PSYO 1011 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Blind Experiment, Confounding, Effect Size

• School: Dalhousie University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYO 1011
• Professor: Jennifer Stamp

Document Summary

A general goal of psychological research is to measure change in behaviour, thought or brain activity. A variable is anything that changes or varies within or between subjects. Researchers draw on small subsets of the population know as samples. Social desirability bias- the tendency toward favourable self-presentation that could lead to inaccurate self-reports. Researchers don"t necessarily make any predictions and do not control or manipulate variables. They simply define a problem of interest and describe the possible variables of interest. Usually occur during the exploratory phase of research that may lead to predictions later on. Involves observation of one person often over a long period of time. Does not test the hypothesis; but it is a rich source for a hypothesis: naturalistic observation. The researcher observes and records behaviours in the real world. Researcher needs to be unbiased as possible for natural occurrences for observation.