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| Normal Curve (Distribution) |
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Definition
| Bell-shaped, symmetrical and describes the distribution of many types of data. |
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| The experimental factor that is being manipulated |
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| Contrasts with the A school of psychology that focused on how mental and behavioral processes function- how they enable the organism to adapt, survive, and flourish. experimental condition and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of a treatment |
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| A research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors to observe the effect(s) |
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| The experimental factor that is being measured |
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| An early school of psychology that used introspection to explore the elemental structure of the human mind |
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| A statistical measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other |
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| An ethical principle that research participants be told enough to enable them to choose whether they wish to participate |
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| An inert substance or condition that may be administered instead of a presumed active agent, such as a drug |
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| The arithmetic average of a distribution, obtained by adding the scores and then dividing by the number of scores |
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| The science of behavior and mental processes. |
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| The long-standing controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors. |
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| The principle that, among the range of inherited trait variations, those contributing to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations. |
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| Pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base. |
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| Scientific study that aims to solve practical problems. |
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| A branch of psychology that studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders. |
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| A branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders; practiced by physicians who sometimes provide medical (for example, drug) treatments as well as psychological therapy. |
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| The view that knowledge comes from experience via the senses, and science flourishes through observation and experiment. |
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| The tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it. (Also known as the I-Knew-it-all-along phenomenon.) |
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| Thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions. Rather, it examines assumptions, evidence, and assesses conclusions. |
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| An explanation using an integrated set or principles that organizes and predicts observations. |
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| A testable prediction, often implied by a theory. |
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| A statement of the procedures (operations0 used to define research variables. For example, intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures. |
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| Repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situations, to see whether the basic finding generalizes to other participants and circumstances. |
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| An observation technique in which one person is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles. |
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| A technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of people, usually by questioning a representative, random sample of them. |
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| The tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors. |
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| All the cases in a group, from which samples may be drawn for a study. |
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| A sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion. |
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| Observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation. |
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| The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next. |
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Term
| Neuroscience/Biological Approach |
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Definition
| Studies the links between biological (including neuroscience and behavior-genetics) and psychological processes. |
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Definition
| The study of the roots of psychology and mental processes using the principles of natural selection. |
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Term
Behavior genetics
Approach |
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Definition
| How much our genes and our environment influence our individual differences. |
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Term
Psychodynamic/
Psychoanalytical
Approach |
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Definition
| How behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts. |
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Definition
| How we learn observable responses. |
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| Study of all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. |
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| The study of how situations and cultures affect our behavior and thinking. |
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Definition
| How much our genes and our environment influence our differences. |
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Definition
| A school of psychology that focused on how mental and behavioral processes function- how they enable the organism to adapt, survive, and flourish. |
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Definition
| The differing complementary views, from biological to psychological to social-cultural, for analyzing any given phenomenon. |
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| An integrated perspective that incorporates biological, psychological, and social-cultural levels of analysis. |
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| A branch of psychology that assists people with problems in living and in achieving greater well-being. |
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Definition
| The post-experimental explanation of a study, including its purpose and any deceptions, to its participants. |
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Definition
| A graphed cluster of dots, each of which represents the values of two variables. The slope of the points suggests the direction of the relationship between the two variables. The amount of scatter suggests the strength of the correlation (little scatter indicates high correlation). (Also called a scattergram or scatter diagram.) |
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Definition
| The perception of a relationship where none exists. |
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Definition
| An experimental procedure in which both the researcher participants and the research staff are ignorant (blind) about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo. Commonly used in drug-evaluation studies. |
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| Any effect on behavior caused by a placebo. |
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| Assigning participants to experimental and control conditions by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between those assigned to the different groups. |
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Definition
| The most frequently occurring score in a distribution. |
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Definition
| The middle score in a distribution; half the scores are above it and half are below it. |
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Definition
| The difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution. |
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Definition
| A computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score. |
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Definition
| A statistical criterion for rejecting the assumption of no differences in a particular study. |
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