PSYC 102 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Social Desirability Bias, Naturalistic Observation, Mental Chronometry
4 Dec 2013
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Studying behavior: 1 ie. a theory ie. people"s sex, height, gpa. Gathering evidence: identify a question of interest, gather information and form a hypothesis, test hypothesis by conducting research, analyze, draw a conclusion, and report ndings, build a body of knowledge. A theory is a set of formal statements that explain how and why certain events are related to one another. A variable is any characteristic or factor that can vary. Since a variable can mean a variety of different things, we must give our variables an operational de nition, meaning the speci c procedures used to produce of measure the variable. Social desirability bias is the tendency to respond in a socially acceptable manner rather than according to how one really feels. Reaction time is how rapidly someone can respond to a stimuli. Unobtrusive measures are when researcher record behavior in a way that keeps participants unaware that certain responses are being measured.
