Unit 1: Part 2 Psych Terms

The tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it.

Repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situations, to see whether the basic finding can be reproduced.

A flawed sampling process produces an unrepresentative sample.

A sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion

Assigning participants to experimental and control groups by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between different groups.

Other factors that can potentially influence a study’s results.

A representation of scores that lack symmetry around their average value.

Perceiving a relationship where none exists, or perceiving a stronger-than-actual relationship.

The extent to which a test or experiment measures or predicts what it is supposed to

The extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternative forms of the test, or on retesting

study one individual in great depth

asking people to report on their behavior and/or opinions

describing observed behavior

to observe and record behavior

to detect naturally occurring relationships; to asses how well one variable predicts another

to explore cause and effect

neither the subject nor the experimenter should know who was assigned to each group

subjects should be randomly assigned by chance to the different groups

when one variable goes up, so does the other (closer to +1.0)

when one variable goes up, the other goes down (closer to -1.0)

no clear relationship indicated

a measure of how far a score differs from the mean (the larger the standard deviation, the more the scores are dispersed)

the gap between the highest and lowest score