Methodological Issues

Question 1

What is validity?

Answer 1

Validity refers to if the research really has measured psychological concepts.

Question 2

What is ecological validity?

Answer 2

Whether the measure of behaviour resembles real life. Lower in lab experiments as behaviour is not very naturalistic.

Question 3

What is population validity?

Answer 3

Whether the sample used in the research is diverse and representative (e.g. ages, sexes)

Question 4

What is construct validity?

Answer 4

How accurate a piece of research is at measuring what it is supposed to measure.

Question 5

Define demand characteristics

Answer 5

Cues given in an experiment which means that participants are able to work out the purpose of the study

Question 6

What is reliability?

Answer 6

Consistency within the research or findings

Question 7

What is inter-rater reliability?

Answer 7

Where two observers consistently rate or observe the same behaviour and the two sets of ratings are correlated to ensure the findings are not subjective

Question 8

What is ethnocentrism?

Answer 8

Whether the findings of the study represents a range of cultures

Question 9

What does it mean to carry out cross-cultural research and why does it avoid being ethnocentric?

Answer 9

It means doing research in more than one country. It includes multiple cultures, which includes different social behaviours making the results generalisable and it doesn’t restrict the research.

Question 10

What does it mean to carry out research amongst a heterogeneous population and why does it avoid being ethnocentric?

Answer 10

It means doing research in a multicultural society. We get data from multiple cultures which we would have not gotten otherwise.

Question 11

What does it mean to carry out biological research and why does it avoid being ethnocentric?

Answer 11

It means investigating the brain e.g. MRI scans. It focuses on biological factors which aren’t affected by someone’s environment. The function of the brain is universal.