Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction

a private nonprofit corporation affiliated with Indiana University, whose mission is to promote interdisciplinary research and scholarship in the fields of human sexuality, gender, and reproduction. It was founded in 1947 by Alfred Kinsey, who served as its first director and carried out much of his pioneering research into human sexual behavior there.

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Psychology term of the day

March 13th 2025

alpha

(symbol: α) n.

1. the likelihood of incorrectly rejecting a statement or hypothesis concerning a characteristic of a population. More specifically, it is the probability of incorrectly rejecting a true null hypothesis (i.e., committing a Type I error) in research. Although the value of alpha is chosen by the investigator based on what is deemed acceptable for a particular study, alpha values of .05 and .01 are commonly used.

2. a measure of reliability for a set of responses to a test or measure. See Cronbach’s alpha.