Psychology as a Science

Psychology as a Science

• Methodology involves using scientific techniques to collect and evaluate psychological data.
• Pseudoscience/Commonsense Psychology refers to everyday, nonscientific data gathering that shapes expectations and beliefs.
• Psychological science is the scientific study of the mind, brain, behavior, and social interactions, employing the scientific method to create, test, and improve hypotheses.
• The Parsimony Principle dictates choosing the simplest scientific explanation that fits the evidence.
• A Psychology Experiment involves applying at least two different treatment conditions to subjects in a controlled procedure.
• Antecedent Conditions refer to the circumstances before an event or behavior.
• Treatment Conditions are induced antecedent conditions.
• Description is a systematic and unbiased account of the observed characteristics of behavior.
• Prediction involves the capacity of knowing in advance when certain behaviors are expected to occur.
• Explanation involves knowledge and explanations of conditions that cause a specific behavior to occur.
• Control involves the application of what has been learned about behavior.

Tools of Psychological Research

• Observations involve systematically noting and recording events.
• Measurement involves assigning numerical values to objects, events, or their characteristics.
• Experimentation is a process used to test a hypothesis that particular behavioral events will occur reliably in certain specifiable situations.

Ethics

• Ethics: Principles of morally right conduct.
• Informed Consent Form: Provides subjects with the necessary information to decide whether to volunteer for a study.
• Deception Studies: Studies where researchers intentionally withhold information about the experiment's nature.
• Research Fraud: Intentional misrepresentation of data, methods, results, or findings, including plagiarism, fabrication, or falsification.

Hypothesis

• Hypothesis: A testable tentative explanation or prediction for a phenomenon, or relationship between multiple variables.
• A hypothesis is crucial for offering clear direction in scientific research.
• Deductive Model: Reasoning from general descriptions and theories to specific cases. The model uses an existing theory-driven hypothesis to guide data collection for testing, leading to conclusions.
• Inductive Model: Reasoning from specific cases to more general descriptions, beginning with a research question and empirical data collection to formulate a hypothesis and theory.

Characteristics of a Good Hypothesis

• Synthetic: Can be proven true or false.
• Testable: Antecedent conditions can be manipulated/ Resulting behavior is measurable.
• Falsifiable: Can be disproved by failures to find the effect.
• Parsimonious: Simplest wording .
• Fruitful: Leads to new studies.

Basics of Experimentation

• Independent Variable: A manipulated variable to explore its effects and whose value is independent of other variables in the study. This is the cause.
• Independent Variable Levels: Two or more values of the independent variable manipulated by the researcher.
• Dependent Variable: Changes as a result of independent variable manipulation and depends on the independent variable, and is the effect.

Measurement Scales

• Nominal: Classifies items into categories.
• Ordinal: Classifies items into ranks.
• Interval: Classifies items by measuring equal intervals. The difference between the two variables is meaningful.
• Ratio: Classifies items with equal intervals, a feature of absolute zero, and no negative numbers.

Variables

• Non-construct: Observable operational variables.
• Hypothetical Constructs: Psychological concepts that cannot be directly observed.

Reliability

• Reliability: The extent to which outcomes are consistent when repeated.
• Reliable studies can be repeated and the same results are found
• Interrater Reliability: Reliability across researchers with agreement of different observers rating the measure.
• Test-Retest Reliability: Reliability across time, where individuals retaking a test obtain the same result.
• Internal Consistency Reliability: Reliability across items stating, the extent to which the items in a measure reflect the same construct.

Validity

• Validity: The extent that a test measures what it claims to measure.
• High validity: Indicates research produces results which correspond to real properties, characteristics, and variations.
• Construct Validity: The extent to which the test measures the theoretical framework.
• Concurrent Validity: The extent to which the test compares with other constructs.
• Predictive Validity: The extent to which the measure can predict future behavior.
• Content Validity: The extent to which the test evaluates all aspects of the construct.
• Face Validity: The extent to which the measure is direct and self-evident

Extraneous Variables

• Extraneous Variables: A variable not under investigation, that can affect the outcomes of the study.
• If left uncontrolled, extraneous variables can lead to inaccurate conclusions about the relationship between IVs and DV and can introduce a variety of research biases.

Confounding Variables

• Confounding Variables, also known as a "third variable," changes the dependent variable despite not being the independent variable being studied.
• A common example is the correlation between ice cream sales and crime rates.