 If you did not take Chapter 1 Quest on Friday, you must
make it up today after school.
 Extra Credit Opportunity
 Help with hanging up work in classroom after school
today.
 Syllabus, Parent Letter, and Ethics Pledge
 Chapter 1 Notes and Vocabulary Cards
 Chapter 2 Notes and Vocabulary Cards
 Chapter 3 Notes and Vocabulary Cards
 Chapter 6 Notes and Vocabulary Cards
 Pgs: 195-207
 Assignment 2.1: Annotation of “Knock Wood”
 Assignment 2.2.: Summary of Skinner Experiment
 Assignment 2.3.: Behavior Modification Experiment
 Assignment 3.1.: Operant Conditioning Free Response
 Putting perspective into Practice: Greg
 AP Psychology Scavenger Hunt
 Introduction of Kyla
 Chapter 1 Quest Review
 Tour of Course Website
 Twitter 101
AP Psychology Chapter 1 Quest Results
Twitter 101
AP Psychology Course Website Tour

I study the relationship between people and work, and more
specifically, how to increase productivity. I believe that by
changing environmental factors, increasing the use of rewards
and praise for correct behavior, and providing corrective
feedback, workers’ over behavior can be changed.

I study how people of all ages learn, and I develop
instructional methods and materials to help the learning
process. In particular, I stress the roles played by thinking,
problem-solving, memory, and mental imagery.

I work mostly with people who suffer from mental disorders,
and I believe that the main causes of mental illness are either
genetic or due to some malfunction in the central nervous
system or endocrine system.
 I often travel to different countries to research people’s attitudes and
group relations. My research tends to show that many behavioral
patterns—for instance, the amount of personal space people require to
feel comfortable—vary from one country to another.
 I believe that unconscious conflicts, early childhood experiences and
repressed sexual and aggressive feelings make us who we are, and I use
this point of view in my work on individual differences and in trying to
determine which characteristics make each of us unique.
 I focus on the relationships between psychological factors and health,
in particular on how people cope with stress in their lives. It is not
what happens to us that is important; rather, how we perceive and
think about potentially stressful events determines our well-being.
 My research keeps me in the lab most of the time, and I
focus on the principles and conditions of learning and
motivation. Recently, I have been investigating how
quickly rats learn the layout of a maze as a function of
either large or small amounts of reinforcement.
 Psychological processes that have helped individuals adapt
to their environment have also helped them to survive,
reproduce, and pass those abilities to their offspring. I
adopt this point of view in my investigations of
interpersonal attractions, prejudice, and aggression.
 Answer the following question in your notebook:
Create a list of questions that can be scientifically tested.
Next to your question, explain which field of science
would investigate this question.
 What parts of our brain do we use to feel happy?
 How do we see color?
 What happens in the brain when we dream?
 In what ways does background noise affect our ability to
pay attention?
 Answer the following question in your notebook:
Do you have a behavior that is based on superstition? If
so, why was it developed?
What is the most ridiculous superstition that you have
heard of?
Why do humans develop superstitions?
 Answer the following question in your notebook:
Does behavior depend on one's culture and gender? If
so, how?
 Answer the following question in your notebook:
True or False: Explain your answer.
The answers that flow from the scientific approach are
more reliable than those based on intuition and
common sense.
 Answer the following question in your notebook:
How effective is the study of animals to understand
human behavior?
 Did random assignment help control for confounding
variables like IQ or gender?
 Did knowing which group got the independent
variable introduce more confounding variables? Why
or why not?
 In what ways could this experiment be conducted
better?
Describe how research design drives the reasonable conclusions that can be drawn
(e.g., experiments are useful for determining cause and effect; the use of
experimental controls reduces alternative explanations).
Identify independent, dependent, confounding, and control variables in
experimental designs.
Distinguish between random assignment of participants to conditions in
experiments and random selection of participants, primarily in correlational studies
and surveys.
Predict the validity of behavioral explanations based on the quality of research
design (e.g., confounding variables limit confidence in research conclusions).
Distinguish the purposes of descriptive statistics and inferential statistics.
Apply basic descriptive statistical concepts, including interpreting and constructing
graphs and calculating simple descriptive statistics (e.g., measures of central
tendency, standard deviation).
Research Methods in Psychology - Part 1
Research Methods in Psychology - Part 2
Research Methods in Psychology - Part 3
8 Guidelines to Critical Thinking:
1.
Ask questions; be willing to wonder. (What questions do you want to ask
further?)
2. Define your terms (and explain specifically how you will measure what you
are hoping to measure).
3.
Examine the evidence (What does the research or data out there say & what
might be some of the limitations of that evidence?)
4. Analyze assumptions and biases. (Is there a slant or preconceived notion?)
5.
Avoid emotional reasoning. (Don’t go by your gut feelings and think about
this logically and analytically.)
6. Don’t oversimplify. (Is it really that simple or more complex?)
7.
Consider other interpretations. (How else might you explain what happens
or happened?)
8. Tolerate uncertainty. (Some things we may never know for sure or be able to
test and remain open.)
Homeless people ended up in their situation because
they are lazy.
Poor people are happier people.
Facebook is responsible for lower test scores in school
children. They spend too much time socializing,
instead of studying.
The approach used by
psychologists to
systematically acquire
knowledge and
understanding about
behavior and other
phenomena of interest
Identify a Question
of Interest
Develop an
explanation
Conduct
Research
 Theories
Broad explanations and
predictions concerning
phenomena of interest
 Hypothesis
A prediction stated in a
way that allows it to be
tested
Research
–Systematic inquiry aimed at
the discovery of new
knowledge
Operationalization
-Process of translating a hypothesis into
specific, testable procedures that can be
measured and observed
Archival research
- Use of existing data
in order to test a
hypothesis
Naturalistic observation
– Observation of naturally
occurring behavior without
intervention
 Survey research
A sample of people are
asked a series of
questions about their
behavior, thoughts, and
attitudes in order to
represent a larger
population
 Case study
An in-depth, intensive
investigation of an individual
or small group of people
 Correlational research
 The relationship
between two sets of
variables is examined to
determine whether they
are associated, or
“correlated”
 Correlation does not
mean “causation”
 Ranges from +1 to -1
 Variables
 Behaviors,
events, or other
characteristics
that can change,
or vary in some
way
 Experiment
The relationship between two
(or more) variables is
investigated by deliberately
producing a change in one
variable in a situation and
observing the effects of that
change on other aspects of the
situation
S. Wanke/PhotoLink/Getty Images
Control Group:
A group that receives
no treatment
Experimental
group:
Any group receiving
a treatment
Treatment:
The manipulation
implemented
by the experimenter
Experimental
manipulation:
The change that an
experimenter
deliberately produces
in a situation
 Independent variable
The variable that is
manipulated by the
experimenter
 Dependent
variable
The variable that is
measured and is expected
to change as a result of
changes caused by the the
experimenter’s
manipulation of the
independent variable
Confounding Variable
 an extraneous variable whose presence affects the
variables being studied so that the results you get do
not reflect the actual relationship between the
variables under investigation.
 When conducting an experiment, the basic question
that any experimenter is asking is: "How does A affect
B?" where A is the probable cause, and B is the effect.
Any manipulation of A is expected to result in a change
in the effect.
It is known that throughout the year, murder rates and ice cream sales are highly positively correlated.
That is, as murder rates rise, so does the sale of ice cream. There are three possible explanations for
this correlation:

Possibility #1: Murders cause people to purchase ice cream. One could imagine a world where this is
true. Perhaps when one is murdered, they are resurrected as zombies who primarily feed on ice
cream.

Possibility #2: Purchasing ice cream causes people to murder or get murdered. Again, one could
imagine a world where this is true. Perhaps when one eats ice cream, those without ice cream become
jealous and murder those with ice cream.

Possibility #3: There is a third variable—a confounding variable—which causes the increase in
BOTH ice cream sales AND murder rates. For instance, the weather. When it’s cold and Wintery,
people stay at home rather than go outside and murder people. They also probably don’t eat a lot of
ice cream. When it’s hot and Summery, people spend more time outside interacting with each other,
and hence are more likely to get into the kinds of situations that lead to murder. They are also
probably buying ice cream, because nothing beats the sound of an ice cream truck on a blazing
Summer day.
 In this example, the weather is a variable that
confounds the relationship between ice cream
sales and murder rates.
 You may also recognize this as the so-called third
variable problem, which refers to the fact that any
time we observe a relationship among two
variables, there’s always the possibility that some
third variable which we don’t know about is
responsible for (“confounding”) the relationship.
 Random variable to
experiment
Confounding variables in which
uncontrolled or uncontrollable
factors affect the dependent
variable, along with or instead
of the independent variable
 Random assignment to
condition
Participants are assigned to
different experimental
groups or “conditions” on
the basis of chance and
chance alone; minimize the
chance of data distortion
 Replication
Repetition of findings
using other procedures in
other setting
 Significant outcome
Use of statistical
procedures in order to
determine whether or not
differences between
groups are large enough to
be significant
Placebo
 A physical or psychological treatment that contains no
active ingredient but produces an effect because the person
receiving it believes it will
Experimenter Bias
 Another potential confounding variable which occurs when
an experimenters unintentionally encourages participants
to respond in a way that supports the hypothesis.
Double-blind design
 A research design in which neither the experimenter nor
the participants know who is in the experimental group or
the control group
 AP Psych Tweet 3 is due by Sunday, October 7th by
11:59pm, “Red Enhances Men’s Attraction to Women”
 Telling the Truth about Lie Detectors Forum Post is
due on Sunday, October 7th by 11:59pm.
Here are some recently reported correlations, with the interpretations drawn by
journalists noted in parentheses. In the absence of experimental research, can
you come up with other possible explanations for each of these?
1.
Attention disorder linked with drug abuse. (Interpretation: Children with
ADHD have poor academic performance and peer difficulties which makes
them susceptible to abusing drugs.)
2.
Toddlers who watch more than two hours of TV per day perform worse in
school than those who watch less. (Interpretation: TV viewing makes children
bad students.)
3.
Educated people live longer, on average, than less-educated people.
(Interpretation: Education lengthens life and enhances life.)
4. People who spend long hours on the Internet are somewhat less engaged with
family and are lonelier and more depressed. (Interpretation: By isolating
people from face-to-face contact, Internet absorption can be depressing.)
 Protection of participants from physical and mental




harm
The right of participants to privacy regarding their
behavior
The assurance that participation in research is
completely voluntary
The necessity of informing participants about the
nature of procedures prior to participation in the
experiment
Informed consent
 Deception and debriefing
 Choosing participants who
represent the scope of
human behavior
 Should animals be used
in research?
 Experimental bias
Factors that distort how the
independent variable affects the
dependent variable in an
experiment
 Experimenter expectations
 Participant expectations
 Placebo
A false treatment, such
as a pill, “drug”, or other
substance without any
significant chemical
properties or active
ingredient
 What was the purpose of
the research?
 How well was the study
conducted?
 Are the results presented
fairly?
Research Method
Basic Purpose
How Conducted
What is
Manipulated?
Nothing
Descriptive
Correlational
Experimental
To Observe and
record behavior
Case studies,
surveys, or
naturalistic
observations
To detect naturally Compute statistical
occurring
association,
relationships; to
sometimes among
assess how well
survey responses
one variable
predicts another
To explore cause
and effect
Manipulate one or
more factors ; use
random
assignment
Nothing
The independent
Variable