PSYC 345 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Social Desirability Bias, Naturalistic Observation, Psycinfo
Document Summary
Basic researchers: psychologists who increase our understanding of psychology by creating and improving the theories that predict social behavior. Applied researchers: psychologists who translate the findings of basic researchers into social action and apply psychological ideas to the real world. Scientific method: a systematic way of creating knowledge by observing, forming a hypothesis, and interpreting the results. Helps psychologists conduct experiments and formulate theories in a logical and objective manner. Hypothesis: a specific statement made by a researcher before conducting a study about the expected outcome of the study base don prior observation. Falsifiable statements that researchers believe to be true. Constructs: theoretical ideas that cannot be directly observed, such as attitudes, personality, attraction, or how we think. Operationalize: the process of specifying how a construct will be defined and measured. Archival data: stored information that was originally created for some other purpose not related to research that can later be used by psychologists, such as census data.
