Psych Notes: Research Methods

Hindsight Bias
a tendency to believe, after learning the outcome, that you knew it all along

Overconfidence
we tend to think that we know more than we do

The Barnum Effect
tendency for people to accept very general or vague characterizations of themselves and take them to be accurate

Applied Research vs. Basic Research

Applied Research: has clear practical applications; you can use it

Basic Research: explores questions that you may be curious about, but not intended to be immediately used

Hypothesis
-expresses a relationship between two variables
-a variable is anything that can vary among participants in a study br /> -EX: participating in class leads to better grades than not participating.

Independent Variable
-whatever is being manipulated in the experiment
-Ex: drugs being used in an experiment

Dependent Variable
-whatever is being measured in the experiment
-Ex: effect of a drug in the experiment

Operational Definitions
-Explain what you mean in your hypothesis
-How will the variables be measured in "real life" terms
-Ex: Let's say your hypothesis is that chocolate causes violent behavior. What do you mean by chocolate? What do you mean by violent behavior?