Chapter 2

Question 2

The tendency to cling to one’s beliefs is know as

Answer 2

Dogmatism

Question 3

What is empiricism?

Answer 3

The conviction that accurate knowledge of the world can be acquired by observing it.

Question 4

What is the scientific method

Answer 4

A procedure for using empirical evidence to establish facts

Question 5

What are theories?

Answer 5

Explanations of natural phenomena

Question 6

What is a hypothesis

Answer 6

A falsifiable prediction made by a theory

Question 7

What are the three steps that the scientific method uses to learn the truth about the world?

Answer 7

1. Develop a theory 2. Derive a falsifiable hypothesis 3.test the hypothesis

Question 8

What is the empirical method?

Answer 8

A set of rules and techniques for obser

Question 9

What are the three qualities that make humans complicated to study?

Answer 9

1. People are complex
2. People are extremely variable
3. People are reactive

Question 10

What is the difference between methods of observation and methods of explanation

Answer 10

Methods of observation allows scientists to discover what people do, methods of explanation allow scientists to discover why they act that way.

Question 11

Why is everyday observation not good enough for doing science

Answer 11

Human observations are often inconsistent.

Question 12

What is an operational definition?

Answer 12

A description of a property in measurable terms.

Question 13

What is construct validity?

Answer 13

A feature of operational definitions whose specified operations are generally considered good indicators of the specified properties.

Question 14

What is power?

Answer 14

A detectors ability to detect the presence of differences or changes in the magnitude of a property

Question 15

What is reliability?

Answer 15

A detectors ability to detect the absence of differences or changes in the magnitude of a propertyb

Question 16

What are demand characteristics

Answer 16

Aspects of an observational setting that cause people to behave as they think someone else wants or expects

Question 17

What are three techniques psychologists use to avoid demand characteristics?

Answer 17

Naturalistic observation(observing in natural habitats), privacy & control(anonymous whenever possible), unawareness(if possible don’t tell the participant what the true purpose is).

Question 18

What is observer bias?

Answer 18

The tendency for observers expectations to influence both what they believe they observed and what they actually observed

Question 19

What is a double blind study?

Answer 19

A study in which neither the researcher nor the participant knows how the participants were expected to behave

Question 20

What is Fred Bartlett most know for?

Answer 20

Participants false memories of stories

Question 21

Does nativism put emphasis on nature or nurture?

Answer 21

Nature!

Question 22

What is a population?

Answer 22

A complete collection of people

Question 23

What is a sample?

Answer 23

A partial collection of people drawn from a population

Question 24

What 2 methods do psychologists have to make sense of raw data?

Answer 24

Graphic representation and descriptive statistics

Question 25

What is a frequency distribution?

Answer 25

A graphic representation showing the number of times that the measurement of a property takes on each of its possible values

Question 26

Which way is a negative skew and which way is a positive skew?

Answer 26

Negative skew leans to the right Positive skew leans to the left

Question 27

What is a normal distribution?

Answer 27

A mathematically defined distribution in which the frequency of measurements is highest in the middle and decreases symmetrically in both directions. aka a bell curve

Question 28

What are descriptive statistics?

Answer 28

Brief summary statements that capture the essential information from a frequency distribution

Question 29

How do you calculate the range of a dataset?

Answer 29

The value of the largest measurement in a frequency distribution minus the value of the smallest measurment

Question 30

What is standard deviation

Answer 30

A statistic that describes how each of the measurements in a frequency distribution differs from the mean

Question 31

What is correlation?

Answer 31

A relationship between variables in which variations in the value of one variable are synchronized with variation in the value of the other

Question 32

What is the correlation coefficient?

Answer 32

A mathematical measure of both the direction and strength of a correlation

Question 33

What is natural correlation?

Answer 33

A correlation that is observed in the natural world

Question 34

Third variable problem

Answer 34

Refers to the fact that the natural correlation between two variables cannot be taken as evidence of a casual relationship between them because a third variable might be causing them both

Question 35

What is Experimentalism

Answer 35

A technique for establishing the casual relationship between variables

Question 36

What is manipulation?

Answer 36

A technique for determining the casual power of a variable by actively changing it value

Question 37

What variable do you manipulate and which variable do you measure?

Answer 37

You manipulate the independent variable, and measure the dependant variable

Question 38

What is self selection?

Answer 38

A problem that occurs when anything about a participant determines the value of the independent variable to which the participant was exposed

Question 39

What is random assignment?

Answer 39

A procedure that assigns participants to conditions by chance

Question 40

What is internal validity?

Answer 40

An attribute of an experiment that allows it to establish causal relationships

Question 41

What is external validity?

Answer 41

An attribute of an experiment in which variables have been operationally defined in a representative way.

Question 42

What is case method?

Answer 42

A procedure for gathering scientific information by studying a single individual