PSYC 304 Exam 2 Study

In a study of whether romantic music puts people in the mood for love, participants were told to sit and wait while the experimenter "set up the experiment." While waiting, half of the participants heard a song with romantic lyrics, the other half heard a song with neutral lyrics. After "waiting," participants answered a questionnaire that assessed how romantic they felt on a scale of 1-10. This study is ______

A between-groups experiment

One researcher studies flirting by observing teenagers at the mall. Another studies flirting by observing adults at a local bar. What happened?

A conceptual replication of an earlier study

Jeremy reads that every astronaut who has ever stepped foot on the moon has been a vegetarian. He looks at his wife and says, "I wonder why being vegetarian increases one's likelihood of going to the moon!" Jeremy has arrived at an (incorrect) _________ conclusion.

Cause-and-effect

In research with school children, what is meant by the principle of assent?

Children agree to participate

What is NOT considered human-subject research?

Comparing prion levels in lung tissue obtained from cadavers of smokers and non-smokers

An objective observation is one

Completely free from any personal bias on the part of the observer

A scientific theory has ______ when it agrees with other theories and across disciplines

Consistency

When formulating the original APA code of ethics, the Hobbs committee used an empirical procedure called the ____ method

Critical Incidents

If there is enough evidence to support a theory, it becomes a fact

FALSE

Sanctions can be imposed on psychologists who do not follow the APA's General Principles?

False

Duration(s) of eye contact would most likely be part of an operational definition of which construct?

Flirting

Operational Definitions

Force researchers to be clear about defining the terms of their studies

A prediction that is tested by researchers is called a/an ____

Hypothesis

Ordinal-scale measure

IQ Test

When researchers take special care to include and control for every possible variable, the study is likely to have high ________ validity, even though the results may not generalize to a more realistic situation

Internal

True about an IRB?

Its membership includes nonscientists

Subjective is

NOT an essential feature of science

"As a person's consumption of vegetables increases, their body weight tends to decrease." This is a ______ correlation

Negative

In Null Hypothesis significance testing, the researcher is attempting to falsify the

Null Hypothesis

______ is a way to see if observed data differ from what the data would look like if there were no relationship between the variables

Null hypothesis significance testing

Example of an unobtrusive method of behavioral observation

Observing participants through a one-way mirror

Imagine that researchers were interested in learning about public support for gay marriage. If the researchers analyzed Facebook posts regarding the acceptance or rejection of homosexuality (via opinions in status updates, article posts, or groups they officially like), they would be studying

Online Behavior

A questionnaire asks participants whether they Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, or Strongly Disagree with several statements. The questions use ______-scale measures

Ordinal

A _____ theory provides the simplest possible explanation that fully accounts for the phenomenon in question

Parsimonious

What is NOT one of psychology's goals?

Persuasion

Dr. R conducts research and draws conclusions about the college athletes who participated in his study. He will now generalize from these research participants to the larger _______ of college athletes outside of his study.

Population

Empirical questions

Questions that can be answered through systematic observation and data collection

An extraneous variable the does NOT convary with the independent variable in a study is called a

Random

To make a cause-and-effect conclusions from a research study, the most important procedure to include is

Random assignment

In a study investigating whether higher temperatures increase discomfort, participants are exposed to a mild shock several times. After each shock, the participant rates his or her wellbeing using the Wong pain scale. Then, the temperature of the room is either increased or decreased. The dependent variable in this study is

Ratings on the Wong Pain Scale

In an experiment assessing the efficacy of an anti-nausea drug, experimenters record participants' weight in kilograms several times. This is a(n) ______-scale measure.

Ratio

A researcher attempting to conduct an exact replication of a past study would?

Read the published article about the original research and use the same materials and procedures with new participants

Hypotheses are

Reasonable predictions about what should occur under specific circumstances

The best operational definition for the construct of "memory" would be

Recall

In the context of scientific research, "replication" means

Repeating research to determine whether findings are consistent across time and situations

Participant reactivity can be reduced by

Using unobtrusive measures

Based on the study by Bickel et al. (1999) mentioned in this module, we cannot determine whether less impulsive people are better at quitting smoking, or quitting smoking makes people less impulsive. This is because of

the problem of directionality

In the scientific peer review process, a reviewer should comment on all of the following EXCEPT

the quality of the university where the authors conducted the study

Inductive reasoning

drawing conclusions from observations of a limited number of samples

The purpose of peer-review is to

evaluate the scientific rigor of a manuscript

Learning about research methodology and critical thinking is important for

evaluating standards of care in social or healthcare services, evaluating information from various sources, and learning to make decisions based on evidence

Objective Observation

completely free from any personal bias on the part of the observer

A researcher found a correlation of .74 between exercise and life satisfaction. What is the best interpretation of this correlation?

exercise is strongly associated with life satisfaction

A statement the can be test and (potentially) shown to be untrue is considered to be

falsifiable

By definition, focal sampling involves

few target participants

In a negative correlation

high scores on one variable are accompanied by low scores on the second variable

Correlational and experimental research differ in that

manipulated independent variables only occur in experimental research

By definition, scan sampling involves

many target participants

A Los Angeles Times article entitled "Green coffee beans show potential for losing weight" is most likely to be a

non peer-reviews secondary source

Why is it beneficial for scientists to use systematic observation in order to acquire knowledge?

observations provide the basic data that allow scientists to track, tally, or otherwise organize information about the natural world

The goal of naturalistic observation is to

observe without altering the behavior you are observing

Falsifiability

ruling out incorrect explanations

The dependent variable 'heart rate' might measure the construct of

Anxiety

"Ergonomic" psychologists develop airplane dials that are foolproof. That is, pilots cannot inadvertently turn them the wrong way. The demonstrates the ____ goal of psychological research

Application

A researcher is measuring aggression. What is clearly inadequate as an operational definition of the term?

Attempting to harm someone

One of the general principles obligates researchers to continually weigh the profit and the cost of the research they complete. Which one is it?

Beneficence and non-malfeasance

The question "What is the lifetime prevalence of TBI? In other words, what percent of people in the U.S. experience a TBI at some point in their lives?" is an example of

Description

What IS considered human-subjects research?

Determining how caffeine intake affects patellar reflex in the knee

Which of the following is an empirical research question? 1. Do students perform better on tests when they eat breakfast compared to when they don't? 2. Does this outfit make me look fat? 3. What is the root of human suffering? 4. None of the above

Do students perform better on tests when they eat breakfast compared to when they don't?

Questions that can be answered through systematic observation and data collection are called _____ questions?

Empirical

What is an example of Scientific Misconduct?

Excluding data that doesn't fit your expected results

Which of these is NOT an empirical research question? 1. Does inattentional blindness be part of driver licensing? 2. Are men more susceptible to inattentional blindness than women? 3. Can training reduce inattentional blindness? 4. Should tests of inattentional blindness be part of driver licensing?

Should tests of inattentional blindness be part of driver licensing?

What is NOT a feature of a good scientific theory?

Sidesteps disproof

Descriptive Statistic

Standard Deviation

Dr. Ashton conducts a study and determines that the results are highly unlikely to have been due to random chance. As a result, she can state that her findings are

Statistically Significant

When a study's results provide enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis, the researcher concludes that the results are

Statistically significant

a method of observational research in which researchers manipulate the environment to create opportunities to observe behavior in specific situations

Structured observation

A student conducts an exact replication of published study for a research project for his class. Because he only has a few weeks to conduct the research, he is only able to get 10 participants. His research does not find the same results as the original study. What happened?

The student researcher's sample size was too small

If a theory is true, then event X should occur, but suppose event X does not occur. The typical scientist would conclude that

The study failed to support the theory; let's replicate

When we develop ____ (explanations for a set of closely related phenomena or observations) in science, we must do so in a way that can be tested. Otherwise there is no way to prove (or disprove) them.

Theories

In null hypothesis significance testing, the alternative hypothesis predicts that

There is some relationship between two variables

Falsifying data is considered to be ethically unacceptable within the field of psychology. Why?

When psychologists researchers falsify data, they intentionally misinform the public and damage the reputation of the field of psychology

In a study of whether romantic music puts people in the mood for love, participants were told to sit and wait while the experimenter "set up the experiment." While waiting, half of participants heard a song with romantic lyrics, the other half heard a song with neutral lyrics. After "waiting," participants answered a questionnaire that assessed how romantic they felt on a scale of 1-10. The independent variable in this experiment is

Whether lyrics were romantic

Researchers believe that some degree of deception in research is sometimes warranted because

Without it, participants might not behave naturally

A good example of a peer-reviewed source of evidence

a research article in the Journal of Experimental Psychology

A correlation coefficient reveals

a strength and direction of a relationship

The decision about whether a manuscript should be published lies with the

action editor

One advantage of event-based sampling is that

all instances of the target behavior(s) are recorded

In the scientific peer review process, the action editor's role involves

assigning experts in the field as reviewers

Evidence-based practice in a drug rehab clinic would involve

clinic staff reading the latest primary-source literature on treatment for addiction and using whichever treatment has the strongest scientific evidence that it works, therapists regularly attending scientific conferences and taking continuing-education classes in their field, and patient records include objective measures of treatment efficacy

Unobtrusive measures

can be recorded without participants knowing that their behavior has been observed

Observer bias can be reduced by using

clear operational definitions

Open discussions of psychological and scientific research represent which of the following essential elements of science

democratic discussion

There is an established relationship between variable A and variable B. As part of establishing causality, we need to know whether A or B came first. This is known as the ________ problem.

directionality

Empirical Methods

in psychological research are approaches to data-gathering that are tied to actual measurement and observation

Researchers have examined the contents of people's trash and the bumper stickers that people put on their cars. These are two examples of

indirect measures

According to the APA ethics code

informed consent is not needed for unobtrusive observations in public environments

Researchers who ______ will always need to include an informed consent process to get approved by their IRB

intervene directly with participants

Research Methods or Critical Thinking course is valuable because

it improves your ability to be a critical consumer of information

Manipulated independent variables

location of testing (a high bridge or safe on the ground)

Interobserver reliability is calculated for the purpose of

quantifying observer bias

Correlations based on a subset of all possible scores may be different than those based on the whole range. This concept is called

range restriction

Systematic observation

sometimes considered the core of science, refers to the careful monitoring (or watching) of the natural world with the aim of better understanding it

The unicycling clown study used which of a _______ observational design

structured

Horoscopes

the are so vague that they cannot be falsified

Correlational studies reveal

the association between two or more dependent variables

Time-based sampling is an especially problematic technique if

the behavior is infrequent

Observer bias can be reduced by

training observers on operational definitions

What is NOT always a credible source?

website ending in .org

Indirect measures of behavior can be risky because

you must make some assumptions regarding behaviors and their aftereffects