Psychological research
Sometimes, researchers will administer a(n)------- to participants in the control group to control for the effects that participant expectation might have on the experiment.
* placebo
Which of the following correlation coefficients indicates the strongest relationship between two variables?
-90
Researchers generally use a p-value of as a cutoff for determining if data is statistically significant.
.05
What conclusions can we draw from the results of the research done by Robert Michael and his colleagues? Select all that apply.
Brain images might not influence a person's judgement about articles they read. Not selected, but correct O The McCabe and Castel study did not replicate.
If you had to choose a descriptive label for the reasoning error that was intentionally embedded in this article, which one of the following would you choose as the best?
Correlation does not imply causation.
involves following a group of research participants for an extended period of time.
Longitudinal research
Which statement best illustrates a negative correlation between the number of hours spent watching TV the week before an exam and the grade on that exam?
Students who watch more television perform more poorly on their exams.
For the following question statement, determine the best type of descriptive research design. When buying clothes for themselves, do men tend to shop more by themselves or with their wives or girlfriends?
Survey
What is the dependent variable in the McCabe and Castel study?
The three different questions that were rated by the subjects.
What is the independent variable in the McCabe and Castel study?
The visual information that accompanied the stories: the brain pictures, the graphs, or the no-picture version.
There is correlation between the number of hours of sleep a person gets and how tired they feel.
a negative
Using existing records to try to answer a research question is known as
archival research
Height and weight are positively correlated. This means that
as height increases, typically weight increases
Longitudinal research is complicated by high rates of,
attrition
A little girl at the local elementary school is writing symphonies for full orchestra at age 7. You're curious to know about the child's personality and other psychological qualities. Which type of study would you conduct?
case study
A psychologist who is interested in finding out about the lives and experiences of blended multi-racial families wants to know how such individuals are viewed by their families, friends, and co-workers and how they view themselves. He conducts a series of structured interviews with the various individuals and asks specific questions based on ideas he has that he thinks will be important for understanding this particular life experience. What type of study is this?
case study
Which is the most statistically valuable way to examine the reading levels of cancer patients with the readability of typical cancer pamphlets?
compare the two distributions
If you are studying the impact of a new type of teaching curriculum in the psychology classroom, the classroom where the old curriculum is still taught is considered the
control group
Jonas wants to understand the relationship between hesd size and intelligence. What type of study might he perform?
correlational
Research studies designed to determine whether a relationship exists between variables is known as research.
correlational
In a study about anxiousness, researchers have participants either read a story about a girl who is stressed about her final exams and other work and family commitments or a classic fairytale. Before the study, they plan to have students self-report on their levels of anxiety, then re-test them after the study to see if the anxious story increased anxiousness levels. In this example, the students' reported anxiousness after reading a story is the
dependent variable
The three main categories of research are
descriptive, correlational, and experimental
McCabe and Castel conducted experiments to assess whether a brain image influenced the way students perceived the quality of a scientific article. Across three experiments, they found that students rated the quality of scientific reasoning higher when a brain image was present. Their research would indicate that the study
does replicate
The margin of error describes the
expected amount of variation in a reported outcome
The is controlled by the experimenter, while the represents the information collected and statistically analyzed by the experimenter.
independent variable; dependent variable
Random assignment is important in grouping participants in a research study because
it balances out the differences that might naturally exist between participants
The correlation coefficient indicates the weakest relationship when
it is closest to 0
Which section of a scholarly article would be most valuable to another researcher wanting to replicate the experiment?
method
involves observing behavior in individuals in their natural environments.
naturalistic observation
Informed consent means clearly explaining all of the following EXCEPT
oexplaining the hypothesis to the participants.
When determining how often an event will happen by chance, researchers look at the
p-values
Because eating cereal and maintaining a healthy weight are positively correlated, one can infer that
people who eat cereal regularly maintain healthier weights.
A psychologist discovers that the more control people feel they have over what happens in their work environments, the more productive they are. The psychologist has discovered a correlation between perceived control and productivity.
positive
Using a p-value of .05 means that there is a 95% chance that the results of a study are truly statistically significant. This means that there is still a 5% chance those results are due to chance. This, combined with are two main contributing factors to the reproducibility crisis.
publication bias
If every person in a population has an equal chance of being chosen to participate in a study, then it is considered a
random sample
In order for a sample's results to be generalized to the entire population, that sample should be a
random sample
means that everyone in the population has the same likelihood of being asked to participate in the study.
random sampling
If the results of a study are not likely to be caused simply by chance, it is considered
statistically significant
When other experimenters attempted to replicate the results of the McCabe and Castel study about the effect of an image on the perceived quality of research article, they found
that the results did not replicate
The benefit of naturalistic observation studies is
the honesty of the data that is collected in a realistic setting
In the "climber study" example where the infants chose either the helper or hinderer toy, why did researchers move the helper toy to the infant's right side and left side?
to control for variables
If an experiment measures what it is supposed to measure, it is considered
valid
Researchers found that the constant exposure to mass media (television, magazines, websites) depicting atypically thin, glamorous female models (the thin-ideal body) may be linked to body image disturbance in women. The general finding was that the more women were exposed to pictures and articles about thin females perceived as ideal, the lower their satisfaction was with their own bodies. Choose the scatterplot below that is most consistent with the results of this correlational study.
with body own Satislaction your Exposure to thin images
Research studies that do not test specific relationships between variables are called
• descriptive studies.
A popular, new personality test consistently yields the same results when given to the same people over a period of several months and when administered to similar people. The test asks so many cultural questions, however, that many think the test does not accurately measure personality. This test has reliability and validity.
• high; low
A(n) is a testable prediction that is arrived at logically from a(n)
• hypothesis; theory
A(n) is a list of questions developed by a researcher that can be administered in paper or online form.
• survey
For the following question statement, determine the best type of descriptive research design. What kind of behavior do feral cats in your neighborhood engage in at night?
Naturalistic observation
What is the abstract of a scholarly article?
O The section with a summary of the whole article.
Sigmund Freud developed his theory of human personality by conducting in- depth interviews over an extended period of time with a few clients. This type of research approach is known as a(n): ----
O case study
The pattern of variation in data is called the
O distribution
The only way to determine if there is a cause and effect relationship between two variables is to do research.
O experimental
In order for an experiment to be considered falsifiable,
O it should be able to be disproved
In order for an experiment to be considered predictable,
O it should make assumptions about future events
Which best describes the basic steps of the scientific method?
O make an observation, ask a question, form a hypothesis, do an experiment, analyze the results, prove or disprove the hypothesis
Researchers must important concepts in their studies so others would have a clear understanding of exactly how those concepts were defined.
O operationalize
In his correlational research, Dr. Martin discovered that university graduates earn significantly more money than high school graduates. He also found that the more education people had, the less likely they were to be diagnosed with psychological problems. In this research, it appears that there is a correlation between education and income and a correlation between education and number of psychological problems.
O positive; negative
A theory is a(n)
O set of ideas that propose an explanation for observed phenomena
The major limitation of case studies is
O the inability to generalize the findings from this approach to the larger population
In the example of infants choosing to play with the helper toy over the hinderer toy, what does the p-value tell you?
O the probability that if infants chose randomly, that so many of them (14 of 16) would choose the the helper toy by chance
Ryan is conducting an experiment on the type of breakfast eaten by high schoolers and their wakefulness and alertness during the day. Which is the best way for Ryan to prevent experimenter bias?
OHe should not know what the students ate for breakfast.
Where in a scholarly article would you expect to find a concise summary of the entire experiment?
abstract
