final review-psy 240

Salma conducts a study and finds that her data do not completely support her theory. Which of the following statements should she avoid saying?

"My data disproves my theory."

Dr. Gavin is conducting a 2 X 4 independent groups factorial design. How many independent variables are in his study?

2

Dr. Gavin is conducting a 2 X 4 independent groups factorial design. How many cells are in his design?

8

Dr. Kline's IRB requires him to obtain written informed consent. Which of the following does Dr. Kline NOT need to include in his informed consent document

A description of the study's hypotheses

When a double-blind study is not possible, an acceptable alternative may be a ________.

A masked design

Diego is interested in examining the relationship between a person's attachment style and his or her relationship satisfaction. He finds 65 studies that have examined this topic. He combines the results of these studies and calculates an effect size. His research is most accurately described as:

A meta-analysis

Todd is studying the effect of popularity on academic success for his research methods project. He decides to measure popularity by asking each elementary school student to tell him how many friends he or she has. He assumes that more friends mean the student is more popular. Which of the following describes this variable?

A ratio scale of measurement

Dr. Morimoto is curious as to whether exposing people to violent video games causes them to be more aggressive. He assigns half his participants to play a video game for five minutes and the other half to play for seven minutes. He finds that there is no relationship between playing the game longer and being more aggressive. What might be to blame for this null effect?

A weak manipulation

magine that Dr. Kline is a clinical psychologist who volunteers his time at a local prison counseling several inmates. Because of his connections there, he is considering using prisoners as his participants. Why is this choice potentially problematic?

According to the Belmont Report, prisoners are entitled to special protection.

A decrease in participants' scores on a measure from pretest to posttest could suggest all of the following threats to internal validity EXCEPT?

Attrition

In the theory-data cycle, theories first lead to _____. A. Research B. Questions C. Answers D. Data

B. Questions

Research that is done specifically to add to our general understanding of psychology, like distinguishing the components of extraversion or predicting the time it takes a person to determine whether an object is a face or another object, is know as:

Basic Research

Your friend Gaby loves reading articles about psychology studies in her monthly woman's magazine. Which of the following would you tell her?

Be careful about reading those articles because they may not present accurate findings.

An independent-groups design is also know as _________.

Between-subjects design

After reading the chapter, Cyril says to himself, "I am sure other people might engage in faulty thinking but I never would." What is Cyril experiencing?

Bias blind spot

n which of the following ways are content and face validity similar?

Both involve subjective judgments

If a researcher is concerned about external validity, which of the following would you recommend with regard to conducting small-N designs?

Compare the results of small-N design with other studies.

A psychiatrist is testing a drug that treats depression. He has given the drug to all his patients and all of them have experienced a decrease in depressive symptoms. Although this is interesting, his experiment is limited because he does not have a:

Comparison group that did not receive the drug.

Dr. Alfonse, a developmental psychologist, conducts a study to determine whether children prefer books with drawn illustrations or with photographs. A group of 45 first graders are shown two copies of a book (Little Red Riding Hood) at the same time. Although the story is the the same, one book is illustrated with drawing and the other is illustrated with photos. Students are then asked to indicate which book they prefer. This is an example of which of the following designs?

Concurrent-measures design

Which of the following is NOT an example of a probability sample?

Convenience sample

Which of the following topics would not be especially well-suited to a quasi-experimental design?

Does watching violent movies cause increases in acceptability of aggression?

Dr. V is concerned about the validity of the measure of narcissism recommended by her colleague. She sends a copy of the measure to the faculty members in her psychology department to look at an they all tell her it looks like it will measure narcissism. She now has evidence of which of the following?

Face validity

In the case of a factorial design, another term for independent variable is

Factor

Dr. Gore is conducting a survey examining people's opinions toward funding for collegiate athletics on his campus. He notices that several participants agree with all 12 questions. This could be an example of all of the following EXCEPT:

Fence sitting

Dr. Fletcher is interested in whether joining a fraternity/sorority causes people to become more concerned about their attractiveness and appearance. He recruits a group of 55 freshmen (25 males, 30 females) who are planning to go through fraternity/sorority recruitment on his campus. After they join, he gives them a measure of attractiveness concern/appearance concern (the Body Concern Scale).

He was unable to randomly assign participants to join a fraternity/sorority.

Which of the following threats to internal validity CANNOT occur in just any study?

History threats

In understanding "controlling for" a third variable, which of the following is a similar concept?

Identifying subgroups

Before using the measure in her study, Dr. V analyzes the data she gets from her students. She looks at the relationship between each of the individual questions. She sees that participants who agree with Question 1 also agree with Question 3 and disagree with Question 2. This is a test of which of the following?

Internal reliability

Which of the following is the reason that scientific journals use peer review?

It ensures that studies published are of the highest quality.

Which of the following is true of sample size?

It primarily affects statistical validity..

Dr. Oishi is an educational psychologist interested in students' attitudes toward math and the effect of those attitudes on performance on standardized tests. He chooses his local school district to study. There are 15 middle schools, and he randomly chooses five. Then, of the 1,500 students in each of those five schools, he randomly recruits 250 students. This is an example of which of the following sampling techniques?

Multistage sample

Which of the following is NOT a method researchers used to identify or correct for attrition?

Not allow participants to leave a study once it has started

A study by Rosenthal and Jacobs (1968) involved telling teachers that some of their students were "bloomers" and would achieve rapid academic success within the next year. In fact, these students were no different than any of the other students in the class. At the end of the year, the "bloomers" showed more gain in IQ than the other students. It appeared that the teacher had unintentionally treated the "bloomers" in special ways. This is an example of which of the following?

Observer effects

Dr. Uchida's finding that the relationship between emotional well-being and PTSD symptoms is stronger for men than for women suggests which of the following?

Participant sex is a moderating variable

Which of the following is a threat to internal validity found in within-groups designs but not in independent groups designs?

Practice effects

Which of the following is the most direct way to control for question order effects?

Prepare different versions of the survey, varying the order of the questions

Dr. Ewell, a developmental psychologist, is planning on conducting a study that involves watching children play together to determine how sharing behavior occurs in same-sex friend pairs compared to opposite-sex friend pairs. Given the scenario above, Dr. Ewell is concerned that the children will behave differently because of the presence of research assistants. He is concerned about:

Reactivity

All of the following can decrease accurate responses EXCEPT:

Reverse worded questions

Which of the following is true of the distinction between scientific journals and popular magazines?

Scientific journal articles are peer-reviewed; popular magazine articles are not.

Online surveys commonly suffer from which of the following?

Self selection

For her research methods class, Serena plans to interview several teachers about their attitude toward teaching children who have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This is an example of what type of measurement?

Self-report measurement

A researcher's attempt to control sounds, smells, and even temperature in a testing environment is meant to reduce which of the following?

Situation noise

Which of the following does NOT result in a representative sample?

Snowball sample

Dr. Jackson is a personality psychologist who is interested in studying the characteristics of people who report being abducted by UFOs. She finds several people in a support group to research and asks them if they can provide the names and contact information of other people who have also been abducted. Upon contacting these new participants, she asks them to refer her to even more people they may know who have been abducted. This is an example of what kind of sampling?

Snowball sampling`

Convenience sampling relies on which of the following?

Studying people who are easy to find.

A threat to internal validity occurs only if a potential design confound varies _____with the independent variable.

Systematically

Which of the following is a disadvantage of using open-ended questions?

The answers must be coded

Looking for which of the following in a trade book will give you a hint as to its scientific rigor?

The number of references

Susan's hypothesis was not completely supported by her data. What does this mean? The theory is completely wrong. Susan must have analyzed the data incorrectly. The theory may need to be amended. Susan must have collected the data incorrectly.

The theory may need to be amended.

Hosea is studying the relationship between caffeine consumption and problem-solving ability. Which of the following is a quantitative way to operationalize problem-solving ability?

The time spent solving a math problem

Neely is examining the graph of an interaction and sees that one line is flat and one line rises sharply to the right. Which of the following should Neely conclude?

There is a spreading interaction

Research studies are superior to personal experience because

They include at least one comparison group

To test his measure, Dr. Sheffield gives his measure to a group of people in Gamblers Anonymous (GA) and another group in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). He finds that people in the GA group have higher scores on his new measure than people in the AA group. Why did Dr. Sheffield do this?

To obtain evidence for criterion validity

Dr. Fletcher is concerned about a fence-sitting response set when he conducts his survey. Which of the following might you recommend to decrease fence sitting?

Using scales with an even number of response options

Dr. Valenca is concerned whether her measure will really measure narcissism or if it will measure some other related concept. She is concerned about the scale's ___________

Validity

If Dr. Sheffield's measure does not actually measure pathological gambling, his measure is said to lack which of the following?

Validity

The mathematical way to describe an interaction is

a difference in differences

Dr. LaSalle makes the claim: "Research shows that making more money correlates with spending less time talking with your spouse." Which type of claim is Dr. LaSalle making?

association claim

Which is a major concern if you conduct a within subjects design?

individual differences

The idea that, all things being equal, you should use the simplest explanation is ___.

parsimony

If there is not a full range of scores on one of the variables, this is known as

restriction of range

Experiments use random assignment to avoid which of the following?

selection effects

A common finding in the study of aggression is that exposure to television is associated with increased aggressive behavior in children. You are curious as to whether peer pressure is really to blame (peer pressure encourages you to watch television and peer pressure encourages you to be aggressive). You are questioning which of the following rules of causation?

third-variable rule

Before using the measure in her study, Dr. Valencia gives the measure to a group of students on Tuesday. She gives the measure to them again on Thursday. Dr. Valencia is examining the scatterplot of the data she collected on day 1 and day 2. On the scatterplot, she sees the dots are very close to forming a diagonal line. This indicates which of the following?

A strong relationship

Why do samples that use probability samples have excellent external validity?

All members of the population are equally likely to be represented in the sample.

A local committee that reviews research that is conducted on animals is known as

An IACUC

Establishing construct validity is most important for which of the following?

An abstract construct (concept)

Dr. Ewell decides to collect his data at a neighborhood park. He has his two research assistants pose as a married couple having a picnic. While having their picnic, they take detailed records of the sharing behavior of the children and note whether the pairs are same sex or opposite sex. Given his use of two research assistants, he must establish the _______ of their measures.

Interrater reliability

In his measure of "need for cognition (the degree to which people like thinking and problem-sovling), Dr. Jonason asks his participants to rate their agreement with the following statement: "I have never not enjoyed thinking." What is the problem with this question?

It has a double negative.

In developing a measure of "need for cognition" (the degree to which people like thinking and problem-solving), Dr. Jonason asks his participants to rate their agreement with the following statement: "I frequently solve and enjoy solving crossword puzzles and Sudoku puzzles." What is the problem with this question?

It is a double barreled question

Dr. Rhodes notices an interaction in his factorial study. In describing this, which statement might he use to explain the link between Independent Variable A and Independent B in predicting the dependent variables?

The effect of Variable A depends on Variable B

Before using the measure in her study, Dr. Valencia gives the measure to a group of students on Tuesday. She gives the measure to them again on Thursday. She then compares the scores between the two days. This is a test of which of the following?

test retest reliability

Which of the following research designs is used to address possible selection effects?

Matched-groups designs

If a researcher is asking why the relationship between two variables exists, she is curious about which of the following?

Mediation

A study finds a correlation of r = .32. According to Cohen's benchmarks, the magnitude of this effect is:

Moderate

Edward believes that there are a lot of differences between men and women on a variety of different dimensions. He believes this because when he thinks about books that have been written on men and women, he can recall only books that say men and women are different (e.g. Men are from Mars, Women Are from Venus) and cannot recall any that say men and women are the same. His reliance on what comes to mind is an example of which of the following?

The availability heuristic

Dr. Ramon makes the following claim: "Watching television leads people to spend less time communicating with their spouses, study says." Which claim is Dr. Ramon making?

causal claim

The number of main effects that need to be examined is _________ the number of independent variables.

equal to

In a study, the researcher made the claim that a majority of middle school students who are bullied have low self-esteem. Quinn questions the study, saying, "Which middle school students did they study? I am curious if they included both private and public school students." Quinn's concern is addressing which of the following?

external validity

Susan's prediction that students who have three needs met will experience greater satisfaction with their psychology class is an example of which of the following?

hypothesis

Which of the following ethical violations proposed by the Belmont Report was NOT committed in the Tuskegee Study?

Participants were not treated by actual doctors.

Dr. Kline plans to use deception in his study and is thinking about a debriefing session. Which of the following is true of the debriefing?

Participants must be told the reasons for the deception.

Dr. Ellison finds a relation between the amount of sleep and problem solving. Specifically, having a higher amount of sleep the night before an exam is associated with higher scores on two measures of problem solving. This is an example of which type of association?

positive association