Research Methods & Psychological Theories Flashcards

In Piaget's theory, the process of modifying existing schemas to accommodate new information is called:

Answer: Accommodation

Accommodation occurs when existing cognitive schemas are altered or new schemas created to incorporate information that doesn't fit existing structures.

A meta-analysis differs from a traditional literature review primarily by:

Answer: Using statistical methods to combine and quantify results across studies

Meta-analysis uses statistical techniques to pool effect sizes from multiple studies, yielding a quantitative summary of the overall evidence base.

Aaron Beck's cognitive therapy proposes that depression is primarily maintained by:

Answer: The cognitive triad of negative views of self, world, and future

Beck's cognitive triad describes how depressed individuals hold systematic negative beliefs about themselves, their ongoing experiences, and their future.

The Hawthorne effect refers to changes in participants' behavior that occur because:

Answer: They know they are being observed or studied

The Hawthorne effect occurs when participants alter their behavior simply due to awareness that they are being observed, threatening internal validity.

In signal detection theory, the measure d' (d-prime) represents:

Answer: The observer's sensitivity independent of response bias

D-prime (d') is a sensitivity index that measures the ability to discriminate signal from noise, independent of the observer's decision criterion.

Attachment theory, developed by John Bowlby, proposes that infants form attachments primarily because:

Answer: An innate biological system promotes proximity to caregivers for survival

Bowlby's evolutionary-based theory holds that attachment is an innate behavioral system that promotes proximity to caregivers as a survival mechanism.

When a researcher controls for the influence of a confounding variable through statistical adjustment rather than experimental manipulation, this procedure is called:

Answer: Statistical covariance control (ANCOVA)

ANCOVA (Analysis of Covariance) statistically removes the variance attributable to a covariate, reducing error variance and controlling for confounds post hoc.