2.5 Psych AP

Why is an operational definition necessary when reporting research findings?

It allows others to replicate the procedure

Bobo Doll

Nursery school students observed an adult play aggressively (yelling & hitting) with an inflatable clown (Bobo); when children were later allowed to play with the Bobo, those children who witnesses the Bobo doll performed the same aggressive actions and improvised new ways of playing aggressively. Done by Albert Bandura.

sampling bias

a flawed sampling process that produces an unrepresentative finding

hypothesis

a testable prediction

theory

an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events

Researchers are interested in finding out if winning Congressional candidates display more positive facial expressions than losing candidates. The researchers attend political debates and record how frequently each candidate displays positive facial expressions. Which research method are the researchers using?

naturalistic observation

naturalistic observations

observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to maniulate and control the situation

replications

repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different partipants in differant situations to see wheather the basic finding extends to other partipants and circumsances

Which of the following questions is best investigated by means of a survey? (a) Is IQ related to grades? (b) Are violent criminals genetically different from nonviolent criminals? (c) Does extra sleep improve memory? (d) What is the best study technique for AP® tests? (e) Are students more likely to be politically liberal or conservative?

e

Traits of a good theory

effectively organizes a range of self reports and observations, leads to clear hypotheses, stimulates research for revised theory

A testable prediction that drives research is known as a(n)

hypothesis

theory vs. hypothesis

hypothesis is before experiment, a theory is after

confounding variables REPEAT

Any difference between the experimental and control conditions, except for the independent variable, that might affect the dependent variable. It mucks up the date and gets in the way of the data being pure/

A teacher wants to know if nightmares are more common than dreams. He asks volunteers from his second-period class to report how many dreams they had last week. He asks volunteers from his third-period class to report the number of nightmares they had last week. Describe two things wrong with the design of this study.

There is no hypothesis stated. In asking for volunteers, the teacher is taking a nonrandom sample that is probably not representative of the population of interest. Neither dreams nor nightmares are operationally defined, so they might be interpreted differently by later researchers. The research is not blind. The teacher could influence the results by the way he asked questions.

random sample

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

An individual with an exceptional memory is identified. She is capable of recalling major events, the weather, and what she did on any given date. What research method is being used if a psychologist conducts an in-depth investigation of this individual including questionnaires, brain scans, and memory tests?

case study

Which of the following is most important when conducting survey research? (a) Choosing a representative sample (b) Choosing a large sample (c) Choosing a biased sample (d) Choosing a sample that includes every member of the population (e) Choosing a sample whose answers will likely support your hypothesis

d

A researcher looking for gender differences in 3-year- olds observes a preschool class and records how many minutes children of each gender play with dolls. She then compares the two sets of numbers. What type of descriptive research is she conducting?

naturalistic observation

Naturalistic observation is a research method used by psychologists to investigate human and animal behavior. Identify three weaknesses of naturalistic observation.

Naturalistic observation is a valid research method, but it is not without its flaws. One flaw is that without various groups (control and experimental), it is hard to determine cause and effect. A second flaw of naturalistic observation is that it is hard to make sure that the researcher does not accidentally influence the results, as it is hard for people not to notice when they are being observed. A third disadvantage is that since naturalistic observation lacks clear-cut lines, different researchers/observers can get different results.

operational definition

a carefully worded statement of the exact procedures (operations) used in a research study. For example human intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures

case study

a descriptive tecnique in which one individual or group is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles

survey

a tecnique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a particular group, usually by questioning a representitive, random sample of the group.

population

all those in a group being studied, from which samples may be drawn (this does not refer to a country's whole population if it is not a national study).

traits of a good hypothesis DELETE

descriptive, correlational, experimental

representitive sample

sample in which characteristics of subgroup closely correspond to larger population