General Psychology - Chapter 2 Exam

D

A(n) ________ is a well-developed set of ideas that proposes an explanation for observed phenomena. A. conclusion B. hypothesis C. operational definition D. theory

C

A(n) ________ is conducted in order to determine whether there are meaningful differences between two groups in a study. A. correlation coefficient B. scatterplot C. statistical analysis D. validity assessment

C

Green and colleagues used a ________ from their ________ of interest in order to make a ________. A. generalization; sample; hypothesis. B. population; sample; generalization. C. sample; population; generalization. D. sample; population; hypothesis.

A

Harrison and colleagues are conducting a study assessing the ability of depressed versus nondepressed participants to remember negative emotions in a short story about a family whose car breaks down. They plan to ask participants to read the story and then make a list of the emotions expressed in the story. Before beginning the study, they make a list of negative emotions (e.g., sadness and anger) that they will record from the participants' responses. In this example, negative emotions are the ________. A. dependent variable. B. independent variable. C. operational definition. D. significant variable.

A

Many studies that cannot ethically be conducted as experiments with typical human participants ________. A. are possible to test with animal studies. B. are ethical to test with participants from prison populations. C. are ethical to test with subjects if they live in nursing homes. D. are possible to test if subjects are unaware of how permanently they are harmed.

C

Observational research involves applying _______. A. regression to the mean. B. effect sizes. C. inter-rater reliability. D. observer bias.

A

On a graph of a correlation coefficient, points falling near to a straight sloped line indicate A. a strong correlation. B. a weak correlation. C. it is unclear from the information given. D. no correlation.

A

Sandra strongly believes that attending daycare is detrimental to children's development so she decides to write her psychology term paper on this topic. She does a literature search and finds several sources supporting her opinion, but she finds that the majority of research indicates that children attending daycare experience healthy development. She writes a paper using the sources that find negative associations with daycare attendance. This is an example of ________. A. confirmation bias. B. confounding variable. C. correlational research. D. observer bias.

D

Scientific findings are best believed when they are read in _______. A. magazines. B. blogs. C. the newspaper. D. peer-reviewed journals.

D

Scientific knowledge is advanced through a process known as ________. A. deductive reasoning. B. inductive reasoning. C. the experiment. D. the scientific method.

B

Simplicity of conducting the study is to ________ as ability to test large numbers of participants is to ________. A. archival research; naturalistic observation. B. archival research; surveys. C. case studies; naturalistic observation. D. experiments; surveys.

D

Simply expecting something to happen can make it happen. This describes ________. A. experimenter bias. B. observer bias. C. participant bias. D. placebo effect.

B

The only way to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between two variables is to conduct a(n) ________. A. detailed literature search. B. experiment. C. study. D. survey.

B

The possible range for a correlation coefficient is ________. A. between -1 and 0. B. between -1 and +1. C. between 0 and +1. D. between 0 and +100.

A

The scientific process is ________, involving both inductive and deductive reasoning. A. circular B. cyclical C. perfectionistic D. unpredictable

B

Trephination was the ________. A. method that supposedly proved that the world is flat. B. procedure where a large hole was created in the forehead so that evil spirits can escape. C. technique that helped ensure the validity of experimental results. D. theory that mental illness was caused by demonic possession.

A

_______ refers to the consistency whereas _______ refers to accuracy. A. Reliability; validity B. Validity; reliability C. Statistical analysis; regression analysis D. Effect size; correlation

C

________ (IRB) reviews research that is conducted using human participants. A. Institutional Research Board B. Institutional Research Bureau C. Institutional Review Board D. Institutional Review Bureau

C

________ are subjects of psychological research. A. Clients B. Individuals C. Participants D. People

D

________ are the most commonly used species for animal research. A. Chimpanzees B. Fruit flies C. Pigs D. Rodents

B

________ assesses the consistency of observations by different observers. A. Attrition B. Inter-rater reliability C. The control group D. Validity

B

________ can be used to assess ________. A. Reliability ; validity. B. Statistical analyses ; reliability. C. Statistical analyses ; validity. D. Validity ; reliability.

A

________ is a reduction in the number of research participants as some drop out of the study over time. A. Attrition B. Experimenter bias C. Generalizability D. Single blinding

C

________ is/are often conducted with large numbers of participants and can even be conducted by phone, email, or mail. A. Archival research B. Case studies C. Surveys D. University experiments

B

________ means that there is a relationship between two or more variables. A. Cause-and-effect B. Correlation C. Reliability D. Validity

D

________ refers to the ability of an instrument or tool to accurately measure what it is supposed to measure. A. Generalizability B. Operational definition C. Reliability D. Validity

B

________ refers to the ability to consistently produce a given result. A. Generalizability B. Reliability C. Statistical significance D. Validity

D

________ research studies the same groups of participants over time. A. Archival B. Correlational C. Cross-sectional D. Longitudinal

A

________ research uses past records or data sets to investigate research questions or to look for patterns or relationships. A. Archival B. Correlational C. Experimental D. Survey

A

________, an anthropologist, contributed to our understanding of chimpanzee behavior in the wild, using naturalistic observation. A. Jane Goodall B. Sigmund Freud C. Suzanne Fanger D. Tatiana Hogan

D

A ________ is a graphical view of the strength and direction of a correlation. A. bar graph B. correlation coefficient C. histogram D. scatterplot

D

A ________ is least likely to be involved in the IRB decision regarding whether a study involving human participants will be permitted. A. librarian at the research institution B. local independent grocer with interests in academic research C. scientist who conducts research at a university D. veterinarian

B

A basic experiment involves a minimum of ________ participant group(s). A. one B. two C. three D. four

C

A group of preschool-age children are enrolled in a study that plans to follow them over time in order to assess behaviors and other characteristics that may predict later development of schizophrenia. This is an example of a(n) ________ design. A. cross sectional B. experimental C. longitudinal D. survey

A

A major advantage of case studies is ________. A. detailed information. B. generalizability. C. large sample size. D. quick data collection.

B

A negative correlation means ________. A. a third variable eliminates a correlational relationship. B. one variable decreases as the other increases. C. there is a relationship between two variables, but it is not statistically significant. D. two variables increase together, but they are associated with an undesirable outcome.

C

A person's participation in a research project must be _______. A. confidential. B. rewarded. C. voluntary. D. public.

C

A sample that ________ is most likely to yield generalizable results. A. has at least 20 participants B. has at least 200 participants C. is large and randomly selected D. is small and specifically selected

C

A(n) ______ is a testable prediction about how the world will operate if the idea is correct. A. deduction B. induction C. hypothesis D. theory

A

A(n) ________ case study is conducted by gathering detailed information about participants who are psychological patients. A. clinical B. experimental C. naturalistic D. patient

C

A(n) ________ is a description of how the researchers will measure the variables of interest. A. experimental plan B. hypothesis C. operational definition D. theory

A

A(n) ________ is a variable that affects both variables of interest and may falsely give the impression of a cause-and-effect relationship. A. confounding variable B. control variable C. dependent variable D. independent variable

B

Although correlation allows _______, it does not allow _______. A. cause &effect ; prediction. B. prediction ; cause & effect. C. confounding ; prediction. D. prediction ; cause & effect.

D

American researchers studying the effects of physical attractiveness on compliance wish to expand the cross-cultural generalizability of their findings to a Lebanese population. They travel to Lebanon and recruit local residents, whom the American researchers rate as attractive or unattractive, to act as experimental confederates. However, they are unable to replicate their research findings. What is a potential problem with this research? A. Inter-rater reliability has not been assessed. B. Language barriers will prevent successful research from occurring. C. The study may not be reliable due to differences in expectations for compliance between cultures. D. The study may not be valid due to differences in standards of attractiveness between cultures.

B

An intelligence test yields the same results when administered on three separate occasions. However, the test's results are more strongly correlated with hours spent doing homework than they are with other standardized intelligence tests. This test has________ reliability and ________ validity. A. high ; high B. high ; low C. low ; high D. low ; low

B

An upper-level psychology class is conducting an experiment on racial prejudice that involves having participants rate the likeability of faces in a set of photos. However, they tell participants that the study is about the effects of aging on likeability. When participants are finished, they are thanked for their time and leave the experiment. In this example, the class forgot to ________ in order to resolve the ________ in the study. A. debrief participants; ageist attitudes B. debrief participants; deception C. pay participants; deception D. pay participants; use of personal photos

D

Devine et al. are interested in assessing whether active versus passive play causes a preference for sweet or salty foods in toddlers. They assign groups of children to either an active play, passive play, or no play group and record their food choices when presented with a variety of sweet and salty foods. In this study, ________ is the independent variable and ________ is the control group. A. active play ; passive play B. food choice ; no play C. no play ; type of play D. type of play ; no play

A

Dr. Johnson is interested in knowing more about brain injury to the occipital cortex, and he studies patients individually in order to gain in-depth knowledge about their behaviors. These studies would best be described as ________. A. case studies. B. correlational. C. cross-sectional. D. surveys.

D

Drs. Adams and Lieberman are interested in assessing differences in pain threshold between men and women. They recruit male and female participants to a study that assesses tolerance for thermal pain. This is an example of a(n) ________ study. A. case B. correlational C. experimental D. quasi-experimental

C

Ethics need to be considered when ________ scientific research. A. conducting and reviewing B. designing and reviewing C. designing, conducting, and reviewing D. reviewing and publishing

A

In ______ research researchers compare multiple segments of the population at the same time whereas, in ______ research, they gather data from the same group of people over time. A. cross-sectional; longitudinal B. longitudinal; cross-sectional C. survey; archival D. archival; survey

B

In a ________ study, both the researchers and the participants are unaware of the group assignments. A. control B. double-blind C. pilot D. randomly assigned

D

In order to assess whether viewpoints on decriminalization of marijuana for medical purposes change with age, four groups of participants, ages 20, 30, 40, and 50, are asked whether they support this issue. What is one flaw of this design? A. Longitudinal research is time consuming. B. Marijuana has already been decriminalized in some places. C. Recruitment could be a challenge because people of different ages are difficult to sample. D. Social or cultural factors may influence the results, not age.

D

In order to maximize the chances that experimental groups represent the population of interest, researchers should conduct ________ and ________. A. blind group assignment; blind sampling. B. blind group assignment; random sampling. C. blind sampling; random group assignment. D. random sampling; random group assignment.

B

In psychology research, ______ is allowed if ______ occurs. A. decryption ; deception B. deception ; debriefing C. detection ; dehabilitation D. detachment ; dereliction

D

Karl and Jean have been asked to design a study investigating happiness across the lifespan. They decide their study will involve going to the mall and asking people of a variety of ages if they are happy or unhappy. What is the most serious flaw of this design? A. People will know that they are part of a research study and may decline participation. B. Survey data is not as valid as experimental data. C. Their results will depend on how busy the mall is. D. They have not defined happiness or how it will be measured.

A

Krista and Tatiana Hogan are participants in a(n) ________ of conjoined twins who are joined at the head. A. case study B. experiment C. cross-section D. survey

D

Lesley, a sociology major, believes that money is the key to happiness. Her friend Stephen, a psychology major, believes that good health is the key to happiness. How might the two friends resolve their disagreement? A. They could ask their friends and see which perspective has the most support. B. They could conduct a study with students on their campus to see which perspective has the most support. C. They could research archives of newspapers, magazines, and other media to see if there are reports on the topic. D. They could research peer-reviewed articles to see if either perspective is supported.

D

One hundred introductory psychology students are surveyed about their intended majors. The results indicate that more women than men intend to pursue a psychology major, whereas more men than women intend to pursue a history major. What do these results indicate? A. Despite advances in feminism, there are still gender inequalities in post-secondary studies. B. More women than men attend college. C. The research sample is invalid because men and women are not equally represented. D. There is a relationship between gender and intended major.

C

Patwardhan and colleagues report data from a study where they hired experimental confederates to attend speed dating events, posing as daters, and carefully take notes on the behaviors of the daters. What type of research design did they use? A. case study B. experiment C. naturalistic observation D. survey

B

Peer reviewers ________. A. are similar to magazine editors. B. help ensure quality control in reporting scientific findings. C. work for the authors of scientific articles. D. work for the journals that publish scientific research findings.

C

Psychologists are so committed to protecting the welfare of research participants by following ethical guidelines that require _______ content, protect the _______ of research records, and ensure that approval of research protocols from ________ review committees is first obtained before obtained before undertaking research with humans or animals. A. terminated; safety; security B. safety; protocol; impartial C. informed; confidentiality; institutional D. predetermined; copyright; university

D

Research describing a link between childhood vaccines and autism has been ________. A. confirmed by multiple studies. B. found to have been based on falsified data. C. published once but not confirmed. D. retracted due to a financial conflict of interest by the author.

A

Research is conducted in psychology because __________ A. psychology is the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes. B. people can only learn if they have experiments conducted on them. C. behavior is never predictable. D. it is the only way to know anything about people.

D

Research on ________ subjects must always involve ________. A. animal ; a full debriefing. B. animal ; obtaining informed consent. C. human ; a full debriefing. D. human ; obtaining informed consent.

D

Research shows that people who smoke cigarettes are more likely to get lung cancer than those who do not smoke. This research alone demonstrates that ________. A. smoking causes lung cancer. B. lung cancer causes cancer. C. there is a predisposition toward both smoking and lung cancer. D. there is a relationship between smoking and lung cancer.

B

Researchers are conducting a study where they have concerns that the participant's beliefs and/or the experimenter's beliefs may skew the results. Therefore, they chose to conduct a ________ study. A. control B. double-blind C. double-control D. single-blind

C

Researchers must _______ important concepts in their studies so others would have a clear understanding of exactly how those concepts were defined. A. randomly assign B. randomly select C. operationalize D. generalize

D

Spurling and colleagues investigated the effects of two vocabulary learning strategies on word retention two weeks later. In this example, learning strategy is the ________ variable and word retention is the ________ variable. A. control ; experimental B. dependent ; independent C. experimental ; control D. independent ; dependent

C

Stan and Jenny are in a psychology course that requires them to repeat an experiment that researchers have conducted in the past, in order to determine whether they produce the same results. This is called ________. A. inter-rater reliability. B. reliability. C. replication. D. validity.

A

Testing ideas against the empirical world is to ______ as empirical observations leading to new ideas are to _______. A. deductive ; inductive. B. inductive ; deductive. C. constructive ; destructive. D. destructive ; constructive.

D

The D.A.R.E. program is an example of ________. A. a highly successful drug use intervention program. B. a highly successful suicide intervention program. C. a psychological research study that was conducted in a laboratory. D. why empirical research is needed.

B

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study was ethically problematic because ________. A. only black men were invited to participate. B. participants were not allowed to seek available treatment. C. penicillin was not administered to the men's wives. D. the study was continued for approximately 40 years.

B

The _______ is controlled by the experimenter, while the _______ represents the information collected and statistically analyzed by the experimenter. A. dependent variable ; independent variable B. independent variable ; dependent variable C. placebo effect ; experimenter bias D. experiment bias ; placebo effect

B

The ________ group does not get the experimental treatment. A. alternate experimental B. control C. dependent D. independent

C

The ________ is controlled by the experimenter. A. confounding variable B. dependent variable C. independent variable D. variability

A

The ________ reviews research conducted using animal subjects. A. IACUC B. IRB C. NIH D. NIMH

B

The ________ variable measures effects of the independent variable. A. confounding B. dependent C. experimental D. independent

C

The belief that strange behavior is linked to the occurrence of a full moon is an example of a(n) ________. A. correlation. B. fact. C. illusory correlation. D. opinion.

C

The best research studies are ______. A. complicated. B. isolated. C. replicated. D. invalidated.

B

The most significant weakness of case studies is _______. A. inflatability. B. generalizability. C. operationalization. D. correlation coefficients.

D

What best describes a limitation that affects the generalizability of research results? A. control groups B. operational definitions C. random assignment D. small sample size

C

What is one task in which a peer reviewer is least likely to participate? A. conducting his or her own research in the same subject area B. looking for flaws in the way a study was conducted C. suggesting magazines that may be interested in publishing the research D. verifying that the research meets ethical standards

A

Which correlation coefficient best represents a moderate relationship showing fewer anxiety symptoms in people who report higher life satisfaction? A. -0.5 B. -0.2 C. +0.4 D. +0.7

B

Which of the following correlations represents two variables with the strongest relationship? A. +0.80 B. -0.95 C. +0.85 D. -0.75

B

Which of the following is a scientific way of determining facts? A. common opinions B. empirical studies C. intuition D. lucky breaks

C

Which of the following is least considered a potential problem associated with relying on college students as participants in psychological research? A. It may be difficult to generalize findings to other groups. B. They are more educated than the general public. C. They have higher attrition rates than other populations. D. They tend to be more liberal than the general public.

A

Which of the following is least part of obtaining informed consent? A. explaining the hypothesis to the participants B. letting participants know that participation is voluntary C. obtaining the participant's signature or a signature from the parent or guardian if the participant is a minor D. reviewing that data is confidential

C

Which of the following is the most significant problem with surveys? A. it is always easy to obtain a large sample. B. random samples do not usually represent the population. C. people do not always tell the truth. D. archival research usually is a better alternative.

C

Which of the following least describes a characteristic of a good hypothesis? A. It can be tested using empirical methods. B. It is an if-then statement. C. It is complex. D. It is falsifiable.

C

Which of the following least describes a scientific method step? A. drawing conclusions B. developing a hypothesis C. drawing conclusions based on gathering expert opinions D. gathering evidence

A

Which of the following represents a strong negative correlation? A. -0.9 B. -0.2 C. +0.2 D. +0.9

C

Which of the following represents a weak positive correlation? A. -0.9 B. 0 C. +0.2 D. +0.9

B

Which of the following research designs will allow cause-and-effect conclusions? A. correlational B. experimental C. quasi-experimental D. survey

B

Which of the following statements is least considered to be a hypothesis? A. Aggressive behaviors in female rats will be increased by testosterone administration, compared to a control group. B. Anxiety disorders are caused by a combination of genetic and environmental influences. C. College students with higher conscientiousness will achieve higher overall GPAs than those with lower conscientiousness. D. Rats with damage to their cerebellum will display deficits in motor coordination, using the rotarod test.

D

Which of the following would be most difficult to assess using empirical research? A. the abilities of non-human primates to use sign language B. the reaction time for participants to indicate they heard a ball drop on a table C. whether a baby is crying because he is sad, hungry, or in pain D. whether the id, ego, or superego is most responsible for emotional reactions

D

Which of the following would be the best example of a valid naturalistic observation study in driving behavior? A. assessing behaviors from a police cruiser dash cam B. having passengers rate the driver's behavior C. using footage from red light cameras D. watching footage obtained from cameras set up unobtrusively on various streets

D

______ are falsifiable. A. Meditations B. Hunches C. Theories D. Hypotheses

B

_______ is to animal research as _______ is to human research. A. Informed consent; deception B. IACUC ; IRB C. IRB ; IACUC D. Deception ; debriefing