Experimental Psychology '19 Review Questions - 1st Exam

A teacher wants to evaluate the effectiveness of a study strategy in helping her students learn new vocabulary words. She has some of her students learn the words using a strategy she reads about in a teaching journal. She has the rest of the students using the approach she originally taught them. The teacher then administers the vocabulary test to all of the students and compares the results of the two groups. What type of research design in the teacher employing?

A between-subjects design

Dyala is planning her thesis and needs to generate a hypothesis. because most people seem to think Facebook is bad for college students, she decides to study how the use of Facebook can help students' transition to college. What strategy did Dyala use to generate her hypothesis?

A matter of degree

The owner of a coffeehouse wants to know if her customers will drink more coffee depending on the smell of the room. To test this, she hires a psychologist who sets up three similar rooms, each with its own smell, then arranges to have 30 students spend an afternoon in each room while being allowed to drink all the coffee they like. The amount each participant drinks is recorded for each of the three scents. What is the dependent variable?

Amount of coffee consumed

Reporting one's professor to the head of the department for cancelling too many classes due to personal reasons is an example of

An ethical dilemma

When something happens that is the exception to the rule or distinct from the majority of other cases, it is called

An outlier

After graduate school, you begin your career as a counselor for clients who have an eating disorder. You want ot be sure to provide your clients with the best possible treatment, but are unsure whether Treatment A or Treatment B is better. To test this, you collect data that will allow you to compare the two treatment types. Which type of skills will be most important for determining the superior treatment? (Open)

Analytical skills

What is based on casual observations rather than rigorous or scientific analysis

Anecdotes

An informed consent form should address what

Any foreseeable risks or discomfort; that the participants participation is voluntary; and that the responses will be confidential

A cognitive psychologist is interest in studying memory in the context of eyewitness testimony

Applied

Tom is investigating how different strategies for reducing anxiety can improve test performance, while Jerry is studying the impact of stress memory recall. Even though both are studying memory, Tom's research would be considered _____________ whereas Jerry's would would be considered ____________ research

Applied; Basic

While surfing the Internet, you come across a personality test that can determine your personality based on a combination of your favorite food, and your favorite hobby. upon taking the test, you are impressed by how accurate it is. What likely explais the test's accuracy?

Barnum Effect

Lily is developing a research question for the study she is conducting this semester. She settles on, "What is the meaning of life?" The primary reason that the scientific method cannot be used to answer this question is

Because direct observation of this topic would be difficult

Darius wants to measure conscientiousness to determine whether it varies depending on student's majors. Rather than asking participants how conscientious they are, he decides to ask to look as each participants calender and planner. What type of measurement is Darius using?

Behavioral trace

A researcher wants to conduct a study on college students' consciousness and study habits. To measure conscientiousness, the researcher examines students' dorm rooms to see how organized the rooms are. How neat their desks appear, and how orderly they keep their closets. What type of measure is the researcher using for conscientiousness?

Behavioral traces

Even after having all of his arguments refuted by his girlfriend, Ryan proclaims that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and he isn't changing his. Ryan is exhibiting which flaw in our thinking

Belief perserverance

Chauncey wants to conduct an experiment on the impact of negative feedback on concentration. As part of the procedure, som participants "overhear" another participant, who is actually a confederate, say something negative about them. which ethical principle should Chauncey be most concerned about?

Benefiecence

Santiago is applying to be an RA at his college. He believes his leadership abilities are above those of typical applicants. Yet, when asked during his interview to provide examples of times he was a good leader, he cannot think of any. Which of the following explains why he struggled to answer the question?

Better-than-average effect

You have just taken a job as a peer tutor for first-year students at your school. You notice that many of the students mistakenly believe that they are doing better than other students in the course. and that they will have no problem catching up if they fall behind. Which two flaws in thinking (in order) are these students expressing?

Better-than-average-effect; overconfidence

If the speedometer in your car consistently shows that you are going more slowly than you actually are, it has which type of error

Bias

_____________ is a form of systematic error, while __________ is nonsystematic, of these two, _____________ is more problematic

Bias; random error; bias

You ask 100 history majors how interesting they find WWI, and notice that almost everyone chooses either a 6 or 7 on your 7-point measurement scale. What may be a problem with your measurement?

Ceiling effect

MIchele believes her boss is an extremely difficult person. To see if her belief has merit, she asks all of her co-workers who have also had problems with him in the past if they believe the same thing. Michele's conclusion based on her "research" into this question may be erroneous because of which flaw in our thinking?

Confirmation bias

For her study on females' music preferences, Quinn decides to interview the girls in her residence hall because all of the the girls happen to be from very different parts of the country. What type of sampling is Quinn using?

Convenience sampling

What are characteristics of a good hypothesis

Correspondence to reality; falsifiability; parsimony

Corrin works as a clothing store in the mall. After a staff meeting where the employees learn sales are declining, she notices that some days the music in the store is really loud, while other days it is impossible to hear. She decides that the store manager is changing the music to see if it influences sales, and decides to try harder to sell clothes on days the music is loud. What problem does this exemplify?

Demand characteristics

You notice that the participants in your study are agreeing with everything that you ask them on a questionnaire even if the answer they give is unflattering. Which of the following biases may be a potential problem in your study

Demand characteristics

A research demonstrating scientific integrity would do

Determine criteria for terminating data collection prior to starting the study; properly label the y-axis on figures and charts in order to avoid exaggerating small differences; carefully describe findings such that correlational findings would not imply cause and effect

What would most likely represent an ethical dilemma for a person?

Determining whether or not to report your manager at work for stealing from the register

Who are the "peers" in the peer-review process?

Experts in the field

What are forms of deception?

False feedback, cover story, confederates

What is a characteristic of a good hypothesis that is important for minimizing our natural flaws in thinking?

Falsfiability

Marc wants to do a study on the influence of energy drinks on motivation. After conducting a literature search PsycINFO for published research on the topic, Marc cannot find any research and concludes that his topic has never been studied. However, what else could explain this?

File-drawer problems

Billy Ray is having a problem with weeds in his vegetable garden. He wants to determine the best way to control the weeds, but wants to approach it empirically. What would be the best example of an empirical approach?

He could ask his neighbor what works best in her garden

To ensure confidentiality during the study, the researcher would do what?

Highlight an individual's responses by name in a conference presentation

In an experimental design, the research manipulates the ___________________ and measures the __________________________

Independent variable; dependent variable

If an experimental psychologist studies learning in pigeons, which of the following oversight groups would ethically approach the research

Institutional Animal Care and Use committee

Sitting outside the student center, Joseph sees a student with full hands drop her smartphone. As she struggles to pick it up, he wonders what would motivate to help and realizes that he would have helped had he been closer to the student. This inspires him to hypothesize that proximity influences the willingness to help someone in need. What was his strategy for developing a good hypothesis

Introspection

Tia wants to determine what people find offensive. She thinks about times that other people have offended her and concludes that what is offensive to her is probably offensive to most people. In this circumstance, she is using which of the following to reach her conclusion about others

Introspection

Selecting only homeless individuals to participate in our study even though we have no real theoretical reason to use the homeless violates which ethical principal

Jsutice

You see a video online in which a prominent businesswoman explains that her experience in a specialized kindergarten class that focused on creativity and individuality is the reason for her success. You decide to test this by following a group of children from age 5 until age 25 to see if their education experiences correspond with their career success. What type of design would be the best way to study this?

Longitudinal

Teagan finishes up her thesis, but finds that her hypothesis was not supported. She looks at the data ad finds that if she omits the data from three participants, her results work out as she predicted. Which unethical practice has she engaged in?

Massaging the data

Luke Really likes the new Dodge Challenger sports car, but it undecided about whether to spend the money to buy one. To make his decision easier, he creates a list of 25 reasons why he like the car. Is this a good idea?

No. Listing so many reasons will probably be difficult and can actually make you like it less

Suppose that you are psychology professor who wants to recruit research participants from your class. Which of the following strategies would be best for ensuring that you are preserving your students' autonomy while recruiting them for your research study?

Offer research participation as on of the options for fulfilling a course requirement

Dr. Ndukwe attends a party where several people, upon learning that she is a psychologist, offer suggestions for things she could study in her research. One person suggests, "My dog is completely neurotic. You should study whether dogs have different personalities." Although she believes this is a silly idea, Dr. Ndukwe decides to conduct a study to see if it is true. Which characteristic of science is she exemplifying?

Open-mindedness

Norah wants to videotape her roommate Joanne for a class project on sleeping behaviors. however, because joanne knows she is being videotapes, she has trouble sleeping. This illustrates which potential problem when conducting research?

Participant reactivity

The preside of your company has asked you to evaluate a proposal to buy a rival business. The president gives you the proposal, which includes supporting documents such as past and projected sales of the company. Which of the following research skills do you think will be least helpful in this task

Problem-solving skills

While watching TV one day, you see an infomercial in which a spokesperson wearing a white lab coat starts describing a new medical breakthrough diet that helps people lose 10 pounds a week. As proof, the spokesperson interviews several clients who experienced dramatic weight loss while on this revolutionary diet. You immediately question the effectiveness of the diet because the claims being made appear to be

Pseudoscientific

Andrea and Beau are doing a study to see if puppies and sunshine will make people happy. To test this, they randomly assign 500 male and female participants to one of the following conditions: exposure to puppies and sunshine or no exposure to puppies and sunshine. Both conditions take place out on the college's quad. Participants complete measures of life satisfaction and general happiness. What is the independent variable (s)

Puppies and sunshine

Marcus and Lija both want to study how stress influences the likelihood of getting sick. Marcus plans on measuring life stress and splitting the participants into two groups: high and low. Lija plans on manipulating stress by exposing one group to a snake and the other to a guinea pig. Marcus' design is a _____________ and Lija's design is a ______________

Quasi-experiment; true experiment

Audrey, a senior thesis student, is interested in views on parenting. Specifically, she is interested in whether frequent moving from one home to another as a child influences trust as an adult. She asks participants to self-identify whether they moved often as a child or not and then to complete questionnaires about trust. Later, she compares the responses of those who moved with those who did not. What type of design is Audrey using?

Quasi-experimental

What measurement problem is beyond your control

Random error

Whenever you choose a measurement tool, you need to first determine if the instrument has acceptable

Reliability

In Theories of Personality class, you fill out a questionnaire that indicates you are an extravert. You then learn that researchers describe extraverts as enthusiastic, talkative, and assertive. You immediately question that research because you remember several times in the past when you were not at all assertive. What has most likely led to your conclusion?

Relying on anecdotal versus scientific evidence

Deidra needs just one more participant to complete her data collection for her undergraduate thesis. The last participant signs the consent form, but halfway through the study, the participant wants to leave. Deidra tells her that she must stay and finish the study, and the participant complies. What ethical principle as Deidra violated

Respect for persons

In high school, Raul was involved in a terrible car accident when his friend fell asleep at the wheel. Despite the fact that Raul was in the hospital for a month in a full-body cast due to a broken back, when talking about the experience, Raul recalls the time very fondly and says that "it wasn't so bad" What problem does this exemplify?

Retrospective bias

A car salesperson tells Rudy that a particular model of car is the safest in its class. Rudy does not accept such claims at face value and demands to see the latest safety report. What characteristic of science is Rudy displaying

Skepticism

When Samantha is told about an article in a magazine that claims listening to music on Spotify increases intelligence, she is full of questions about who was in the study, how many people were in it, and so on. What characteristic of science does this demonstrate?

Skepticism

Drew wants a representative sample for his research study. He identifies the entire population and subdivides it. He then uses simple random assignment to see which members of each given subpopulation will be a part of the sample. Drew is using wwhich sampling strategy?

Stratified random sampling

The defining characteristic of empirical reasoning is that we use ______________ in order to evaluate our ideas about the nature of the world

Systematic observations

After seeing a scary movie, you begin to wonder how watching such a movie can influence how you feel about people sitting nearby. For example, could being scared make you feel friendlier toward them? Since you want to test this empirically, what is the best way to go about this?

Systematically observe moviegoers sitting in the same set of seats during several types of movies to see which groups act friendlier toward each other

As a financially challenged college student, you see a flyer on campus about a. Research study on the impact of sunburns. The advertisement says you will be paid $500 to have a 1 inch by 1 inch square of skin on your forearm severely burned with ultraviolet light. You known that sunburns can have long-term consequences. However you separately need the money for textbooks, so you seriously consider participating. What ethical line has this research study violated?

The coercion of voluntary participation

Felicia wants to measure the true number of miles her car gets per gallon of gas to determine if it is worthwhile to get a new car. During a summer road trip where she drove 300 miles after buying 12 galloons of gas, she determines that if she gets 25 miles per gallon. During this trip, she had the air conditioner on most of the time and was driving in the mountains. What may contribute t the error in this measurement

The fact that she used the air conditioner and drove in the mountains

A marriage counselor wants to evaluate the efficacy of a new approach to help couple communicate better in public settings and among strangers. Before this study can be conducted, approval is needed from what groups

The female participants in the study; the IRB, and the male participants in the study

Cyrus is reading an article and believes that he cannot articulate the topic better than the research already has. However, his professor said students could not use quotes in their APA-style introductions. Instead of using quotes, Cyrus takes the researcher's sentence and changes one would f it by replacing the word with a synonym. What is true?

The only way for this to be not a case of plagiarism is for Cyrus to paraphrase instead

The key distinction between scientific and nonscientific questions is whether or not

The question can be empirically tested

A researcher asks participants to complete a personality measure. Two weeks later, the researcher asks the same participants to complete the same personality measure. The researcher then compares the two scores for consistency. What is the researcher trying to evaluate?

The reliability of the measure

In a study of first-year college students from a private university in CA, 56 men and 88 women examined the influence of relaxation techniques on relieving anxiety associated with starting college. All students received a pamphlet containing information about good sleep habits. Next, half of the participants were taught a breathing exercise while the other half did nothing. What is the constant

The sleep-habit pamphlet

A market researcher collects reactions to a new cookie before it hits the marketplace. The research tells some participants the cookie is low in calories, while other participants receive no information about the cookie. next, each participant eats three cookies and then completes a questionnaire assessing their opinions. What is the independent variable in this study

The type of information provided about the cookie

A journal editor decides to accept for publication only research studies in which the results are statistically significant. What are potential ethical problems from this decision

There is an increased potential for a file-drawer problem; researchers may be more likely to alter their data to ensure their results are statistically significant; authors may take more liberties in how they present the results to make them appear more impressive

A researcher notices that mostly males have signed up for his study on changes to reaction times while skydiving. What may be a problem with the researcher's sample?

There may be a volunteer subject problem

Students will often use websites like Rate My Professors to help them select the best classes to take. Critics point out that ratings on the site only capture the most extreme responses and that those with more moderate viewpoints do not bother to post their ratings. What problem does the site suffer the most?

There may be nonresponse bias

A research notices that several participants do not appear to carefully reading the questions on her survey. She decides not to include these participants' data i her study so that she has a "better" test of her research hypothesis. This behavior is problematic because of its

Unethical treatment of the data

You are convinced that an exam was unfair because none of the questions even remotely resembled what was taught in the class. In this case, you are questioning the exam

Validity

______________ is synonymous with accuracy. __________________ is synonymous with consistency

Validity; reliability

Dr. Smokey is conducting a study on the effects of marijuana use on memory. Upon posting the study to recruit participants, 100 people sign up within the 1st ten minutes. Dr. Smokey's sample most likely suffers from which issue?

Volunteer subject problem

A psychologist was hired by a local winder to conduct a taste test of four new wines. For the taste test, the psychologist had 100 participants come into the lab, take a small sip of each wine, and rate the taste on several characteristics. Between each wine, participants ate a small cracker. What type of design did the psychologist use?

Within-subjects

Is the following question outside the scope of science? Are our lives predestined or predetermined?

Yes

If a study you conduct involves the purposeful misleading or misdirection of participants, when and how to do you notify the participants of the deception

You explain the nature and necessity of the deception in the debriefing at the end of the study.

What is not a very effective way in helping the results from your study contribute to a scientific knowledge of psychology?

writing an APA-style paper about your study for your psychology class