PSYCH 2310 PSYCH EXAM 1 STUDY GUIDE
EXAM 1 STUDY GUIDE
CHAPTER 1: Introduction
and methodology What is
social psychology?
“The scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another.”
What are some of social psychology’s big ideas that
are covered in the text?
• Social intuitions are powerful, but often get us into big trouble
• Social influences shape our behavior
• Attitudes shape behavior, and behaviors shape attitudes
Methodology
• What is a theory?
o An integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed
events
o A good theory…
▪ Summarizes many observations
▪ Makes clear predictions
• What is a hypothesis?
o A statement that describes a relationship between events.
o Often hypotheses are derived from a theory
• What is the definition of “operationalization”?
o A process of defining the measurement of a phenomenon that is not
directly measurable, though its existence is indicated by other
phenomena.
,PSYCH 2310 PSYCH EXAM 1 STUDY GUIDE
• What is an independent variable?
o The thing that you think will influence your outcome
• What is a dependent variable?
o The thing that you expect will be influenced by the independent
variable
• What is a between-subjects design?
, PSYCH 2310 PSYCH EXAM 1 STUDY GUIDE
o Participants are divided into groups, and each group gets one level of
your IV
o Problems: order effects…the order that something occurs has an effect
on results
• What is a within-subjects design?
o All participants get all levels of your independent variable
o Participants will do the task mult. times so that they can do the task
w/ each IV
o Problems with within-subject designs:
▪ Practice effects
▪ Fatigue effects
▪ Order effects
o Advantage of within-subject designs:
▪ Never have to worry about equivalence of groups
▪ Can compare an individual’s performance in one condition to
his/her performance in another condition
▪ Don’t need as many participants to detect a significant effect
• What is random assignment? What is
random selection? What is the difference
between these?
o Random selection: Randomly select participants from a given
population
o Random assignment: If you have different experimental groups (i.e. a
between-subjects design) then you must randomly assign participants to
these groups.
▪ With a random assignment we can expect that our results will
be approximately equal
EXAM 1 STUDY GUIDE
CHAPTER 1: Introduction
and methodology What is
social psychology?
“The scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another.”
What are some of social psychology’s big ideas that
are covered in the text?
• Social intuitions are powerful, but often get us into big trouble
• Social influences shape our behavior
• Attitudes shape behavior, and behaviors shape attitudes
Methodology
• What is a theory?
o An integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed
events
o A good theory…
▪ Summarizes many observations
▪ Makes clear predictions
• What is a hypothesis?
o A statement that describes a relationship between events.
o Often hypotheses are derived from a theory
• What is the definition of “operationalization”?
o A process of defining the measurement of a phenomenon that is not
directly measurable, though its existence is indicated by other
phenomena.
,PSYCH 2310 PSYCH EXAM 1 STUDY GUIDE
• What is an independent variable?
o The thing that you think will influence your outcome
• What is a dependent variable?
o The thing that you expect will be influenced by the independent
variable
• What is a between-subjects design?
, PSYCH 2310 PSYCH EXAM 1 STUDY GUIDE
o Participants are divided into groups, and each group gets one level of
your IV
o Problems: order effects…the order that something occurs has an effect
on results
• What is a within-subjects design?
o All participants get all levels of your independent variable
o Participants will do the task mult. times so that they can do the task
w/ each IV
o Problems with within-subject designs:
▪ Practice effects
▪ Fatigue effects
▪ Order effects
o Advantage of within-subject designs:
▪ Never have to worry about equivalence of groups
▪ Can compare an individual’s performance in one condition to
his/her performance in another condition
▪ Don’t need as many participants to detect a significant effect
• What is random assignment? What is
random selection? What is the difference
between these?
o Random selection: Randomly select participants from a given
population
o Random assignment: If you have different experimental groups (i.e. a
between-subjects design) then you must randomly assign participants to
these groups.
▪ With a random assignment we can expect that our results will
be approximately equal
