PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Random Assignment, Confounding, Statistical Significance

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Ingrid Johnsrude

Document Summary

Week 2 online lesson notes: the ways and means of psychology. Focuses on verifiability and objectivity; empiricism: hypothesis. Reliability: results should be consistent across separate tests done. Verifiability: testable by others, with the same results. Generalizability: results can be applied to a larger population: design a study, collect data, analyze data, draw conclusions. Intensive study of individual participants; usual clinical studies. Collecting data in natural surroundings without disturbing or influencing behavior; no artifacts created. Using sample groups and extrapolating information to be generalizable to the target popuation. Statistical analysis that describes the relationship b/w 2 variables. Used when variable manipulation is hard (eg. poverty v. s. sickness) Subject expectancy effect: when results change, not because of the independent variable, but because the subjects expect something and intentionally adjust their behavior; demand artifact (confounding factor) Placebo effect: results of the actual stimuli on a subject are observed when the stimuli is fake, because the subject believes it to be real.