, the basic question that any experimenter is asking is: "How does A affect B?" where A is the probable cause, and B is the effect. Any manipulation of A is expected to result in a change in the effect.

Case Study

An observation technique in which one person is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles.

Behavior

Anything an organism does- any action we can observe and record.

Industrial organizational psychologist

Apply application of psychological principles to the workplace. They study and advise on behavior in the workplace. They use psychology's concepts and methods to help organizations and companies select and train employees more efficiently, too boost morale and productivity, to design products, and to employ implement systems.

Random Assignment

Assigning participants to experimental and control conditions by chance, this minimizing preexisting differences between those assigned to the different groups.

Experimenter Bias

Bias introduced by an experimenter whose expectations about the outcome of the experiment can be subtly communicated to the participants in the experiment

Counseling Psychologists

Branch of psychology that assists people with problems in living (often related to school, work, or marriage) and in achieving greater well being.

Clinical Psychologists

Branch of psychology that studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders.

Behavior Genetics

How much our genes and our environment influence our individual differences.

Behavioral Perspective

How we learn observable responses.

Biospcyhosocial Approach

Integrated perspective that incorporates, biological, psychological, and social- cultural levels of analysis.

Personality Psychologists

Investigating our persistent traits.

Nature-Nurture Issue

Long standing controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experiences make to development of psychological traits and behaviors.

Naturalistic Observation

Observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situations.

Scatter Plot

A graphed cluster of dots, each of which represents the values of two variables. The slips of points suggest the direction of the relationship between the two variables. The amount of scatter suggests the strength of correlation(little scatter indicates high correlation). (Also called a scatter gram or scatter diagram).

Experiment

A research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors(independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process (the dependent variable). By random assignment of participants, the experimenter aims to control other relevant factors.

Random Sample

A sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion.

Placebo Effect

Experimental results caused by expectations alone; any effect on behavior caused by the administration of a inert substance or condition, which is assumed to be an active agent.

Cognitive Psychologists

Experimenting with how we perceive, think, and solve problems.

Biological Psychologists

Explore the links between brain and mind.

Social Psychologists

Exploring how we view and affect one another.

Levels of Analysis

Differing complementary views, from biological to psychological to social- cultural, for analyzing any given phenomenon.

Structuralism

Early school of psychology that used introspection(looking inward) to explore the elemental structure of the human mind.

Functionalism

Focused on how the mental and behavior process function- how they enable the organism to adapt, survive, and flourish.

Wilhelm Wundt

German professor that created an experimental apparatus. His machine measured the time lag between people's hearing a ball his a platform and their pressing a telegraph key (Hunt, 1993). He was seeking to measure "atoms of the mind"- the fastest and simplest mental process. This began what may consider psychology's first experiment, launching the first psychological laboratory, staffed by Wundt and psychology's first graduate students.

Social-Cultural Perspective

How behavior and thinking vary across stations and cultures.

Psychodynamic Perspective

How behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts.

Neuroscience Perspective

How the body and brain enable emotions, memories, and sensory experiences.

Evolutionary Perspective

How the natural selections of traits promote the perpetuation of one's genes.

Cognitive Perspective

How we encode, process, store, and retrieve information.

Humanistic Psychology (Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow)

Perspective that emphasized the growth potential of healthy people; used persons personalized methods to study personality in hopes of foreseeing personal growth. Roger and Malsow both emphasized the importance of currently environmental influences on our growth potential and the importance of meeting our needs for love and acceptance.

Socrates, Plato, Descartes, Locke

Philosopher- teacher Socrates (469-399 B.C) and his student Plato (428-348 B.C) concluded that the mind is separable from the body and continues after the body dies. Rene Descartes agreed with Socrates and Plato about existence of innate ideas and the mind being "entirely distinct from body" and able to survive death. Also dissected animals and concluded that fluid in the brain's captivities contained "animal spirits"- nerves, provoking movement. John Locke (1632-1704), British political philosopher, argued that the mind at birth is a blank slate- a "white paper" on which experience writes (An essay concerning Human Understanding). Also helped form modern empiricism. Tabula Rasa= blank slate.

Basic Research

Pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base.

Replication

Repeating the essence of a reason study, usually with different participants in different situations, to see whether the basic finding extends to other participants and circumstances.

Cognitive Psychology (Jean Piaget)

Scientific study of mind and mental function. Jean Piaget, the last century's most influential observer of children, was a Swiss biologist.

Applied Research

Scientific study that aims to solve practical problems.

Developmental Psychologists

Study our changing abilities from womb to tomb.

Mean

The arithmetic average of a distribution, obtained by adding scores and then diving by the number of scores.

Cognitive Revolution

The cognitive revolution was a period during the 1950s-1960s when cognitive psychology replaced Behaviorism and Psychoanalysis as the main approach in psychological fields. Increasing focus was placed on observable behaviors in conjunction with brain activity and structure. During the Cognitive Revolution, more importance was placed on perception and memory such as the size capacity of working memory (which is what we are actively thinking of at the moment). Among the first disputes between behaviorists and cognitive psychologists was over language acquisition. Behaviorists believed that humans were born "blank slates" of language acquisition and that all language capabilities were learned through our environment. Noam Chomsky theorized that we have an innate capacity for language in our brains that we are all born with and that our capacity for language was inherent as well as learned. The term Cognitive Psychology became widespread in 1967 and the invention of brain imaging machines and computers allowed the field to grow rapidly due to increased research capabilities.

Culture

The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.

Independent Variable

The experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied.

Validity

The extent to which a test measures or predicts what is suppose to.

Reliability

The extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternate forms of the test, or retesting.

Correlation Coefficient

The mathematical expression of relationship, ranging from -1 to +1

Median

The middle score in a distribution; half the scores above it and half are below it.

Behaviorism(John B. Watson)

The view that psychology should be an objective science that studies behavior without reference to mental processes. American psychologist, led by John B. Watson and later B.F. Skinner, dismissed introspection and redefined psychology as "the scientific study of observable behavior." Ivan Pavlov, who pioneered the study of learning, was a Russian physiologist. He also studied classical conditioning and did experiments salivating dogs.

Mental Process

They are internal, subjective experiences we infer from behavior- sensations, perceptions, dreams, thoughts, beliefs, and feelings.

Critical Thinking

Thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions. Rather it, examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions.

Inferential Statistics

Unlike descriptive statistics, inferential statistics provide ways of testing the reliability of the findings of a study and "inferring" characteristics from a small group of participants or people (your sample) onto much larger groups of people (the population). Inferential statistics let you say what the data means.

Descriptive Statistics

Used by researchers to summarize an describe data found during research. Typically researchers deal with lots of data and descriptive statistics provide a way for researchers to summarize the main properties of a large group of data into just a few numbers. This lets the researchers show what the data are without tons of numbers.

Washburn, Calkins, Freud, James

William James thought it was more fruitful to consider the evolved functions of our thoughts and feelings. He assumed that thinking, like smelling, developed because it was adaptive. He was also a functionalist who wrote the first psychology textbook. Mary Calkins was admitted into Jame's graduate seminar. Harvard denied her degree she earned. Then she became a distinguished memory researcher and the American Psychology Association's (APA's) first female APA president. Margaret Floy Washburn wrote "The Animal Mind" and became the second female APA president. Also the first women to get a PhD. Sigmund Freud developed the theory of personality and studied psychoanalysis and free association. He was an Austrian physician who focused on the unconscious.