Study Guide – Prologue and Chapter 1- Due on Test Day
1. What is psychology?
2. Why is psychology considered a science?
3. What is empiricism and how did it help the field of psychology become more scientific?
4. Compare and contrast Socrates, Plato and Aristotle
5. What is structuralism? Who came up with it?
6. What is introspection? Why is it sometimes unreliable?
7. What is Functionalism? Who came up with it? How does it differ from structuralism?
8. Who was Wilhelm Wundt? What did he contribute to the field of psychology?
9. Briefly describe the 8 schools of Psychology
a.
Biological
b.
Behavioral
c.
Humanistic
d.
Sociocultural
e.
Evolutionary
f.
Cognitive
g.
Behavioral Genetics
h.
Psychodynamic
10. Describe the Nature v Nurture debate.
11. Describe the differences between applied and basic research?
12. Describe the differences between a psychologist and psychiatrist?
13. What is critical thinking? Why is it important for scientists to use critical thinking?
14. What is Hindsight Bias?
15. What is overconfidence and how does it relate to critical thinking?
16. What is a theory?
17. What is a hypothesis? How does a hypothesis differ from a theory?
18. What are operational definitions? Operationally define the variables from the music and memory study.
19. Why are operational definitions important to the process of replication?
20. What does it mean for a study to be reliable?
21. What does it mean for a study to be valid?
22. List 3 types of descriptive research.
23. What is the goal of descriptive research?
24. What are some pros and cons of descriptive research?
25. What is a Case Study?
26. What is the difference between longitudinal and cross-sectional case studies?
27. What are some pros and cons of case studies?
28. What is a survey?
29. What is the difference between a sample and a population?
30. List one way to make a sample random.
31. What does it mean to have representative sample?
32. Why must survey writers be careful about the wording of the questions?
33. What is the False Consensus Effect?
34. What is a Naturalistic Observation? What are some pros and cons of Naturalistic observations?
35. Describe correlational research? Why is it more detailed than descriptive research?
36. What does positive correlation mean? Give an example of a positive correlation
37. What does negative correlation mean? Give an example of a negative correlation
38. What is a correlation coefficient?
39. What does +.80 mean
40. What does -.25 mean
41. How can you tell the strength of a correlation by looking at a scatter plot?
42. How can you tell if the correlation is positive or negative by looking at a scatter plot?
43. Why can’t correlation prove causation?
44. What is an illusory correlation?
45. What is the only way to prove causation?
46. What is the difference between independent and dependent variables?
47. What does double-blind procedure mean and why is it commonly used in experiments?
48. What is a placebo? Why are they used?
49. What is the placebo effect?
50. What is the difference between the experimental and control groups?
51. What is the difference between a random sample and random assignment?
52. What are confounding variables?
53. List the 4 ethical guidelines ALL studies most follow.
54. Why do scientists study animals?
55. Give an example of descriptive statistics
56. What are the 3 measure of central tendency?
57. How do you find the mean?
58. How do you find the mode?
59. How do you find the median?
60. What are the 2 measures of variation? Which one is more detailed?
61. How do you find the range?
62. What does standard deviation mean? Why is it more detailed than range?
63. What is the percentage associated with 1 standard deviation?
64. What is the percentage associated with 2 standard deviations?
65. What is the percentage associated with 3 standard deviations?
66. Why might it be a red flag if you have a really high standard deviation?
67. If something is statistical significant, what does that mean?