Exam 1: Textbook Review  

What is correlational research?

Chapter 1

1.What are the 6 steps of the scientific method?

 Step 1: Systematically Observing Events

 Step 3: Forming a Hypothesis

 Guide further investigation

 Step 4: Testing the Hypothesis

 Step 5: Formulating a Theory

 Explain the relationship between the variables

 Step 6: Testing the Theory

2. What is descriptive research?

Researcher need not go through all of the steps of the scientific method in  order to do science. He or she can focus solely on the first step, observing  events systematically.

 naturalistic observation

 observing events as they naturally occur and try to deduce  regularities

What is experimental research?

 produce only correlational data

 Kinds of Natural Observation:

1. surveys: A number of participants answer specific questions 2. case studies: A single participant is analyzed in depth

3. What is correlational research?

Relations among different variables are documented but causation cannot be inferred

 positive correlation:

a relationship in which increases in one variable are accompanied by  increases in another  

 negative correlation:

a relationship in which increases in one variable are accompanied by  decreases in another

4. What is experimental research?

Participants are assigned randomly to groups, and the effects of  manipulating one or more independent variables on a dependent variable  are studied

What are the advantages of correlational research?

5. What are the advantages of correlational research? Don't forget about the age old question of brealbot

It allows researchers to compare variables that cannot be manipulated  directly

6. What is the major drawback of correlational research?

Correlation does not imply causation.

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7. What are independent and dependent variables?

 Independent Variable (IV):  

The variable being manipulated by the experimenter. (anything else  has to be kept constant)

 Dependent Variable (DV):  

The variable that measures the participant’s response.

8. What is a confounding variable?

An outside influence that changes the effect of a dependent and  independent variable.

9. Why does experimental research produce causal data?

Any changes in the dependent variable can be said to be caused by changes  in the independent variable, because only the independent variable is  changing.

10. What is an experimental and a control group?

 experimental group

A group that receives the complete procedure that defines the  experiment

 control group  

 A group that is treated exactly the same way as the experimental  group, except that the independent variable that is the focus of the  study is not manipulated. The control group holds constant all of the  variables in the experimental group.  If you want to learn more check out pogox

 Used to avoid confounding

11. What is random assignment and why is it used?

The technique of assigning participants randomly to the experimental and  the control groups, so that members of the two groups are comparable in all  relevant ways.

12.What are reliability and validity?

 Reliability

Consistency; data are reliable if the same values are obtained when  the measurements are repeated.

 Validity

A method does in fact measure what it is supposed to measure.  

13. What is sampling bias? Why is it a problem?

A bias that occurs when the participants are not chosen at random but  instead are chosen so that one attribute is over- or underrepresented.  

14. What is an experimenter expectancy effect and why is it important? 2

Effects that occur when an investigator’s expectations lead him or her  (consciously or unconsciously) to treat participants in a way that encourages  them to produce the expected results. If you want to learn more check out life sciences 7a ucla

 The experimenter may introduce cognitive bias into a study

15. What is a double-blind design and why is it important?

A study in which the participant is unaware of the predictions and therefore  cannot consciously or unconsciously produce the predicted results; the  investigator is also “blind” to the group to which the participant has been  assigned or to the condition that the participant is receiving and therefore  cannot produce the predicted results.

 Used to guarantee that experimenter expectancy effects won’t occur

Chapter 13

1.What is social cognition? Don't forget about the age old question of ek 307 bu

The ways that people perceive, attend to, store, make inferences about,  remember, and use information and feelings about other people and the  social world.

2. What are implicit (automatic) processes?

Cognitive processing that occurs without awareness, without conscious  intent, and with limited ability to be controlled or prevented once triggered. We also discuss several other topics like ongoing search consumer behavior

3. What is cognitive dissonance?

The uncomfortable state that arises from a discrepancy between two  attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors.

A. What causes cognitive dissonance?

arises from a discrepancy among attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors B. How can cognitive dissonance be reduced and why?

 Indirect strategies

trying to feel good about ourselves in other areas of life.

 Direct strategies

involve actually changing our attitude or behavior. If you want to learn more check out biol 230

 Trivialize an inconsistency between two conflicting attitudes as being unimportant and thereby make it less likely to cause cognitive  dissonance

4. What is an attribution?

An explanation for the cause of an event or behavior.

A. What are internal and external attributions?

 Internal attribution

An explanation of someone’s behavior that focuses on the person’s  beliefs, goals, traits, or other characteristics; also called dispositional attribution.

 External attribution

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An explanation of someone’s behavior that focuses on the situation; also called situational attribution.

5. What are attributional biases and why do they occur?

A tendency to make certain types of attributions; this sort of bias generally  occurs outside of conscious awareness.

 Fundamental Attribution Error

the strong tendency to interpret other people’s behavior as  arising from internal causes rather than external ones. (ex: see  homeless man as being lazy rather than under unfair treatment)  Self-Serving Bias

the inclination to attribute your own failures to external causes  and your successes to internal ones, but to attribute other people’s  failures to internal causes and their successes to external causes (ex:  different description in newspaper)

 Belief in a Just World (just-world attribution)

the assumption that people get what they deserve. (ex: criminals get deserved punishments)

6. What are the factors involved in liking someone and why is each  important?

 Physical Attraction

Make inferences about people

 Repeated Contact

The more contact you have with someone, the more likely you  are to think positively about that person

 Similarity  

The more similar the new acquaintance’s attitudes are to your own,  the more likely you are to be attracted to him or her

7. What are companionate and passionate love? How are they related?  Companionate love

An altruistic type of love characterized by expending time,  attention, and resources on behalf of another person.

 passionate love

The intense, often sudden feeling of being “in love,” which typically  involves sexual attraction, a desire for mutual love and physical  closeness, arousal, and a fear that the relationship will end.  Over time, passionate love matures into the more stable companionate love characterized by bonding and affection

8. What are Sternberg’s three dimensions of love?

 passion (including sexual desire)

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 intimacy (emotional closeness and sharing)

 commitment (the conscious decision to be in the relationship).

9. What forms of love are formed from Sternberg’s three dimensions? 10. What is an attachment style?  

the manner of behaving with and thinking about a partner

11. What are the three forms of attachment in adult relationships?  Secure attachment style

adults seek closeness and interdependence in relationships and are not worried about possibly losing the relationship because they feel secure in it.  Avoidant attachment style

adults are uncomfortable with intimacy and closeness.  

 Anxious-ambivalent style

adults want but simultaneously fear a relationship

12. How is a group described in social psychology?  

A social entity characterized by regular interaction among members, some  type of social or emotional connection with one another, a common frame of  reference, and a degree of interdependence

A. Within a group, what is a norm and what is a role?  

 Norms

A rule that implicitly or explicitly governs members of a group.  Roles

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The behaviors that a member in a given position in a group is expected to perform.

13. What is conformity?

A change in behavior in order to follow a group’s norms.

A. What are informational and normative social influence?  B. What role does each form of influence play in conformity?  Informational social influence

occurs when we conform to others because we believe that their  views are correct or their behavior is appropriate for the situation  likely to occur when:

1. the situation is ambiguous

2. there is a crisis  

3. the task is very difficult

4. other people are experts

 Normative social influence

occurs when we conform because we want to be liked or thought of  positively.

C. What role does social support play in conformity?

If another group member openly disagrees with the group consensus,  conformity then decreases

14. What is compliance?  

a change in behavior brought about by a direct request rather than by social  norms.

A. How do each of the following techniques influence compliance:  Foot-in-the-door

achieves compliance by beginning with an insignificant request,  which is then followed by a larger request.

 Lowball technique

consists of getting someone to make an agreement and then  increasing the cost of that agreement.

 Door-in-the-face

someone makes a very large request and then when it is denied (as  expected) makes a smaller request—for what is actually desired.

15. What is obedience?

compliance with an order

A. What does the Milgrim experiment tell us about obedience?  Participants were designated as the “teacher” who were to keep track  of how well the learner memorized word pairs. The teacher had to  administer an electric shock if the learner made a mistake, increasing  the voltage each time.  

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 Most people obeyed orders to inflict pain. Milgram concluded that  people would go against what they thought was morally right so that  they could obey authority figures.  

 However, the specifics of the situation (such as proximity to the  learner) influence whether an individual will obey an order to hurt  someone else.

16. For each of the following phenomena, please be able to describe what it  is, when it occurs, and why it occurs:

 Group polarization

the tendency of group members’ opinions to become more extreme  (in the same direction as their initial opinions) after group discussion  Likely occur:

1. When some members of the group give many very  

compelling reasons for their initial views. (likely to occur  

when an intellectual issue is at stake or when the group is  deciding about a task to be undertake.)

2. After members come to see an emerging consensus, and  some members try to increase their standing in the group  by taking that consensus position to an extreme. (likely to  occur when the issue involves making a judgment call or  

when the group is more focused on group harmony than on correctness.)

3. When group members who have more extreme positions  take more turns in the discussion and spend more time  

talking.

 Groupthink

occurs when people who try to solve problems together accept one  another’s information and ideas without subjecting them to critical  analysis.  

most likely to fall into groupthink when the group is cohesive (the members  like and value each other), which then deters members from  voicing dissenting opinions or raising questions that can lead to conflict  Social loafing

occurs when some members don’t contribute as much to a shared  group task as do others and instead let other members work  proportionally harder than they do

Consciousness Material

1.What is attention?

The act of focusing on particular information, which allows it to be processed  more fully than what is not attended to

2. What is selective attention?

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The process of picking out and maintaining focus on a particular quality,  object, or event, and ignoring other stimuli or characteristics of the stimuli.  Pop-out:

 occurs when the perceptual characteristics of a stimulus are so  different from the ones around it that it immediately comes to our  attention.

 Active searching: actively searching for a particular characteristic,  object, or event

 what we see and hear influences what we expect

 initial perception of an event may not be very clear, and so we  need a “second look”

 Seeing without awareness:

 repetition blindness: The inability to see the second instance of  a stimulus when it appears soon after the first instance.

 attentional blink: A rebound period in which a person cannot pay attention to a second stimulus after having just paid attention to  another one (which need not be the same as the second stimulus).

3. What are the stages of sleep?

Stage of Sleep

Key Aspects

Stage 1

(hypnogogic  

sleep)

• Can be readily awakened

• If awakened, a person won’t feel that he or she has  been asleep

• May experience hypnic jerk

• Lasts about 5 minutes

Stage 2

• Can still readily be awakened

• More relaxed and less responsive to the environment  than during Stage 1 sleep

Stage 3

• Decreased heart rate and body temperature • Less easily awakened than in Stages 1 and 2

Stage 4

• Lowest heart rate, breathing, and body temperature of  all sleep stages

• Very deep sleep—difficult to awaken

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Stage of Sleep

Key Aspects

REM Sleep

• Eyes move rapidly under closed lids

• Fast and irregular heart rate and breathing

• Voluntary muscles are paralyzed and unresponsive • Vivid dreams that are memorable if awakened during  this sleep stage

May have genital arousal

B. How is REM different from the other stages of sleep?

Stage of sleep characterized by rapid eye movements, marked brain activity, and vivid dreaming.

C. How does the pattern of sleep change across the night?

The time you spend in each stage varies over the course of the night, with  slow-wave sleep occurring predominantly in the early hours of sleep and REM sleep occurring primarily in the later hours of sleep.

4.What are the effects of deprivation of sleep and what are the effects of  deprivation of REM?

 Sleep deprivation

 problems sustaining your attention and performing visual-motor  tasks

 disrupts learning

 perceive more stressors and create additional stressors   alters the normal daily patterns of changes in temperature,  metabolism, and hormone secretions

 Deprivation of REM

 REM rebound: The higher percentage of REM sleep that occurs  following a night lacking the normal amount of REM.

5. What are the major functions of sleep?

 Conserves energy

sleep allows energy conservation because the body’s temperature  lowers and caloric demands decline.  

 Restores the body

 helps the body repair the wear and tear from the day’s events  reduces the bodily effects of stressors and other stimuli.

 Facilitates learning

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facilitates the learning of material encountered during the day

6. What is the function of dreaming in each of the following theories:  Activation-synthesis  

The theory that dreams arise from random bursts of nerve cell activity that  may affect brain cells involved in hearing and seeing; the brain attempts to  make sense of this hodgepodge of stimuli, resulting in the experience of  dreams.

 Editing/strengthening neural connections

dreams are used to edit out unnecessary or accidental brain connections  formed during the day or strengthen useful connections

 Wish Fulfillment

 dream content originates in the unconscious—outside our  conscious awareness

 allow us to fulfill unconscious desires

7. What is a circadian rhythm?

The body’s daily fluctuations in response to the cycle of dark and light. A. What are the effects of violating your natural circadian rhythm?  develop a bad mood

 alter the body’s physical health

 disrupt hormones and immune function

 potentially accelerate tumor growth in people with cancer 8. What is insomnia?

Repeated difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep, or waking up too  early

9. What is sleep apnea?

A disorder characterized by a temporary cessation of breathing during sleep,  usually preceded by a period of difficult breathing accompanied by loud  snoring.

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