Practice Questions

What are the three requirements for establishing causation?

1. Covariance 2. Temporal precedence 3. Internal validity (No other explanations exist for the relationship)

Which validity would you be interrogating by asking: How well did the researcher measure sensitivity to taste in this study?

A- Construct Validity

Basing our conclusion on personal experience is faulty because experience has confounds. In this context a confound means?

A- In real -world experiences more than one thing changes at the same time

Which two principle are included in the APA Ethical Principle and not in the Belmont Report?

A- Integrity; fidelity and responsibility

In most experiments, trade offs are made between validities because it is not possible to achieve all four at once. What is the most common trade off?

A- Internal and external Validity

Which type of research misconduct involves representing the ideas or words of others as ones own?

A- Plagiarism

In reading a empirical journal article, what are the two questions you should be asking as you read?

A- what is the argument? What is the evidence to support the argument?

To be an empiricist one should:

A-Base one's conclusions on direct observations

Which of the headlines is a casual claim?

A-Holding a gun may make you think others are too

Dr. Kang, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of all the participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B. Dr. Kang's decision to assign participants randomly to Group A and Group B increases which of the following?

A-The internal validity of the study

Why is publication an important part of the empirical process?

B- Because publication contributes to making empirical observations and independently verifiable.

Following a study using deception how does the researcher attempt to restore an honest relationship with the participant?

B- By debriefing each participant in a structured conversation

Which of the headlines is a frequency claim?

B- Exercise: 45% of you shake your booty in zumba

Which of the following is not a place where psychological scientists publish their research?

B- popular magazines

When is it a good idea to base conclusion on the advice of authorities?

B- when authorities have conducted the research on which their advise is based, by systematically and objectively comparing different conditions.

After two students from his school commit suicide, Macrelino concludes that the most likely cause of death in teenager is suicide. In fact, suicide is not the most likely cause of death in teens. What happened?

B-Marcelino was probably influenced by the availability heuristic; he was too influenced by cases that came easily to mind.

Which of the following jobs most likely involves producer-of-research skills rather than consumer-of-research skills?

B-University professor

Which of the following variables is manipulated, rather than measured?

C- Amount of aspirin a researcher gives a person to take, either 325 mg or 500mg.

In a study of a new drug for asthma, a researcher finds that the group receiving the drug is doing much better than the control group, whose members are receiving a placebo. Which principle of the Belmont Report requires the researchers to also give the control group the opportunity to receive the new drug?

C- Beneficence

Which validity would you be interrogating by asking: How did the research get their sample of people for the survey?

C- External Validity

Which of the following is not one of the three R's provided by the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals?

C- Restoration

How do you evaluate an association claim?

Construct validity (How well have you measured each of the two variables in the association? How was each variable operationalized? How were they measured?) Statistical validity (Is the association statistically significant? What is the effect size? How strong is the association? What about Type I and Type II errors?) External validity (How is this association generalized to other contexts, times, places, or populations? How representative is the sample?)

Which validities are important for assessing Frequency Claims?

Construct validity (How well have you measured the variable in question? How was the variable operationalized? How was it measured?) Statistical validity (What is the margin of error of the estimate?) External validity (To what populations, settings, and times can we generalize this estimate? How did the participants get chosen? How well does it represent the population of interest?)

How do you evaluate a causal claim?

Construct validity (How were the manipulated variables operationalized? How were the dependent variables operationalized? How well were the variables manipulated?) Statistical Validity (What about Type I and Type II errors? What is the effect size? Is the difference between groups statistically significant?) Internal validity (Was the study an experiment? Did it achieve temporal precedence? Does the study control for 3rd variables?) External validity (How representative is this sample? How representative are the manipulations and measures?)

To evaluate how well a study supports a frequency claim, you need to focus on evaluating which of the following validities?

Construct validity and external validity

Which of the following research questions best illustrates a example of basic research?

D- Can 2- month old human infants discern the difference between four objects and six objects?

Which of the following is not one of the three principles of the Belmont Report?

D- Fidelity

In order to study a sample of participants from only one ethic group, researchers must 1st demonstrate that the problem being studied is especially prevalent in that ethnic group. This is an application of which principle from the Belmont Report?

D- Justice

A statement or set of statements that describes general principles about how variables relate to one another is an?

D- Theory

Places to take quizzes

http://wwnorton.com/college/psych/research-methods-in-psychology/ch/03/quiz.aspx

Goals of Psychology

-Describe behavior -Explain why a behavior occurs -Predict behavior in the future -Control or modify behaviors

Which of the headlines is an association claim?

C- Swine Flu shot tied to narcolepsy, study finds

What characteristics makes a theory "good"

Explanatory function-account for or explain a phenomenon. Usually stated in propositions and concepts. Good hypothesis provides a rigorous test of theory

What does it mean to say that research is probabilistic?

C-Research conclusions are meant to explain a certain proportion of possible cases, but not all possible cases

What is the difference between science and pseudoscience?

Science-->the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. Pseudoscience-->a collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method. / ontradictory, exaggerated or unprovable claims; over-reliance on confirmation rather than rigorous attempts at refutation; lack of openness to evaluation by other experts in the field; and absence of systematic practices when rationally developing theories

What distinguishes a empirical question from a non empirical question?

Starts as a question/ Answered by observations/ A question that can be answered by collecting data Example of Non empirical Question--> Which super bowl team is the best? Example of a Empirical Question--> Which state has the most coastline?

Scientific thinking by psychologists is characterized by all of the following except

they are most interested in finding answers to the "big" questions (e.g., mind-body)

How does confirmation bias interfere with doing good science?

- is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's beliefs or hypotheses, while giving disproportionately less consideration to alternative possibilities.. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way.

Why is falsification an important characteristic of science?

-falsifiability is the belief that for any hypothesis to have credence, it must be inherently disprovable before it can become accepted as a scientific hypothesis or theory.

Dr. Kang, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of all the participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B. Dr. Kang sends his study to a journal to be published. One of the peer reviewers questions the way Dr. Kang manipulated emotion, arguing that being exposed to emotional words does not make one emotional. The reviewer is questioning which of the following?

The construct validity of the study

Dr. Kang, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of all the participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B. Which of the following is the independent variable in Dr. Kang's study?

The emotional or neutral word list

Why can't theories be proven?

We can never be 100% certain that we have all the information and all the logical analysis of that information that we need to arrive at the complete and absolute truth. Therefore, science does not deal in absolute truth, it merely arrives at reasonable conclusions based on the existing data

What is the difference between deduction and induction?

With induction - you start with your own experience and then generalize a rule. For example, The last ten times I touched the hot stove I burned my hand. I bet every time I touch the hot stove my hand will be burned. Another example, The last few times I eat green peppers I got bad gas. I think eating peppers gives me bad gas. With deduction - you start with a rule and then apply it to new situations. For example: The sign at the amusement park says "Adult Admission- $5" Therefore, I bet if I, an adult, try to enter I will be charged five dollars. Another example: The law of gravity says that what goes up must come down, so I bet if I throuw this ball up it will fall back down.