Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

A-14 APPENDIX A Statistics: Understanding Data© The New Yorker Collection 1989 Leo Cullumfrom cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.“It’s my fervent hope, Fernbaugh, that theseare meaningless statistics.”EndnoteAlthough I briefly saw other study participants at each three-month data-collectionpoint, I never spoke to anyone. The last measurement session, however, was also acelebration for our yearlong participation in the project. Approximately 30 peopleattended my session, and participants from each of the three groups were present.After our blood was drawn and our blood pressure and weight readings were taken,we were treated to breakfast. Then one of the principal researchers debriefed us: Shegave us some background on the study and told us what she hoped to learn. At thispoint, participants were given the opportunity to talk about how the study hadaffected their lives. It was fascinating to hear members of the intervention groupsdescribe the changes they had made over the past year. One woman said that a yearago she could never imagine getting up early to meditate, yet now she looks forwardto awakening each morning at 4:00 A.M. for her first meditation session. Otherpeople described the modifications they had made in their diet and exercise patternsand how much better they felt. Although I did not experience either of the interventions,I know that simply being a subject in the study made me more consciousof what I ate and how much I exercised. This could have been a confounding factor;that is, it could have inadvertently changed my behavior even though I was inthe control group. In fact, my weight decreased and my level of “good” cholesterolincreased over the course of the year.We were not paid for our participation in this study, but we received small giftsas tokens of the researchers’ appreciation. In addition, we were all given the optionof taking any or all of the intervention training at no cost (and some courses inalternative techniques could be quite expensive). The most important thing for mewas the satisfaction of participation—the fact that I had stayed with the study for anentire year and, in a small way, had made a contribution to science.KEY TERMSstatistics, p. A-2descriptive statistics, p. A-2frequency distribution, p. A-3histogram, p. A-3frequency polygon, p. A-4skewed distribution, p. A-4symmetrical distribution,p. A-4measure of central tendency,p. A-5mode, p. A-5median, p. A-5mean, p. A-5measure of variability, p. A-6range, p. A-6standard deviation, p. A-6z score, p. A-7standard normal curve(standard normaldistribution), p. A-8correlation, p. A-8correlation coefficient, p. A-8positive correlation, p. A-9negative correlation, p. A-9scatter diagram (scatter plot),p. A-10inferential statistics, p. A-12t-test, p. A-12Type I error, p. A-13Type II error, p. A-13population, p. A-13sample, p. A-13➞ Web Companion Review ActivitiesYou can find additional review activities atwww.worthpublishers.com/discoveringpsych5e. TheDiscovering Psychology 5th edition Web Companion hasself-scoring practice quizzes, flashcards, interactive crosswordpuzzles, and other activities to help you master the material inthis chapter.