PSYCH 105 |Psychology 105 - Individual and Social Behavior Lecture Notes with Dr. Carolina
(Kina) Montenegro 2025 University of Alberta
Psychology 105 Lecture Notes
Lecture 1: Studying Behaviour Scientifically
- empiricism: you can really only understand a phenomenon through observation
and documentation
- knowledge is not innate, rather it is acquired through experience
- through experience, we fill our tabula rasas with knowledge
- the scientific method is made up of
o theory: a hypothetical explanation of a natural phenomenon
o hypothesis: a falsifiable prediction made by a theory
▪ very specific; has to be testable and falsifiable
- three factors that make it difficult to empirically study humans
o complexity: very complex minds
o variability: no two individuals will feel/think the same thing at the same time
o reactivity: when people know they are being studied, they don’t always behave as
they would
- rule/law of parsimony: start with the simplest theory possible
- operational definitions: defining what you want to measure and how you’re going to measure it
- validity: how related are two variables to one another
- reliability: the tendency for the same result to be repeated when the same experiment is
conducted
- test-retest method: performing a test and then performing it again later on and then comparing
the two to see if they provide reliable data
- demand characteristics: aspects of an observational setting that cause people to behave as
they think they should
o affects validity of the experiment
o cover stories: use deception
o the unrelated-experiments technique: participants are told that they are participating in
two different experiments with two different experimenters, instead the manipulation is
present only in one experiment, while the responding variable is recorded in the second
experiment
o use of nonreactive measures: participants don’t realize what is being measured
- naturalistic observation: unobtrusively observing people in their natural environments
o measured as it occurs
o already recorded by others
o recorded on videotape to be coded later
- ecological validity: the extent to which research is conducted in situations that are
extremely similar to participants’ everyday life experiences
o increases the generalizability of your results
- observer/experimenter bias: researchers see what they want to see (their observations match
their predictions)
o double-blind procedure: the purpose of the observation is hidden from the observer
and the individual being observed
- frequency distribution: graphical representation of measurements (x) arranged by the number
of times each measurement was made/frequency (y)
o unimodal (normal) distribution
▪ vast majority of measurements are concentrated around the middle
▪ symmetrical
,▪ tails off at both ends
▪ mean=median=mode at the peak
, ▪ best to rely on mean
o bimodal distribution
▪ has 2 modes (separate areas of peak frequency)
▪ fairly rare
o skewed distributions
▪ mean gets dragged down towards the tail
▪ mode stays in the regular peak location
▪ median goes between the two
▪ when positively/negatively skewed, rely on the median as representative
because it is least affected by the skew
• positively skewed is the tail pans out on the right
o mean higher than median
• negatively skewed is the tail pans out on the left
o mean lower than median
- measures of dispersion/variability
o range: value of the largest measurement minus the smallest measurement
o standard deviation: average difference between the measurements in a
frequency distribution and the mean of that distribution
▪ most commonly used measure of dispersion
▪ scores>mean have a positive deviation score
▪ scores<mean have a negative deviation score
- converting scores
o percentile rank: the percentage of scores that are equal to that score or lower, out of
the whole set or scores
o standardized score: score that is expressed in terms of the number of standard
deviations that the original score is from the mean
▪ Z score
• + = above the mean
• - = below the mean
- descriptions: graphic representations and descriptive statistics
o mode: value of the most frequent observation
o mean: average value of all measurements
o median: value in the middle
- three methods of research
o descriptive research
▪ goal: to create a snapshot of the current state of affairs
▪ advantage: provides a relatively complete picture of what is occurring at a
given time
▪ disadvantage: does not assess relationships among variables
▪ describe behaviour in natural settings
▪ eg. case studies, naturalistic observation, surveys
▪ can give clues for cause-and-effect studies
o correlational studies
▪ goal: assess relationships between and among two or more variables
▪ advantage: allows testing of expected relationships between and among
variables and making of predictions
▪ disadvantage: cannot be used to draw inferences about the causal
relationships between and among the variables
▪ relationship between/among variables
▪ not cause and effect
, o experimental methods
▪ goal: assess the impact of one or more experimental manipulations on
a dependent variable
▪ disadvantage: cannot experimentally manipulate many important variables
(eg. cannot assign religion, gender to individuals)
▪ cause and effect relationships
▪ two main factors
• manipulating a variable
• randomly assigning individuals to a certain condition
- case studies: in-depth analysis of individual, group, or event
o data can be collected through observation, interviews, psychological tests,
physiological recordings, task performance, or archival records
o advantages and disadvantages
▪ useful for rare phenomenon
▪ may challenge validity of theories
▪ can illustrate effectiveness of programs for special populations (eg. failure
to thrive in infants)
▪ poor method of determining cause-effect relations
▪ generalizability is questionable
▪ researcher bias because one individual/group is being examined in depth
- brain imaging techniques allow us to study localization of function in the brain
- representative samples are necessary
o cannot study entire population
o sample must reflect important characteristics of population
o random sampling
▪ every member has an equal probability of being chosen
▪ large sample>small sample, but small representative
sample>large unrepresentative sample
▪ problem: much of today’s research relies on undergraduate students
which creates lots of bias
- survey research: used when assessing sensitive topics, where anonymity is important
o eg. sexual activity, mental health issues, drug use
o disadvantages:
▪ unrepresentative samples can lead to faulty generalizations
▪ rely on participants’ self-reports
▪ cannot draw conclusions about cause-and-effect
- variable: a property whose value can vary across individuals or over-time
o understanding the relationship between two variables
- scatterplot: each pair of scores illustrated by a single point on a graph, demonstrating
the relationship of one variable to another
o a line of best fit gives directionality of the association
- correlation: two variables are correlated when variations in the value of one variable
are synchronized with variations in the value of the other
o natural correlations: the correlations we observe in the world around us
o third-variable correlation: the fact that two variables are correlated only because
each is casually related to a third variable
▪ r = correlation coefficient: ranges from -1 to +1
▪ r = 1: positive correlation, r = -1: negative correlation, r = 0: no correlation
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