Psychology 2070A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Murder Of Kitty Genovese, Cognitive Dissonance, Hindsight Bias

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2070A/B
• Professor: Graeme Haynes

Document Summary

Theory: an organized set of principles that can be used to explain observed phenomena. Hypothesis: a testable statement or idea about the relationship between two or more variables. Operational definition: specification as to how the variables being studied will be measured or manipulated: a lot of research studies are done because a researcher feels they have a better explanation of the behaviour than existing theories, ex. Leon festinger"s "cognitive dissonance theory" to explain changes in peoples" attitudes. Hypotheses based on personal observations: researchers often construct theories and studies based on events they have observed that they find interesting, ex. Th murder of kitty genovese prompted a study about the "diffusion of responsibility" because there were many bystanders but nobody helped. Putting mics on children to unobtrusively observe bullying behaviour: prevents bullies from changing behaviour due to an adult presence, operational definitions for behaviour are very important.