PSYC 1001 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Psychology, Neuron, Memory
PSYC 1001
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
PSYCH 1001-12
The Science of Psychology
04 September 2018
What is a (Clinical) Psychologist?
Psychologists are a type of scientist, and there are many branches of careers/domains that
psychologists operate in
What makes a psychology a science?
Psychology uses a systematic method for collecting information to avoid personal bias
Scientific approach: a systematic method of gathering information that reduces bias and
error in measurement
*Behavior is a key piece, so is mental processes in psychology/the interest of psychologists
Psychology’s 4 Goals:
1. Description
2. Explanation
a. Theory: general explanation of a set of observations or facts
3. Prediction
4. Control
*Some psychological studies do not involve forming and testing a formal hypothesis
When sharing to the scientific community; publishing findings, but there is a push to share
more/relate to the community, it is important to share findings when your study is not successful
as well
1. Develop the Research Question
b. Example: Does drinking coffee affect psychology exam performance?
c. Can come from many different observations from around your community/world,
whether something in your community occurs or general curiosity, existing
theories (modification of previous findings)
2. Form a hypothesis
d. Example: Students who drink coffee during a psychology exam will score higher
on the exam than those who don't.
e. Sometimes we might hypothesize the negative/positive relationship of these
variables
3. Designing Your Study: Non-experimental vs. Experimental Methods of Research
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Non-experimental Methods of Gathering Information:
Naturalistic Observation: watching animals behave in their normal environment
Advantages: Realistic picture of behavior
Disadvantages: Vulnerability to the observer effect, vulnerability to Observer Bias Example:
Wrinkles didn't misbehave when the specialist came to watch her
*Each naturalistic setting in unique and observations may not hold elsewhere
Laboratory Observation: Watching humans and animals behave in lab setting
Quantitative Surveys: Involves researchers asking a structured series of sections about the
topic under study
Advantages: Data can be gathered in large numbers, private info can be gathered
Disadvantages: Can be difficult to recruit the representative example, people may not be
accurate, people may not take the time to answer carefully, survey fatigue
Case Study: Study of an individual in great detail
Advantages: tremendous amount of detail, may be only way to get certain information
Disadvantages: Info cannot lead to be applied to others, vulnerable to observer bias
Qualitative Interviews & Focus Groups: Researchers collect and thematically analyse
TEXTUAL data (rather than NUMERICAL data) through open-ended or semi-structured
questions
Advantages: Allows an in-depth understanding, can be used to guide or make sense of
quantitative research
Disadvantages: Data collection/analysis can be very time consuming
Experimental Methods:
Advantages: Allows researchers to make inferences about causality
Disadvantages: Vulnerable to the placebo effect, vulnerable to the experimenter effect
4. Testing your hypothesis
Population: Total group of individuals
Sample: Subgroup participating in the study
-If the researcher wants to make inferences about the larger population… Take a representative
sample
Random assignment to experimental groups: helps control for influence of extraneous variables,
between-group differences in variable of interest
Defining Variables:
Variables must have 2 or more levels in an experiment
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
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PSYC 1001 Full Course Notes
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Document Summary
Psychologists are a type of scientist, and there are many branches of careers/domains that psychologists operate in. Psychology uses a systematic method for collecting information to avoid personal bias. Scientific approach: a systematic method of gathering information that reduces bias and error in measurement. *behavior is a key piece, so is mental processes in psychology/the interest of psychologists. Psychology"s 4 goals: description, explanation, theory: general explanation of a set of observations or facts, prediction, control. *some psychological studies do not involve forming and testing a formal hypothesis. Naturalistic observation: watching animals behave in their normal environment. Disadvantages: vulnerability to the observer effect, vulnerability to observer bias example: Wrinkles didn"t misbehave when the specialist came to watch her. *each naturalistic setting in unique and observations may not hold elsewhere. Laboratory observation: watching humans and animals behave in lab setting. Quantitative surveys: involves researchers asking a structured series of sections about the topic under study.
