1. Chapter 2- Methods and Statistics

2. Warm-Up: Matching Psychodynamic Behavioral Humanistic Cognitive
Do genes effect your personality?
Can study habits be learned?
How do people from different cultures interact?
How do negative childhood experiences affect how people view stressful situations?
How can I achieve my goal of becoming a doctor?
What effect will rewards have in training my dog?
Psychodynamic
Behavioral
Humanistic
Cognitive
Biological
Sociocultural

3. Hindsight Bias is the “I-knew-it-all-along” phenomenon.
After learning the outcome of an event, many people believe they could have predicted that very outcome. We only knew the dot.com stocks would plummet after they actually did plummet.
OBJECTIVE 1| Describe hindsight bias and explain how it can make research findings seem like mere common sense.
“Anything seems commonplace, once explained.” Dr. Watson to Sherlock Holmes.
Two phenomena – hindsight bias and judgmental overconfidence – illustrate why we cannot rely solely on intuition and common sense.

4. Overconfidence Sometimes we think we know more than we actually know.
Anagram
How long do you think it would take to unscramble these anagrams?
WREAT
WATER
ETYRN
ENTRY
OBJECTIVE 2| Describe how overconfidence contaminates our everyday judgments.
People said it would take about 10 seconds, yet on average they took about 3 minutes (Goranson, 1978).
GRABE
BARGE

5. Critical thinking does not accept arguments and conclusions blindly.
It examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence and assesses conclusions.
Courtesy of the James Randi Education Foundation
The Amazing Randi

6. Scientific Method
Psychologists, like all scientists, use the scientific method to construct theories that organize, summarize and simplify observations.
OBJECTIVE 4| Describe how psychological theories guide scientific research.

7. Hypothesis
A Hypothesis is a testable prediction, that describes the relationship between two variables.
They are often prompted by a theory, to enable us to accept, reject or revise the theory.

8. Naturalistic Observation
Observe in a natural setting without interfering
Example: Rosenhan’s Mental Hospital Study (1973)
Pseudopatients checked themselves into mental institutions and faked schizophrenia
Demonstrated that normal people cannot be distinguished from the mentally ill
“If they are here, they must be crazy”
People who are treated in a certain way over time may begin to behave that way

9. Case Studies
Involve an intensive investigation of one or more participants
Results cannot prove or disprove anything, but can be used to generate new hypotheses
Used by Freud
Anna O.

10. Surveys
Information is obtained by asking many individuals a fixed set of questions
Can include both interviews and questionnaires
Interviews allow for modification
Questionnaires take less time and reduce the possibility the researcher will influence the participant

11. How Surveys are conducted
Establish your population.
Population: all people with the characteristics a researcher wants to study.
Example: all high school seniors in the U.S., all retired teachers in Rhode Island

12. How Surveys are Conducted cont.
Most populations are too large to study. Therefore, samples are drawn from the populations.
Sample: a limited number of cases drawn from the larger population.

13. How Surveys are Conducted cont.
representative sample: sample that accurately reflects the characteristics of the population
The most common way to gather a representative sample is by random, or chance.

14. Longitudinal Studies
Studying the same group of people at regular intervals over a period of years to assess how certain characteristics change or remain the same during development
Minnesota Twin Family Study
Twins reared apart study- twin similarities are a result of genes
Able to estimate the heritability of
traits

15. Cross-Sectional Study
A research technique that compares individuals from different age groups at one time
Study a number of subjects from different age groups and then compare the results
Cheaper, easier than longitudinal studies, but group differences may be due to factors other than development.

16. Longitudinal/Cross Sectional Study

17. Correlation
This is the measure of a relationship between two variables or sets of data.
When one trait or behavior accompanies another, we say the two correlate.
CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION!
Can be positive or negative
Example: vaccines and autism
The majority of autistic children are diagnosed between the ages of 18 months and 3 years old.
Children receive many immunizations in this same period of time.

18. (positive or negative)
Correlation
When one trait or behavior accompanies another, we say the two correlate.
Indicates strength
of relationship
(0.00 to 1.00)
Correlation
coefficient
r = +
0.37
OBJECTIVE 8| Describe positive and negative correlations and explain how correlational measures can aid the process of prediction.
Correlation Coefficient is a statistical measure of the relationship between two variables.
Indicates direction
of relationship
(positive or negative)

19. Scatterplots
Perfect positive
correlation (+1.00)
Scatterplot is a graph comprised of points that are generated by values of two variables. The slope of the points depicts the direction, while the amount of scatter depicts the strength of the relationship.

20. Scatterplots
Perfect negative
correlation (-1.00)
No relationship (0.00)
The Scatterplot on the left shows a negative correlation, while the one on the right shows no relationship between the two variables.

21. Correlations Range from -1.00 to +1.00
The greater distance from 0, the stronger the correlation
Positive correlations indicate that as one variable increases, the other increases too
Negative correlations indicate that as one variable increases, the other decreases

24. Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
One young woman died in fear in a most peculiar way: When she was born on Friday the 13th, the midwife who delivered her and two other babies announced that all three were hexed and would die before their 23rd birthday. The other two did die young. As the third woman approached her 23rd birthday, she checked into a hospitals and informed the staff of her fears. The staff noted that she dealt with her anxiety by extreme hyperventilation (deep breathing). Shortly after her birthday, she hyperventilated to death. 26

25. Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
A situation in which a researcher’s expectations influence that person’s own behavior, and thereby influence the participant’s behavior
We consciously or unconsciously tip off people to what are expectations are; people pick up on those cues and act as expected. 27

26. Experiments
Enables the investigator to control the situation and decrease the possibility that outside variables will influence the results
Hypothesis
Variables (Independent and Dependent)- If/then
Experimental Group and Control Group
Results must be replicated

27. Variables
Variables are factors that are capable of change.

28. Independent Variable
An Independent Variable is a factor manipulated by the experimenter. The effect of the independent variable is the focus of the study.
OBJECTIVE 14| Explain the difference between an independent variable and a dependent variable.

29. Dependent Variable
A Dependent Variable is a factor that may change in response to an independent variable. In psychology, it is usually a behavior or a mental process.

30. Experimental Group
The participants in an experiment who are exposed to the independent variable
Also called the experimental condition
The group being studied and compared to the control group

31. Control Group
The participants in an experiment who are not exposed to the independent variable
Results are compared to those of the experimental group
Also called the control condition

32. The Placebo Effect
A change in the participant’s illness or behavior that results from a belief that the treatment will have an effect, rather than the actual treatment

33. Avoiding Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
Single-Blind Experiment- participants are unaware of which participants received the treatment
Double-Blind Experiment- neither the experimenter nor the participants know which patient received which treatment
Drug evaluation studies

34. Ethics Methods of conduct or standards for proper behavior
Informed consent
Protection from harm
Confidentiality
Debriefing

35. Milgram’s Experiment
1960- Would participants administer painful shocks to others merely because an authority figure had instructed them to do so?
2000 male participants
Told they were participating in a study on learning
Each time the learner made a mistake, the “teacher” was ordered to push a button to deliver an electric shock
Shocks were false, but they did not realize this because the learners displayed distress and pain

36. Milgram’s Experiment
65% of the volunteers pushed the shock button until they reached maximum severity
Implied that ordinary individuals could easily inflict pain on others if such issues were ordered by an authority figure.
Ethical issues?
Replication?
Has been replicated with young, liberal college students

37. Milgram’s Experiment

39. From class yesterday…
What type of correlation did we find between height and shoe size?
What would a graph of a negative correlation look like? No correlation?
What intervening variables might have been at work affecting our results?

40. Statistics
The branch of mathematics concerned with summarizing and making meaningful inferences from collections of data

41. Descriptive Statistics
The listing and summarizing of data in a practical and efficient way, such as through graphs and averages

42. Frequency Distribution Tables
Hours Spent Studying
Frequency 2 .5 8 1 15
1.5 10 6
2.5 3
Total 45

43. Normal Curve

44. Measures of Central Tendency
Mean
Median
Mode

45. Measures of Variance
A measure of the difference or spread of a set of data
Range – Subtract the lowest from the highest
Standard Deviation
Average distance of every score from the mean
The larger the standard deviation, the more spread out the scores are

46. Which line represents a larger standard deviation?

47. Correlation Coefficients
Describes the direction and strength of the relationship between two variables
Pearson Correlation Coefficient = r
(+)= positive- as one variable increases, so does the second variable
(-)= negative- as one variable increases, the second variable decreases
Can range from -1 to 1 including 0

48. Dice Statistics Roll your die 10 times. Make note of the results.
Make a frequency distribution
Make a frequency polygon
Find the mean, median, and mode of the data
Mean= sum of all rolls/10
Median- what was the median number of times rolled?
Mode- what number was rolled the most frequently?