Psych 304 Exam 1

Which of the following is a peer-reviewed source of evidence?

A research article in American Journal of Psychology

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

False

Which of the following titles of an academic paper best reflects the notion that science is democratic

Look at these data from your own opinion

What is one way to tell if a journal is peer reviewed

Look up the journal in PubMed

Imagine you study a childhood traumatic brain injury (TBI). Which of the following research questions should be classified as description, rather than predicition, explanation, or application

What is the lifetime prevalence of TBI? In other words, how many people (what % of US population) experience a TBI at some point in their lives

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

What is the correct term for a pattern of variation that is noted in a given data set

distribution

Which of the following is a best definition for inductive reasoning

drawing a conclusion about a specific based on general principles

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

empirical

Questions that can be answered through systematic observation and data collection are

empirical questions

Institutional Review Board is a university or college committee that

evaluates the ethical soundness of research proposals

Which of the following counts as a scientific misconduct

excluding data that doesn't fit your expected results

Which of the following is NOT considered human-subjects research

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

The most recent APA code (2002) includes 5 general principles and 89 standards. The general principles are "aspirational goals" Which of the following is an example of an aspirational goal

concern for the rights and dignity of others

A statement that can be shown to be false is

falsifiable

What is a type I error

finding a relationship when none really exists

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

when psychological researchers falsify data, they intentionally misinform the public and damage the reputation of the field of psychology

A type I error is

when the experimenter rejects the null hypothesis but the null hypothesis is correct

Which of the following could be an operational definition for in attentional blindness

whether the participant notices the gorilla in the invisible gorilla experiment

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

non-peer reviewed secondary source

In null hypothesis significance testing, the researcher is attempting to falsify the _____

null hypothesis

Scientific findings in the popular press are

often dramatized

A questionnaire has several items that ask participants whether they strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree. These are _____-scale measures

ordinal

A theory that has a minimum of constructs and assumptions, yet adequately summarizes and organizes information, is said to be a _____ theory

parsimonious

Which of the following is a between-groups experiment

participants are approached by a pretty girl in a safe location or on top of a tall bridge. Researchers track how many participants later contact the girl

Identify the null hypothesis for this experiment: In a study of whether romantic music puts people in the mod for love, participants were tole 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 assessed how romantic they felt on a scale from 1-10

participants who heard romantic music and participants who heard neutral music had the same romance scores, on average

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

without it, participants might not behave naturally

Which of the following is not part of the APA's ethics code for humans

people may or may not decide to participate, but once they start a study, they are obliged to finish it

The idea of falsifiability involves

ruling out bad explanations

Evidence-based practice in a drug rehabilitation clinic would involve

All of the above

Which of the following is an example of an empirical question that could be tested using systematic observation?

Do native English-speaking Canadians take longer to learn Chinese or Spanish

Which of the following could be described as a sound research question

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

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

The researcher would read the published article about the original research and use the same materials and procedures with new particpants

Which of the following is not an important factor when determining that X is causing Y to occur

X and Y should occur simultaneously

Dr. No studies flirting by observing teenagers at the mall. She concludes that flirting happens with strangers more often than it happens with friends. Dr. yes evaluates these findings by observing the same set of behaviors with an adult sample at a local bar. Which of the following would best describe Dr. Yes' research

a conceptual replication of an earlier study

Anxiety is not observed directly but is inferred from certain behaviors. That is, anxiety is an example of

a construct

Dr. Parikh has conducted a study that involves gathering data about her student's performance on exam. She observes that some students did very poorly, while other students made no errors at all. This pattern of variation within her data set is referred to as

distribution

Learning about research methodology and critical thinking is important for

all are correct

What does it mean if a replication study does not support the findings of the original study?

all of these are possible

Which of the following constructs might be the dependent variable "heart rate" measure

anxiety

"Ergonomic" psychologists develop airplane dials that are foo proof. The pilots cannot inadvertently turn them the wrong way. This demonstrates what goal of psychological research

application

A researcher is measuring aggression. Which of the following is most clearly inadequate as an operational definition of the term

attempting to harm someone

Select the experimental design for this experiment: In a study of whether romantic music puts people in the mod for love, participants were tole 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 assessed how romantic they felt on a scale from 1-10

between-groups

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 a vegetarian increases one's likelihood of going to the moon!" Jeremy has arrived at an (incorrect) ____ conclusion

cause-and-effect

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

The statement 'Many students fear taking a research method course" is an example of _____; the statement "The fear of taking a research methods course is caused by unfounded gossip" is an example of____

describing; explaining

DSM-IV is a system for classifying mental disorders. As such, it most clearly illustrates which of psychology's goals

description

Which of the following IS considered human-subjects research

determining how caffeine intake affects the patellar reflex in the knee

A bee stings stephen. He notices that sting is not very painful and concludes that stings from wasps, bees, and other insects do not hurt. This is an example of

inductive reasoning

Select the ordinal-scale measure

intelligence quotient

A prediction is made from a theory and the results are just as predicted. What can be concluded about the theory?

it has been inductively supported

What does it mean for a theory to be fruitful

it opens the way for other useful research

Select the ratio-scale measure

lamb consumed in the last year, in pounds

Select the manipulated independent variable

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

Which of these is NOT one of psychology's goals?

persuasion

Dr. Ramsey conducts research and draws a conclusion about the college athletes who participated in his study. He will now generalize from these research participants to the larger ____ of college athletes outside the study

population

Which group is considered a "special population" by the Code of Federal Regulations governing research with human subjects

pregnant women

Which of the following procedures in research is the most important in allowing for cause-and-effect conclusions to be drawn

random assignment

Why is it important to use random assignment when determining which research participants will comprise the different treatment groups in the study

random assignment balances out the differences that might naturally exist between two participants

In an experiment assessing the efficacy of an anti-nausea drug, experimenters record participant's weight in kilograms several times. This is a ___- scale measure

ratio

Select the best operational definition for the construct memory

recall

What is the definition of replication

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

Identify the descriptive statistic

standard deviation

An objective observation is one

that can be verified by a second observer

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 for his class, he is only able to get 10 participants. His research does not find the same results as the original study. What is the most likely explanation for this lack of replication?

the student researcher's sample size was too small

"If a theory is true, then event X should occur." Suppose event X does not occur. What would the typical scientist conclude?

the study failed to support the theory--let's replicate

When we develop _____ (groups of closely related phenomenon 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

Which of these is an advantage of using operational definitions

they facilitate replication

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

this is when children agree to participate

What is the purpose of peer review?

to evaluate the scientific rigor of a manuscript

When a researcher does not find a relationship between two variables in their data but there is actually a relationship between these variables, the researcher has made a_____

type II error

Which of the following is NOT always a credible source

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