Methods 241 Exam 1
Candidates listed on a ballot first get a 2.5% boost in votes among undecided voters. What is this an example of?
A context effect.
Which of the following is NOT a true statement about the steps involved in measurement?
After you operationally define a construct, you must conceptually define the construct.
Which of the following is true of the Tuskegee Syphilis study? The study is a major example of injustice as an ethical violation in research. It contributed to the development of regulations regarding the protection of human research subjects. The subjects were not given enough information prior to the study to give truly informed consent.
All of the above
According to the Dowdell & Clayton (2019) article as discussed in class, what percentage of the sample responded that they had ever texted in their sleep?
Around 25%
Which of the following method of acquiring knowledge is incorrectly paired with its definition?
Authority; acquiring knowledge through observation and experience
Where in a research paper should you include information about whether or not your results supported your hypotheses?
Beginning of Discussion section
What does the acronym "BRUSO" stand for?
Brief, relevant, unambiguous, specific and objective
Recruiting introductory psychology students to participate in a study is an example of which type of sampling?
Convenience sampling
In what section of a scientific paper will you find a description of the study's limitations?
Discussion
True or false: The use of deception is not allowed in psychological research.
False
Laboratory experiments typically have _____ internal validity.
High
What are two main criteria for developing a good research question?
Interestingness and feasibility
What are the four types of validities we are interested in when determining how valid an experiment is?
Internal validity, external validity, construct validity, and statistical validity
The mean, median, and mode can be computed for which types of measurement?
Interval and ratio only
What is one reason that scientists avoid the word "prove" when talking about theories:
It is always possible that another test of a hypothesis derived from the theory will be disconfirmed.
The purpose of informed consent is to:
Make sure participants truly understand what the study is about, including risks, costs, and benefits.
A researcher is assigning participants to categories based on their occupation. Which level of measurement is he using?
Nominal level
What did Zhao et al. (2017) conclude about the relationship between praise and cheating behavior in young children?
Praising children's intelligence may increase children's fixed mindset and therefore makes them more likely to cheat.
Biorhythms, psychic powers, and astrology are all examples of:
Pseudoscience
What are two of the most common databases for searching for academic journal articles in psychology?
PsychINFO and Google Scholar
Which of the following is true about ethical issues in psychological research?
Psychological research must be carried out in ways that maximize benefits and minimize risk.
A thermometer consistently measures the temperature to be about 4 degrees colder than it actually is. This thermometer's measurement would be considered:
Reliable but not valid
In the video shown in class, Dr. Jennifer Manly found that rates of dementia were higher among Black and Hispanic Americans. What did Dr. Manly do after seeing these results?:
She was skeptical of the results and questioned whether memory impairment was being diagnosed accurately or if they instead reflected educational disparities.
Demand characteristics refer to:
Subtle cues that indicate to the participant how the researcher wants them to respond.
Which of the following is true about survey research?
Survey research generally involves random sampling to recruit a large number of participants.
A researcher is testing out a new personality measure. She administers the measure to a group of 500 people, then administers it again one week later to those same 500 people and compares the scores. What feature of the measure is she most likely evaluating in this scenario?
Test-retest reliability
A(n) ______ is a coherent explanation of one of more phenomena, whereas a(n) _______ is a specific prediction about a phenomenon.
Theory; hypothesis
According to the textbook, why must scientists cultivate a "tolerance for uncertainty"?
There are many claims or beliefs out in the world that we do not yet have enough evidence to fully evaluate.
Which of the following is true according to the meta-analysis on smartphone use by Vahedi & Saihpoo (2018) as discussed in class:
There is a positive correlation between smartphone use and stress and anxiety
What are the three main goals of science?
To describe, to predict, and to explain
What is the primary role of an institutional review board (IRB)?
To review research protocols for potential ethical problems.
True or false: Research has found that "Scared Straight" programs as discussed in lecture are not actually helpful in reducing criminal behavior and may in fact increase criminal behavior.
True
True or false: When coming up with a research question, it is important to review previous research to see how your study will fit within the previous literature.
True
Which term describes the extent to which the scores from a measure represent the variable they are intended to measure?
Validity
Which of the following includes all the characteristics of a good hypothesis?
Watching televised news leads to greater self-reported stress than reading a news article
Which of the following would be considered an ethical violation?
Writing about someone else's idea in a research paper without providing a citation.
An extraneous variable that varies systematically with the independent variable is called:
a confounding variable.
A researcher is conducting a within-subjects experiment examining the effect of music (classical vs. hip-hop) on the time it takes to complete a maze. She finds that participants complete the maze faster in the second condition they were tested in, regardless of whether it was the classical or hip-hop condition. This is an example of:
a practice effect.
A researcher is interested in studying depression and is using the total score on the Beck Depression Inventory to measure participants' symptoms of depression. This measurement is an example of:
an operational definition.
In lecture, we conducted an experiment examining the effects of the gender of a job applicant on ratings of _______, _______, and ________ (in other words, these were our dependent variables).
competence, hireability, and salary
The different levels of the independent variable in an experiment are called:
conditions.
According to the Belmont Report, the principle of justice refers to:
conducting research in a way that distributes risks and benefits fairly across different groups in society.
The tendency we have to seek out information that confirms our view rather than trying to seek information that disconfirms our beliefs is called:
confirmation bias
Varying the order of conditions across participants in a within-subjects experimental design is called:
counterbalancing.
The degree to which we can generalize findings from a study to other circumstances / real-world situations is called:
external validity.
If a study is mainly prioritizing internal validity, that means that the researchers want to emphasize:
identifying the causal relationship between variables.
Intelligence quotient (IQ) is an example of what type of measurement?
interval
When conducting an experiment, researchers ___________ the independent variable by systematically changing its levels and ___________ other variables by holding them constant.
manipulate; control
A psychologist is measuring an individual's working memory capacity as part of a neuropsychological exam. To do this, she reads a list of digits to the individual then asks them to repeat the list back to her in reverse order. She repeats this several times, increasing number of digits each time until the individual makes a mistake. The individual's score on this task is the longest length of digits the person can remember and repeat back correctly. This score is an example of a(n):
operational definition
A psychologist would like to assess the prevalence (frequency) of mental health disorders resulting from a recent natural disaster in her community. She contacts local mental health counselors and asks them to pass along information about her study to their clients. This method of sampling is most likely going to __________ the prevalence of mental health disorders in the community due to ____________:
overestimate; sampling bias.
On a survey question that asks, "How many alcoholic drinks do you consume in a typical day?", the respondent needs to decide what constitutes an "alcoholic drink" and whether a "typical day" means a typical weekday, weekend or both. This cognitive process is called:
question interpretation.
When running an experiment, a researcher must use ________________ to decide which participant is tested in which condition.
random assignment
A between-subjects experimental design in which participants are randomly assigned to a psychotherapy treatment or control condition is called a(n):
randomized clinical trial.
In the video shown in class, "technological dexterity" was operationally defined as:
the amount of time it took the participant to untangle earbuds.
In class, we found that students reported spending more time watching videos online when:
the response options ranged from "up to 2.5 hours" to "4.5+ hours" compared to "up to 0.5 hours" to "2.5+ hours"
One advantage of a between-subjects experiment compared to a within-subjects experiment is that:
there are no order effects in between-subjects experiments.
A researcher is interested in the effect of education level on perceived attractiveness. Participants rate the attractiveness of 10 dating profiles in which people are described as college-educated and 10 dating profiles in which people are described as high school educated. What type of design is this?
within-subjects experimental design.
