Theory: broad explanation and prediction concerning phenomena of interest
EX: Diffusion of Responsibility Theory: the more # of bystanders/witnesses to an event that calls for helping behavior, the more responsibility for
helping is perceived to be shared by all, therefore the more people, the smaller the share of responsibility/person
- how do we test this theory? formulate an operational definition of the hypothesis by conceptualizing it in a way that could be tested
Hypothesis: narrow prediction stated in a way that allows it to be tested
Operational Definition: the translation of a hypothesis into specific, testable procedures that can be measured and observed in an experiment
• Protection of participants from physical and mental harm.
• The right of participants to privacy regarding their behavior.
• The assurance that participation in research is completely voluntary.
• The necessity of informing participants about the nature of procedures before their participation in the experiment.
• All experiments must be reviewed by an independent panel before being conducted
Informed Consent: a document that participiants must sign and is key to ethical principles
- Participant must sign a document affirming that:
1.) they have been told the basic outlines of the study and are aware of what their participation will involve,
2.) what risks the experiment may hold, and
3.) the fact that their participation is purely voluntary and they may terminate it at any time
- The only time informed consent and a debriefing can be eliminated is in experiments in which the risks are minimal, as in a purely observational study in a public place
Bias: comes from both the expectations of the experimenter and the participant, preconcieved notions, etc
Placebo: false treatment
Double-blind procedure: the experimenter doesn’t know who was given the placebo and who was given the drug for example
types of descriptive research: Archival, Naturalistic Observation, survey, and case studies
- Archival: inexpensive, but could be in incorrect form, incomplete, collected haphazardly
- Naturalistic: record what you see, people in their “natural habitat”, but inability to control factors of interest
- Survey: sample chosen to represent group of interest/population, but could not be representative of the population, need a “random sample,” lying
Random Sample: everyone has an equal chance of being included in the survey
- Case Study: in-depth, often include psychological testing, drawback is that each individual is unique therefore it’s hard to make generalizations
Psychological Testing: a procedure in which a carefully designed set of questions is used to gain some insight into the personality of the person
Correlational Research: two sets of variables are examined to determine if they correlate
- when 2 variables are strongly correlated, it is easy to assume that one causes the other,
EX: studying more gives you higher grades is just a guess, but it does help us make predictions
- correlational findings do not permit us to determine causality, there could be so many more other factors involved
experiments are the only way to establish cause and effect relationships!
- conditions are created and controlled by the researcher = experimental manipulation
- the manipulation cannot be viewed by itself, in isolation; if a cause-and-effect relationship is to be established, the effects of the manipulation must be compared with the effects of no manipulation or a different kind of manipulation
- hypothesis predicts how a dependent variable depends on the manipulation of the independent variable
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