Psychology 15 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Hindsight Bias, Random Assignment, Participant Observation

• School: Harvard University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 15
• Professor: Christopher Greene

Document Summary

Why do social psychologists do research (and why should you want to read about it?) Hypothesis: a prediction about what will happen under particular circumstances: often test broader theories about behavior, theory: a body of related propositions intended to describe some aspect of the world. Archival research: researchers look at evidence found in archives of various kinds record books, police reports, sports statistics, newspaper articles, and databases containing anthropological descriptions of people in different cultures. Surveys: simply asking people questions (interviews or written questionnaires) If correlational studies cannot prove that a causal relationship exists, clever analysis of correlational data can be quite persuasive abut the meaning of a relationship. Longitudinal study: a study conducted over a long period of time with the same population, which is periodically assessed regarding a particular behavior. The best way to be sure about causality is to conduct an experiment.