Chapter Psychology 2 Focus Questions 1. How did Hans give the appearance of answering questions, and how did Pfungst unveil Han's methods? He answered the questions from responding to the head being moved down by the observer to look at his hoofs to start tapping. Then he stopped after the person counting made a motion that revealed that he was correct. He just observed what was going on. How are facts, theories, and hypothesizes related? A fact is observation of objectiveness that everyone believes is true. Facts in psych are behaviors or pattens of behavior. Theory is an idea that explains the facts and makes predictions about new facts that can be disovered. Hypothesis is an prediction about new facts from the theory.Facts to theories to hypothesis to facts.... How does story illustrate value of skepticism, controlled experimentation and need for researchers to avoid communication their expectations to the subject? We all believe things that cant happen are happening. Look for things that we are unsure about and look carefully. Control conditions in which they make observations so as to rule out alternative explanations. How can experiment prove that cause-effect relation between two variables? If all other variables are kept same, only independent variable is changed, and any change in dependent variable is caused by the change in the independent variable. What were independent and dependent variables in Han's? Independent var was presence of blinders. Dependent was % of questions horse answered correctly. What were variables in DiMascio's experiment on depression treatments? Why were they randomly assigned? Independent was treatment given and dependent was degree of depression after 16 wks. To not produce bias in experiment and to see what exactly caused difference. What is difference of correlation study and experiment with regards to procedure and conclusions being drawn? Correlation is us observing two or more variables and seeing if one is relation to another but cannot tell us if that change is resulting from the variable or not. No cause and effect thing. How does Baumrind's classic study tell us how difficult it is to infer cause and effect from correlation? The researcher did not control the variables so we cannot be sure what was the cause or the effect. How do descriptive studies differ in method and purpose? It describes the behavior of an individual, and may or may not use numbers. Like observing mating characteristics or surveying community to find out prevalence of diseases. What are pros and cons of lab or field study? Lab allows for more controlled conditions and uniform but unfamiliarity of the lab may cause behaviors to be different. Field can study in more natural environment but also other variable. How do self-report, naturalistic obs, and tests differ? What are pros and cons? Self-report ask people to rate themselves on their behavior or mental state thorugh questionnaire or interview. Obs methods where we watch and record the behaviors. Naturally we can by being blind to the subjects. Tests in which you present stimuli and they respond. Self-report can get info that naturally cant. But its their opinion. Natural ones take a lot of time and hard to analyze. How do mean, median and std. deviation help describe set of numbers? Mean is the average. Median is center score. Std. deviation tells you the extent of which the individual scores are different from the mean. How does correlation coefficient tell you direction and strength? How can be pictured in scatter plots? If it is positive, then it is going upward, negative means The downward. closer to 1 or -1 the stronger the correlation.
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14. Why need to perform inferential stats before drawing conclusions from data? We need to make sure that the variability in the study due to chance is low enough that researcher can infer a general conclusion from the study confidently. 15. What does is mean to say that result is stat significant at 5 % level? That the probability is less than 5% that the results of this study were due to chance alone. 16. How is stat significant affected by size of effect, number of subjects, or variability of scores within the group? A large effect is less likely to be caused by chance alone than a small one and so is more stat sig. The more subjects means the more significant the results are. The less the variability in each group, the more significant the results are. 17. What is difference between error and bias? Why is bias worse? Error refers to random variability in the results. Occurrence of error does not mean researcher has made a mistake. Its consequences tend to disappear when we take averages. Bias is caused by the way the researcher approaches and handles the study and is his fault. Bias cannot be accounted for by stats or correct for it whereas we know the error and can take it into account. 18. How can a nonrepresentative selection of research participants introduce bias into an experiment and descriptive study? In an experiment, the individual's differences become a source of bias rather than error if they are allowed to choose their own treatment. In a descriptive study, it can be biased if the sample is not representative of the entire population. 19. What is difference between reliability and validity of measurement procedure? How can lack validity lead to bias? Reliability has to do with measurement error not bias. Reliable results yield same results when repeated. Low reliability decreases the chance of finding stat sig. Validity is when something measures and predicts what it is intended to measure or predict. It would lead to bias because it would produce false conclusions. 20. How can the validity of a measurement procedure be assessed? Correlate its scores with another direct index of the characteristic that we wish to measure or predict. More direct index is called criterion and validity is criterion validity. 21. How can facilitated communication by people with autism be explained as an observer-expectancy effect? The observer kind of guided the hand of the person to the keys to type the letters. It led them to think that they are going to do it. They were actually creating the movement. 22. What are two ways observer's expectations can bias results in a typical experiment? How does blind observation prevent this? They can influence the subject's behavior and also the observer's perception or judgment of that behavior. The blind observer has no basis for expecting a particular behavior from a particular subject. 23. How can subject's expectancies bias results? How does double blind work? They think that they received a drug and so they will think they have the benefits of that drug. Double blind means to blind the subject to what drug he or she is getting and also the observer. 24. What are ethical concerns in research? How do we strive to minimize them? Person has a right of privacy, and getting informed consent. Cannot keep people to do stuff if they don't want to and it has to involve the least risk possible. We cannot deceive people if it is at all not necessary. Animals must be well cared for and no undergo pain.