1. Name 3 ways that psychological science has benefited society (from Why Science? |
NOBA reading assignment).
Psychological science has benefited society by allowing psychologist to observe identical
and fraternal twins in order to shed light on the “nature-nurture question.”
Psychology has been used to make many jobs less stressful. Alphonse Chapanis was able
to redesign the airplane controls to make them easier to use under stressful situations. The
redesigning of them immediately caused the amount of crashes to plummet.
Another great contributor to psychological science was Elizabeth Loftus. She has done a
lot of research showing the unreliability of eyewitness testimony and memory in the
courtroom. This has caused less weight to be put on eyewitness testimonies.
2. Describe the essential characteristics of experimental designs in research.
It is very important that there be an independent and a dependent variable in experimental
design. The independent variable must have two different levels of treatment. Another
important part of experimental research is random assignment. This ensures that the
outcome isn’t skewed because certain people groups are grouped together. It is important
that all part of the experiment are clearly defined. How would one define happiness if that
was what was being tested amongst participants?
