Podcast
Questions and Answers
What is the purpose of basic research?
What is the purpose of basic research?
Which of the following are goals of psychology?
Which of the following are goals of psychology?
Good scientific theories should be falsifiable.
Good scientific theories should be falsifiable.
True
What is a null hypothesis?
What is a null hypothesis?
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What is a type I error?
What is a type I error?
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What does the p-value of 0.05 indicate?
What does the p-value of 0.05 indicate?
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What is induction in the context of scientific research?
What is induction in the context of scientific research?
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The psychological science relies on the probability of seeing specific results and their ______ in additional studies.
The psychological science relies on the probability of seeing specific results and their ______ in additional studies.
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Match the following research concepts with their definitions:
Match the following research concepts with their definitions:
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What is the primary goal of applied research?
What is the primary goal of applied research?
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What are the four main goals of psychology?
What are the four main goals of psychology?
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A good scientific theory must be falsifiable.
A good scientific theory must be falsifiable.
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What does the null hypothesis (Ho) state?
What does the null hypothesis (Ho) state?
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Which of the following is considered a Type I error?
Which of the following is considered a Type I error?
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Match the following levels of analysis with their definitions:
Match the following levels of analysis with their definitions:
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The common p-value threshold for most psychological studies is _____
The common p-value threshold for most psychological studies is _____
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What is anecdotal evidence?
What is anecdotal evidence?
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Induction involves drawing general conclusions from specific observations.
Induction involves drawing general conclusions from specific observations.
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What is the measure of relatedness of two or more variables called?
What is the measure of relatedness of two or more variables called?
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Study Notes
Science of Psychology
- Basic research aims to advance core scientific knowledge, often through animal models and labs.
- Applied research focuses on solving practical, real-world problems.
Scientific Method
- Involves asking a question, forming a hypothesis, conducting research, analyzing data, and drawing conclusions.
Psychology’s Main Goals
- Description: Identifying and detailing what occurred.
- Explanation: Understanding why something happened by examining causes.
- Prediction: Anticipating when and under what conditions a phenomenon may reoccur.
- Change: Implementing methods to prevent undesirable outcomes or achieve positive goals.
Features of Scientific Theories
- Good theories must be falsifiable, allowing for hypotheses to be tested and potentially proven incorrect.
Null Hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST)
- Null Hypothesis (Ho): States there is no relationship or difference.
- Alternative Hypothesis (Ha): Suggests there is a relationship or difference.
- Type I Error (False Positive): Occurs when a researcher incorrectly finds a relationship.
- Type II Error (False Negative): Happens when a researcher fails to identify a relationship that does exist.
Important Vocabulary
- Scientific: Utilizing scientific methods for data collection and analysis.
- Behavior: Observable actions or changes.
- Mental Processes: Non-observable phenomena, including thoughts and emotions, assessed through methods like MRI.
- Sample: A subset of a population being studied.
- Population: The entirety of what is being studied.
Additional Insights
- Accuracy: The alignment of theories with real-world observations.
- Consistency: The theory's agreement with other theories and its limited exceptions.
- Scope: The ability of a theory to explain a wide range of phenomena, beyond current data.
- Fruitfulness: The theory's capacity to inspire new, testable research questions.
- Common p-value thresholds are 0.05, 0.01, and 0.001, used to evaluate statistical significance.
- Psychological science emphasizes the probability of observing specific results, requiring replication in studies.
- Thomas Kuhn argued that theories and data are influenced by subjective interpretations.
Levels of Analysis
- Social Cultural: Examines the impact of social and cultural contexts.
- Behavioral: Focuses on observable behaviors.
- Cognitive: Investigates mental processes like perception and memory.
- Biological: Analyzes physiological influences on behavior.
More Vocabulary
- Hypotheses: Testable, tentative explanations.
- Induction: Drawing general conclusions from specific instances.
- Pseudoscience: Claims that lack rigorous scientific support.
- Falsifiable: Being able to be tested and disproven.
- Probabilities: Measures of certainty regarding events.
- Inductive Reasoning: Inferring general rules from observations.
- Deductive Reasoning: Interpreting specific observations based on established premises.
- Anecdotal Evidence: Personal experiences cited as evidence, which may be biased.
- Correlation: A measure of the relatedness of variables.
- NHST: Assesses if alternative hypotheses yield results as extreme as observed under the null hypothesis's assumption.
- Distribution: Refers to the spread of values within a dataset.
- P-values: Indicate the likelihood of observing results under the null hypothesis; if low (e.g., 0.05), it leads to rejecting Ho (null hypothesis).
Science of Psychology
- Basic research aims to advance core scientific knowledge, often through animal models and labs.
- Applied research focuses on solving practical, real-world problems.
Scientific Method
- Involves asking a question, forming a hypothesis, conducting research, analyzing data, and drawing conclusions.
Psychology’s Main Goals
- Description: Identifying and detailing what occurred.
- Explanation: Understanding why something happened by examining causes.
- Prediction: Anticipating when and under what conditions a phenomenon may reoccur.
- Change: Implementing methods to prevent undesirable outcomes or achieve positive goals.
Features of Scientific Theories
- Good theories must be falsifiable, allowing for hypotheses to be tested and potentially proven incorrect.
Null Hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST)
- Null Hypothesis (Ho): States there is no relationship or difference.
- Alternative Hypothesis (Ha): Suggests there is a relationship or difference.
- Type I Error (False Positive): Occurs when a researcher incorrectly finds a relationship.
- Type II Error (False Negative): Happens when a researcher fails to identify a relationship that does exist.
Important Vocabulary
- Scientific: Utilizing scientific methods for data collection and analysis.
- Behavior: Observable actions or changes.
- Mental Processes: Non-observable phenomena, including thoughts and emotions, assessed through methods like MRI.
- Sample: A subset of a population being studied.
- Population: The entirety of what is being studied.
Additional Insights
- Accuracy: The alignment of theories with real-world observations.
- Consistency: The theory's agreement with other theories and its limited exceptions.
- Scope: The ability of a theory to explain a wide range of phenomena, beyond current data.
- Fruitfulness: The theory's capacity to inspire new, testable research questions.
- Common p-value thresholds are 0.05, 0.01, and 0.001, used to evaluate statistical significance.
- Psychological science emphasizes the probability of observing specific results, requiring replication in studies.
- Thomas Kuhn argued that theories and data are influenced by subjective interpretations.
Levels of Analysis
- Social Cultural: Examines the impact of social and cultural contexts.
- Behavioral: Focuses on observable behaviors.
- Cognitive: Investigates mental processes like perception and memory.
- Biological: Analyzes physiological influences on behavior.
More Vocabulary
- Hypotheses: Testable, tentative explanations.
- Induction: Drawing general conclusions from specific instances.
- Pseudoscience: Claims that lack rigorous scientific support.
- Falsifiable: Being able to be tested and disproven.
- Probabilities: Measures of certainty regarding events.
- Inductive Reasoning: Inferring general rules from observations.
- Deductive Reasoning: Interpreting specific observations based on established premises.
- Anecdotal Evidence: Personal experiences cited as evidence, which may be biased.
- Correlation: A measure of the relatedness of variables.
- NHST: Assesses if alternative hypotheses yield results as extreme as observed under the null hypothesis's assumption.
- Distribution: Refers to the spread of values within a dataset.
- P-values: Indicate the likelihood of observing results under the null hypothesis; if low (e.g., 0.05), it leads to rejecting Ho (null hypothesis).
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Description
Test your knowledge on the basics of psychology in this quiz covering the science of psychology, differences between basic and applied research, the scientific method, and the main goals of psychology. Ideal for students looking to solidify their understanding of the foundational concepts in psychology.
