PSYC 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Confirmation Bias, Dependent And Independent Variables, Mental Process

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1000
• Professor: Paula Barata

Document Summary

What is psychology: the scientific study of behaviour and mental process. Confirmation bias: trying to confirm what i already know. Availability heuristic: what is more common we can bring to mind easier (can come up with more words that start with k but there are more words that have k as the third letter) The logic of cause and effect: researcher manipulates one variable, determines whether this variable produces change in another variable, researcher attempts to control for other factors. Seeks to establish a cause and effect relationship. Independent variable: the variable that is manipulated dependent variable: the variable is measured. Two basic experimental designs: different participants in each condition (between subject design) A control group (does not receive the manipulation) Ex: landlord discrimination study: the same participants in all conditions (within subject design) All participants receive both the experimental and the control condition (usually different times) Independent variable: the different dialogue: shelter mentioned or not.