PSYC 43 quizzes
Which of the following questions is most likely to result in a socially desirable answer?
"Have you ever hit your relationship partner?"
Written consent would not be required in any of the following situations with the EXCEPTION of: An observational study that measures walking speed of people entering and exiting buildings, An anonymous study that measures the relationship between time spent grocery shopping and money spent on groceries, An anonymous survey asking whether students want the campus mascot to be changed, A confidential study examining income level and voting behavior
A confidential study examining income level and voting behavior (not required: An observational study that measures walking speed of people entering and exiting buildings, An anonymous study that measures the relationship between time spent grocery shopping and money spent on groceries, An anonymous survey asking whether students want the campus mascot to be changed)
What is the problem with being swayed by a good story?
A good story may not be supported by data.
Establishing construct validity would probably be most important for which of the following?
A measure of religiosity
Which of the following is a poll likely to measure?
A person's opinions about a healthcare law.
In which of the following studies is self-report the best data collection option?
A study examining the intensity of pain during natural childbirth
Ellie is looking for a summary of research on the effects of childhood abuse on adult functioning. Which of the following scientific courses would NOT be an ideal source?
An empirical journal article (good: meta-analysis, review journal article, chapter in edited book)
In addition to being an ethical violation, why are data falsification and fabrication problematic?
Because they impede scientific progress
The two biases of intuition discussed in the text are:
Being swayed by a good story and being persuaded by what comes easily to mind
Why are convergent and discriminant validity often evaluated together?
Both involve collecting information from a lot of psychological measures of theoretical interest
In which of the following ways are content and face validity similar?
Both involve subjective judgments
Sasha believes that she is a nice person. To confirm this, she asks all her friends whether she is a nice person, and they all agree that she is. Sasha concludes that she is a nice person and says she has evidence of it. However, she does not ask any of her enemies whether they think she is a nice person. This is an example of which of the following:
Cherry-picking of evidence
The difference between a cluster sample and a stratified sample is:
Cluster samples use randomly selected clusters; stratified random samples use pre-determined strata
A psychiatrist is testing a drug that treats depression. He has given the drug to all his patients and all of them have experienced a decrease in depressive symptoms. Although this is interesting, his experience is limited because he does not have a:
Comparison group that did not receive the drug
Asking questions to get the answers we want is known as:
Confirmatory hypothesis testing
Dr. Sheffield is a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating pathological gambling. Pathological gambling is defined as being unable to resist impulses to gamble. Bothered by not having a good measure that he can give to clients to determine whether they are suffering from this condition, he creates a new measure of pathological gambling. The measure has 15 questions, and it takes 20 minutes to complete. If Dr. Sheffield's measure does not actually measure pathological gambling, his measure is said to lack which of the following?
Content validity
A correlation-based statistic called ___________ is commonly used to determine internal reliability.
Cronbach's alpha
A population is to ___________ as a sample is to _____________.
Entire; part
Another word for observer effects is:
Expectancy effects
Dr. Gahan decides to create a questionnaire asking about people's attitudes toward immigration (a socially sensitive topic). He should be most concerned about which of the following?
Fence-sitting
Forced-choice question formats are especially good at dealing with which of the following issues?
Fence-sitting
Having a representative sample is most important in which of the following example claims?
Fifty-nine percent of college athletes feel that playing professionally is an attainable goal.
Which of the following is a limitation of Google Scholar compared to PsycINFO?
Google Scholar is not limited to just psychology and related fields
For his research methods class project, Hiro is studying the effect of pet ownership on stress levels. Although a lot of research has been done on dog and cat owners, not much is known about other pet owners, so he decides to study hamster owners. Which of the following would demonstrate a snowball sampling technique.
He asks hamster owners to give him the names of other hamster owners.
What does it mean that "reliability is necessary but not sufficient for validity"?
If a measure is valid, it is also reliable.
What does it mean that behavioral research is probabilistic?
Inferences drawn from behavioral research are not expected to explain all cases
In interrogating the construct validity of a measure, which question should a researcher ask?
Is there enough evidence that this measure is valid?
In his measure of "need for cognition" (the degree to which people like thinking and problem-solving), Dr. Jonason asks his participants to rate their agreement with the following statement: "People who think a lot are really lame." What is the problem with this question?
It is a leading question.
Which of the following is true of interrater reliablity?
It is measured with an ICC.
Which of the following is NOT a reason that a researcher might include debriefing in their study? It prevents researchers from being sued, It allows researchers to make research an educational experience, It gives participants insight into the nature of psychological science, It informs participants about the presence and purpose of deception in a study
It prevents researchers from being sued (true: It allows researchers to make research an educational experience, It gives participants insight into the nature of psychological science, It informs participants about the presence and purpose of deception in a study)
Dr. Sheffield is a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating pathological gambling. Pathological gambling is defined as being unable to resist impulses to gamble. Bothered by not having a good measure that he can give to clients to determine whether they are suffering from this condition, he creates a new measure of pathological gambling. The measure has 15 questions, and it takes 20 minutes to complete. To test his measure, Dr. Sheffield gives his measure to a group of people in Gamblers Anonymous (GA) and another group of people in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). He finds that people in the GA group have higher scores on his new measure than people in the AA group. This procedure is known as a:
Known-groups paradigm
When examining the statistical validity of a frequency claim, one should look for the:
Margin of error estimate
Dr. Oishi is an educational psychologist interested in students' attitudes towards math and the effect of those attitudes on performance standardized tests. He chooses his local school district to study. There are 15 middle schools and he randomly chooses five. Then, of the 1,500 students in each of those five schools, he randomly recruits 250 students. This is an example of which of the following sampling techniques?
Multistage sample
Which of the following is NOT an example of physiological measurement?
Number of panic attacks a patient reports
For his research methods class, Felipe plans to watch how teachers treat children who have ADHD in their classrooms. He will evaluate how positively or negatively the children are treated. This is an example of what type of measurement?
Observational measurement
All of the following are true of observational data EXCEPT: Observational measures can be used in frequency claims, Observational measures can be used in frequency claims, Observational measures tend to provide richer information than survey data, Observational measures tend to have good construct validity
Observational measures cannot be used in making causal claims (true: Observational measures can be used in frequency claims, Observational measures tend to provide richer information than survey data, Observational measures tend to have good construct validity)
Masked, or blind, study designs are designed to deal with:
Observer bias
A study by Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) involved telling teachers that some of their students were "bloomers" and would achieve rapid academic success within the next year. In fact, these students were no different than any of the other students in the class. At the end of the year, the "bloomers" showed more gains in IQ than the other students. It appeared that the teacher had unintentionally treated the "bloomers" in special ways. This is an example of which of the following?
Observer effects
Which of the following is an association claim?
Owning a dog is related to higher life satisfaction.
Which of the following is the most direct way to control for question order effects?
Prepare different versions of the survey, varying the order of the questions.
The use of debriefing in a study such as Milgram's obedience study appeals to which principle of the Belmont Report?
Principle of beneficence
Which of the following statements is true of random assignment and random sampling?
Random assignment is necessary for internal validity, whereas random sampling is necessary for external validity
Unobtrusive observation is done to counteract which of the following?
Reactivity
Which of the following sources is most likely to contain only information that has been rigorously peer reviewed?
Review journal articles
In considering whether research is ethical, which of the following are balanced against each other?
Risk to participants versus value of the knowledge gained
Angela reads about a study in which cell phone use is associated with migraine headaches. She says, "Well, that study is not valid because I use a cell phone more than anyone I know and I never get migraines." Based on her comment, Angela may be forgetting which of the following?
Science is probabilistic
Which of the following is true of the distinction between scientific journals and popular magazines?
Scientific journal articles are peer-reviewed; popular magazine articles are not
Which of the following does NOT result in a representative sample? snowball sampling, simple random sampling, stratified random sampling, systematic sampling
Snowball sample (representative: Simple random sample, Stratified random sample, Systematic sample)
"Faking good" is also known as:
Socially desirable responding
The construct validity of observations can be threatened by all of the following EXCEPT:
Socially desirable responding
Which of the following is true of operational definitions?
Some psychological concepts are more difficult to operationally define than others.
Oversampling is a variant used in which of the following sampling techniques?
Stratified random sampling
Which of the following allow us to make better predictions using association claims?
Strong associations, whether they are positive or negative
Which of the following is true of students' views of deception and harm in research studies?
Students can find deception to be stressful
Which of the following does NOT result in a biased sample? convenience sampling, systematic sampling, snowball sampling, purposive sampling
Systematic sample (biased: Snowball sample, Convenience sample, Purposive sample)
Javier wants his lab partner to tell him if he thinks the article he found for their project is appropriate. Rather than have him read the article, which two parts of the paper could Javier have his lab partner read to get a summary of the article?
The abstract and the first paragraph of the discussion
Which of the following is a disadvantage of using open-ended questions?
The answers must be coded.
Edward believes that there are a lot of differences between men and women on a variety of different dimensions. He believes this because when he thinks about books that have been written on men and women, he can recall only books that say that men and women are different (e.g., Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus) and cannot recall any that say men and women are the same. His reliance on what comes to mind is an example of which of the following:
The availability heuristic
Which of the following is true?
The confidence people have in their memories is not strongly related to the accuracy of their memory.
Hannah just finished reading an empirical journal article for a class project. What information might she get out of reading the references section of her article?
The name of an article that researched a similar topic
When determining whether a study should be conducted, we have to balance which two issues?
The potential risks to partcipants vs. the value of knowledge we can gain.
In addition to the three principles derived from the Belmont Report, which of the following two principles were added in the principles put forth by the American Psychological Association?
The principle of integrity and fidelity/responsibility
A common finding in the study of aggression is that exposure to television is associated with increased aggressive behavior in children. You know this relationship may not be causal because you are not sure which occurred first-- watching television or being aggressive. You are questioning which of the following rules of causation?
The rule of temporal precedence.
Which of the following is true of operational definitions?
The specification of operational definitions is one of the creative aspect of the research process.
A common finding in the study of aggression is that exposure to television is associated with increased aggressive behavior in children. You are curious as to whether peer pressure is really to blame (peer pressure encourages you to watch television and peer pressure encourages you to be aggressive). You are questioning which of the following rules of causation?
The third-variable rule
Hosea is studying the relationship between caffeine consumption and problem solving ability. Which of the following is a quantitative way to operationalize problem-solving ability?
The time spent solving a math problem
Why are techniques like cluster sampling and multistage sampling just as externally valid as simple random sampling?
They all contain elements of random selection.
Which of the following is NOT a reason to be skeptical of an authority? They cherry-picked the evidence they presented, They based their opinions on their own experience, They based their opinions on their intuition, They have conducted scientific research on the topic.
They have conducted scientific research on the topic. (skeptical if: They cherry-picked the evidence they presented, They based their opinions on their own experience, They based their opinions on their intuition)
Research studies are superior to personal experience because:
They include at least one comparison group
Why are double-barreled questions problematic?
They may have poor construct validity.
All of the following are true of the IRBs in the United States EXCEPT: They can be found in settings other than colleges and universities, They must have a psychologist as a member, They are mandated by federal law, They must have at least five members
They must have a psychologist as a member (true: They can be found in settings other than colleges and universities, They are mandated by federal law, They must have at least five members)
How do reverse-worded items address shortcuts?
They slow down readers, making them answer more carefully.
Which of the following is NOT a way to deal with reactivity?
Using multiple observers
Dr. Fletcher is concerned about a fence-sitting response set when he conducts his survey. Which of the following might you recommend to decrease fence-sitting?
Using scales with an even number of response options
Dr. Valencia is considering conducting a study examining whether narcissistic people have poorer social interactions than those who are not narcissistic. One of her first tasks is to determine which of her participants are narcissistic and which are not. She decides to use the scale created by a colleague, the Mayo scale. Question 1 reads, "I tend not to think about other people as much as I think about myself." Question 2 reads, "I do not have a high opinion of myself." Question 3 reads, "I think other people think I am really special." Dr. Valencia is concerned whether her measure will really measure narcissism or if it will measure some other related concept. She is concerned about the scale's ________.
Validity
Vanessa claims that she sleeps better when she falls asleep to music. She has a comparison group, because she noticed that she does not listen to music every night, only when she remembers to plug in her phone. She typically remembers to plug in her phone on nights when she is able to finish studying earlier. What problem do you see in Vanessa's reasoning about sleeping better to music?
Vanessa may be sleeping better because she is less distracted by studying and going to bed earlier
Which of the following is NOT true of variables? Some variables can be either manipulated or measured, All variables must have operational definitions, Variables are the same as constants, Some variables can only be measured
Variables are the same as constants (true: Some variables can be either manipulated or measured, All variables must have operational definitions, Some variables can only be measured)
The problem with the availability heuristic is which of the following:
We do not examine all of the evidence, only what we can quickly think of
Hosea is studying the relationship between caffeine consumption and problem-solving ability. Which of the following is a categorical way to operationalize caffeine consumption?
Whether the participant drank a soda in the 24 hours prior to the study
Which of the following is true of a non-representative sample in a research claim?
You should ask whether it's relevant to what the researchers are measuring.
Which of the following is NOT possible?
a measure is valid but not reliable
What is the difference between a ratio scale of measurement and an interval scale of measurement?
a ratio scale has a zero value that actually means "nothing" or "the absence of something", but an interval scale does not
If researchers measure every tenth member of a population, they have:
collected a sample
An alternative explanation for an outcome is known as a/an
confound
Which of the following is NOT an example of a probability sample?
convenience sampling
Your friend Dominic is complaining about having to take the GRE, a test similar to the ACT and SAT that is required to go to graduate school. He complains that it doesn't really measure how well he will likely do in graduate school. Dominic is questioning the _________ of the test.
criterion validity
Lana is writing her first empirical journal article. Although she thinks she knows why she found the results she did, she also wants to mention some alternative explanations for her findings. In which section will she mention those alternative explanations?
discussion
Another word for discriminant validity is ________ validity.
divergent
Dr. Hadden wants to conduct a study that will allow him to make claims that apply to all college students. Which of the following validities is he prioritizing?
external validity
A Type 1 error is known as which of the following?
false positive
Dr. Valencia is considering conducting a study examining whether narcissistic people have poorer social interactions than those who are not narcissistic. One of her first tasks is to determine which of her participants are narcissistic and which are not. She decides to use the scale created by a colleague, the Mayo scale. Question 1 reads, "I tend not to think about other people as much as I think about myself." Question 2 reads, "I do not have a high opinion of myself." Question 3 reads, "I think other people think I am really special." Before using the measure in her study, Dr. Valencia analyzes the data she gets from her students. She looks at the relationship between each of the individual questions. She sees that participants who agree with Question 1 also agree with Question 3 and disagree with Question 2. This is a test of which of the following?
internal reliability
Diego is interested in examining the relationship between a person's attachment style and his or her relationship satisfaction. He finds 65 studies that have examined this topic. He combines the results of all of these studies and calculates an effect size. His research is most accurately described as:
meta-analysis
Which of the following is NOT a section or subsection commonly found in an empirical journal article? abstract, participants, procedure, outcomes
outcomes (included: abstract, participants, procedure)
Dr. Ellison finds a relation between the amount of sleep someone gets and his or her problem solving ability. Specifically, having a higher amount of sleep the night before an exam is associated with higher scores on two measures of problem solving. This is an example of which type of association?
positive association
Another term for probability sampling is:
random sampling
Todd is studying the effect of popularity on academic success for his research methods project. He decides to measure popularity by asking each elementary school student to tell him how many friends he or she has. He assumes that more friends means the student is more popular. Which of the following best describes this variable?
ratio scale of measurement
When conducting animal research, which guideline states that alternatives to animal research should be considered?
replacement
Which of the following sources is most likely to contain only information that has been rigorously peer reviewed?
review journal articles
For her research methods class, Serena plans to interview several teachers about their attitude toward teaching children who have ADHD. This is an example of what type of measurement?
self-report measurement
A biased sample consists of too many ____________ cases.
unusual