Experimental Psychology PDF

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Summary

This document goes into detail about the experiments conducted in psychology and how they are chosen, carried out, and analyzed. They also include detail about the ethics behind experiments in psychology and describing statistics that come from experiments in psychology.
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Description

Experimental Psychology o Experiment: a research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process (dependent variable)  Random assignment: experimenter aims to control other relevant factors; minimizing preexisting differences between the different groups  Experimental group: the group exposed to the treatment, to one version of the independent variable  Control group: the group not exposed to the treatment; contrasts with experimental group and serves as a comparison for evaluating effect of treatment  Double-blinded experiment: an experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are ignorant about whether the participants have received a treatment or placebo  Placebo effect: experimental results caused by expectations alone; any effect on behavior caused by administration of an inert substance or condition, which the recipient assumes is an active agent  Independent variable: the factor that is manipulated; whose effect is being studied  Confounding variable: a factor other than the independent variable that might produce an effect  Dependent variable: the outcome that is measured; may change when independent variable is manipulated o Research ethics  Informed consent: giving potential participants enough information about a study to enable them to choose whether they wish to participate  Debriefing: the postexperimental explanation of a study, including its purpose and any deceptions, to its participants o Describing data  Mode: most frequently occurring scores in a distribution  Mean: arithmetic average of a distribution, adding scores and dividing by the total number of scores  Median: middle score in a distribution; half of scores are above it and half are below it  Range: difference between highest and lowest scores in a distribution  Standard deviation: a computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score

 Normal curve: symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes distribution of many types of data; most scores fall near the mean and fewer and fewer near the extremes o Significant differences  Representative samples are better than biased samples  Less variable observations are more reliable than those with more than one variable  More causes are better than fewer  Statistical significance: a statistical statement of how likely it is that an obtained result occurred by chance...