Unit II: Research Methods:

Unit II:
Research Methods:
*Psychology is a science

Hindsight Bias: tendency to believe, after learning the outcome,that you knew it along.
Overconfidence: we tend to think we knew more than we do.
The Barnum Effect: the tendency for people to accept very general or vague characterization of themselves and take them be accurate.
Applied vs. Basic Research:
Applied research- clear and practical applications.
Basic Research: explores questions that you may be curious about, but not intended to be immediately used.


Thursday February 05,2015
Hypothesis: expresses a relationship between a variable. *anything that can vary among participants in a study.

Independent variable: whatever is being manipulated in the experiment.
(If there is a drug, the drug is always the independent variables)

Dependent variable: whatever is being measured in the experiment.
(The effect of the drug)

Operational Definitions: explain what you mean in your hypothesis. How will the variables be measured in "real life" terms.

Sampling: identify the population you want to study. The sample must be representative of the population you want to study.

Experimental Method: looking to prove causal relationships.
Cause=effect
Laboratory v. Field Experiment

Confounding variable is anything that could cause a change in B, that is not A.

Hawthorne Effects: even the control group may experience changes, just the fact that you know you are in an experiment can cause change.

Correlational Method: expresses a relationship between two variable. Does NOT show CAUSATION!

Types of Correlation
Positive Correlation: the variables go in the SAME direction
Negative Correlation: the variables go in opposite directions.

Survey method: most common type of psychology measures correlation. Cheap and fast. Need a good random sample. Low response rate

Naturalistic Observation: Watch subjects in their natural environment. Do not manipulate the environment. The good is that there is Hawthorne effect. The bad is that we can never really show cause and effect.

Correlational Coefficient: A number that measures the strength of a relationship. Range is from -1 to +1. The relationship gets weaker the closer you get to zero.

Case Studies: a detailed picture of one or a few subjects. Tell us a great story...but is just descriptive research. Does not even give us correlation data.

Statistics: recording the results from our studies.
1. Mean
2. Mode
3. Range

Descriptive statistics: just describes sets of data.
 Standard Deviation: the variance of scores around the mean. The higher the variance or SD, the more spread out the distribution is.
Z scores: a unit that measures the distance of one score from the mean. A positive z score means above the mean. A negative z score means a number below the mean.

Animal Research: clear purpose. Treated in a humane way. Acquire animals legally. Least amount of suffering possible.

Human Research: No Coercion-must be voluntary. Informed consent. Anonymity. No significant risk. Must debrief.

Social Psychology:
Social psychology- The study of how we think about influence and relate to one another.
Social Thinking- how do we think about one another
Attribution Theory: the idea that we give a casual explanation for someone's behavior. We credit that behavior either to the situation or to the persons disposition.
Fundamental Attribution Error: the tendency to underestimate the impact of a situation and overestimate the impact of personal disposition.
Attitudes: a belief or feeling that predisposes one to respond in a particular way to something
Foot in the door phenomenon: the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to complete later with a larger request.
Door in the face phenomenon: the tendency for people who say no to a huge request, to comply with a smaller one.
Zimbardo Prison Study: Role playing affects attitudes. What do you think happened when college students were made to take on the roles of prison guards and inmates.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory: we do not like when we have either conflicting attitudes or when our attitudes do not match our actions.


Social Influence:
Conformity: adjusting ones behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standards.
Condition that strengthen conformity: one is made to feel incompetent. The group is at least three people. The group is unanimous. One admires the groups status. One had made no prior comment.

Social Facilitation; improved performance of tasks in the presence of others. Occurs with simple or well learned tasks. Not with tasks that are difficult or not yet mastered.
Yerkes Dodson law: there is an. Optimal level of arousal fiber he best performance of any task. Easy tasks- relatively high
Difficult task - low arousal
Other task-moderate level
Social Loafing: the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling efforts toward a common goal than if they were individually accountable.
Deindividuation: the loss of self awareness and self restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.
Group Polarization: the concept that a groups attitude is one of extremes and rarely moderate. Ex KKK
Groupthink- the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision making group overrides common sense.
Self fulfilling prophecies: occurs when one persons belief about others leads one to act in ways that induce the others to appear to confirm beliefs.

Social Relations: attraction, conflict and prejudice, peace making, aggression
Prejudice: an unjustifiable attitude towards a group of people.
Social Inequalities: a principle reason behind prejudice. In group- "us" people with whom one shares a common identity
Out group"them" those perceived as different than ones in group
In Group bias: the tendency to favor ones own group.

Scapegoat Theory: the theory that prejudice provides an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame.
Aggression: any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy.
The Biology of Aggression:
1. Genetics
2. Neural Influences
3. Biochemical

The Psychology of aggression: frustration aggressive principle: the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal. Creates anger which generates aggression.

Conflict: a perceived incompatibility of actions goals or ideas.
Situation where people must choose between an act that is beneficial to themselves but harmful to others and an act that is moderately beneficial to all.

Attraction: 5 factors of Attraction; 1. proximity= geographic nearness. Mere exposure effect: repeated exposure to something breeds liking. Taiwanese Letters.
2. Reciprocal Liking= you are more likely to like someone who likes you.
3. Similarity: Breeds content
4. Liking through association
5. Physical Attractiveness

Altruism:
Social Exchange Theory: the idea that our social behavior is an exchange process, which we maximize benefits and minimize the cost.
Peacemaking: give people superordinate that can only be achieved through cooperation.