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26 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
What are the components of an empirical study? |
Ethics, variables, samples, designs and statistics. |
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What is information bias? |
When we only account for the evidence that supports our belief. |
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What is change blindness? |
The failure to notice major differences in a visual stimulus/ |
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What is inattentional blindness? |
A psychological lack of attention not associated with visual defects. |
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What is a hypothesis? And how is one generated? |
A hypothesis is an idea or explanation that you then test through study and experimentation. It is generated considering the cause, effect, types of people and the types of situations. |
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What are the various steps in the scientific method? |
1. Identify the question 2. Gather info and generate hypothesis 3. Test hypothesis through research 4. Analyse the data, draw conclusions and report findings 5. Build a body of knowledge, conduct more research etc. |
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What is an experiment? |
An experiment investigates the effect of an independent variable on a dependent variable. All other conditions remain constant. |
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What is the independent variable? |
It shows the comparison between two experimental conditions or groups. It therefore must have at least two levels. |
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What is the dependant variable? |
It is generally what is being measured. |
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What is between subjects design? What are the advantages and disadvantages? |
When there is two different groups each being tested on two different independent variables. Advantages - naïve to procedures, essential when testing naturally occurring variables. Disadvantages - more participants needed, differences in conditions may be due to differences in each group. |
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What is within subjects design? What are the advantages and disadvantages? |
When there is one group being tested for both conditions. Advantages - fewer participants needed, solves problems of between group differences. Disadvantages - order and practice effects, use counterbalancing. |
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What is internal validity? What factors can limit this? |
The degree to which an experiment supports a clear, casual conclusion. Limiting factors include - cofounding variables, expectancy effects and external validity. |
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What are experimenter expectancy effects? |
Subtle and unintentional cues which influence a participant's response. |
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What are demand characteristics? |
Participants are aware that they haven't been told everything about the experiment and so they pick up cues about the hypothesis which therefore influences their behaviour. |
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What is the placebo effect? What type of study is carried out to help reduce this? |
It shows a change in behaviour, or symptoms, due to an individual's expectations. It can be influenced by the colour of a pill, packaging or knowledge of practitioner. Double blind studies. |
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What are the advantages of experimental research? |
Isolates cause and effect, experimenter is in control of cofounding variables, high internal validity, replication is possible, avoids the problem of a "third variable". |
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What are the disadvantages of experimental design? |
There can be both participant and experimenter bias, uses artificial conditions and measures, low external validity, participants contribution is prescribed/replication crisis, they limit the type of phenomena studied. |
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What must an experimenter ensure in order for a study to be considered ethical? |
Participant consent, debriefing, confidentiality, participants aren't deceived, they are aware of their right to withdraw and they are protected from and harm. |
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What are the different measurements of variables? |
Self report - eg. personality, intellegence scales Physiological - eg. brain activity, heart rate Behaviour |
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What are different types of research designs? |
Observational and correlational - use of surveys to predict behaviour. Single case studies - to describe and understand an individual's behaviour. Experimental designs - to manipulate a variable and measure its effect in a controlled setting to establish a cause-effect relationship. |
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What are two different types of statistics? |
Descriptive - summarises and describes characteristics of data (mean, median etc.). Inferential - allows us to make inferences about a population based on findings from a sample (correlations, T-tests etc.). |
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What is the mode? Give advantages and disadvantages. |
The most common score in a set of results. Advantages - useful for data from a non-numeric scale. Disadvantages - can have more than one mode. |
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What is the median? Give advantages and disadvantages. |
The point at which 50% of the scores fall. Advantages - not affected by extreme values, useful for data from ordinal scale. Disadvantages - can be unrepresentative of the entire distribution. |
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What is the mean? Give advantages and disadvantages. |
The sum of the individual scores divided by the total number of scores. Advantages - represents the entire distribution of data. Disadvantages - influenced by extreme values. |
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What are inferential statistics? |
They allow you to draw conclusions about a population based on data collected from a sample. |
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What is probability? |
The likelihood of an event, usually expressed as a percentage or in decimals. A bad sample gives a high probability and a good sample gives low probability. |