Psych 1x03 midterm study Questions And Answers

between-subjects design - ANS an experimental design where an independent variable is manipulated across separate groups of participants. each participant takes part in only one of the conditions. ex: testing effects of caffeine on alertness (those who drank coffee and those who didnt) blinding - ANS when participants dont know whethter they belong to the experimental or control group, or which treatment they are receiving (comparing effect of drinking caf or decaf coffee before bed, dont know which type theyre drinking) causation - ANS suggestion that one variable caused an effect to occur in another variable. cannot be determined even if two variables have strong relationship or are strongly correlated (positive r betewen hat and icecream, but hat doesnt equal icecream) control group - ANS group in experiment that doesnt receive the experimental manipulation to the independent variable, group to whom the experimental group is compared (group that drank coffee is compared to control group who didnt drink coffee) correlation - ANS measure of the strength of the relationship between two variables. does not equal causation (hat and icecream sales both may be caused by confounding variable, increased temp) correlation coefficient (r) - ANS measures the degree to which two variables are correlated, tells us the strength and direction of the correlation (strong positive correlation of +1 in children, means as age increases, so does height) data - ANS quantifiable values which measure the outcome of a test (represented by the number of mins each participant required to fall asleep) descriptive statistic - ANS describes data in a way that summarizes at a glance the overall results of an experiment. includes histograms, measures of central tendency, measures of variability (standard deviation) dependent variable - ANS variable that researchers observe but dont change during experiment. iv is changed and measured the effects on the dv (observes amt of time to fall asleep (dv) by manipulating coffee consumption (iv)) experimental group - ANS group of participants who receive the manipulation of the independent variable, to test effect on dependent variable (receives coffee and alertness is measured) frequency distribution - ANS type of graph illustrating the distribution of how frequently a given value or range of values appears in a data set. smooth curve that connects the peak of each bar in a histogram (120-129 pound students and higher graphs) hypothesis - ANS testable statement that makes specific predictions about the relationship between the variables in a theory double-blind study - ANS neither experimenter or participants know which treatment a particular group of participants is receiving experimenter bias - ANS actions made by the experimenter to promote the result they hope to achieve (when testing effects of coffee, experimenter engages the experimental group more than the control group) histogram - ANS type of graph used to report the number of times a group of values appear in a data set. forms basis of frequency distribution independent variable - ANS variable manipulated by the scientist (manipulates amount or type of coffee the participants drink to test effects of caffeine) inferential statistics - ANS stats that allow us to use results from samples to make inferences about overall underlying populations mean - ANS average value of the data set add all and divide by number in set