Psychology unit 2 part 2

Which of the following statements best describes the placebo effect?

It can be brought about by the individual's expectations.

It is important for researchers to use precise operational definitions when

they want to be able to replicate the experiment

Which of the following is the strongest correlation?

-.90

Research finds that, in general, the higher an incoming college student scores on a given test, the higher the student's college grade point average (GPA). Which of the following best describes this relationship?

A positive correlation

Dr. Lee is interested in the effect of lighting on people's ability to concentrate. Dr. Lee studies this by manipulating the amount of lighting while participants read and then measuring their scores on a reading comprehension test. Group 1 receives dim light, and group 2 receives bright light. Which of the following research methods is Dr. Lee using?

An experiment

What is the best way to ensure that results of a study are generalizable to a population?

By using a random selection of people in that population

Researchers have found a negative correlation between income and dental problems. What conclusion can correctly be drawn from this statement?

As income increases, the likelihood of dental problems decreases.

A double-blind control is essential for which of the following?

Assessment of a treatment designed to reduce schizophrenic symptoms

Synesthesia is a phenomenon that has been estimated to occur in only a few people in a million. Because of its rarity, researchers are likely to choose which research method to study it?

Case study

Dr. Patel is conducting a study to test a hair-growth shampoo she is developing. She instructs fifty participants to use the hair-growth shampoo once daily for a month and another fifty to use a regular shampoo once a day for a month. Dr. Patel measures the participants' hair length at the beginning and the end of the thirty days. Which of the following is the dependent variable?

Change in hair length

A psychologist designed a study to test the effects of cell phone use on driving safety. Participants were randomly assigned either to drive an automobile simulator while talking to a friend on a cell phone or to drive a simulator without talking on a phone. Which type of research does the scenario describe?

Experimental

There is a strong positive correlation between ice cream sales and instances of snakebites. Which of the following is the most likely explanation for this correlation?

Hot weather is related to both ice cream sales and snake activity.

In a normal distribution, which of the following statements is true about the area that falls between one standard deviation above and one standard deviation below the mean?

It contains the middle 68% of the distribution.

Which of the following is a strength of naturalistic observation?

It minimizes artificiality, which can be a problem in laboratory studies.

In which of the following types of research are the same children tested periodically at different points in their development?

Longitudinal

Professor González is interested in evaluating the ability of a new method of note-taking to improve student grades. Group A is trained in the new method and group B uses the traditional outline method of taking notes. What is Professor González' independent variable?

Method of note-taking

Which of the following is required for a psychological experiment?

Precise operational definitions

Which of the following is used to reduce the effects of confounding variables in experiments?

Random assignment

Which of the following procedures is intended to control for preexisting differences between the groups of participants in an experiment?

Random sampling

An instructor conducted an experiment to determine the effects of two different methods of study on the amount students learned in introductory physics. The results showed that the average amount learned by the group using one method was greater than the average amount learned by the group using the other. However, the difference was not statistically significant. Which of the following is the most appropriate conclusion to be drawn?

There is a possibility that the difference between the two groups occurred by chance.

Which of the following best describes the response of members of the American Psychological Association to ethical issues in research?

They have developed codes of ethics for research with both human participants and animal subjects.

A researcher randomly assigned boys and girls to each of two groups. One group watched a violent television program while the other group watched a nonviolent program. The children were then observed during a period of free play, and the incidence of aggressive behavior was recorded for each group. What is the independent variable in this study?

Type of television program viewed

Ethical principles developed by the American Psychological Association help ensure that human participants in psychological research

are protected from physical and psychological harm

In an experiment to test the effects of hunger on aggressive behavior, aggressive behavior would be the

dependent variable

In experimental psychology, a significant difference refers to a

difference not likely due to chance

Drawing a random sample of people from a town for an interview study of social attitudes ensures that

each person in the town has the same probability of being chosen for the study

A researcher uses debriefing when he

explains the true purpose of a study immediately after the study is complete

A survey shows that children who have encyclopedias in their homes earn better grades in school than children whose homes lack encyclopedias. The researcher concludes that having encyclopedias at home improves grades. This conclusion is erroneous primarily because the researcher has incorrectly

inferred causation from correlation

A study can be regarded as scientific only if

its conclusions can be verified or refuted by subsequent studies

Experimental research differs from correlational research in that experimental research

may reveal a causal relation

Jane Goodall lived among wild chimpanzees intermittently for decades, studying their social and family systems while keeping her interaction with the chimpanzees to a minimum. Her research method can most accurately be described as

naturalistic observation

A disadvantage of longitudinal studies is that

participants who drop out during the course of the study may be different in important ways from ones who do not drop out

In order to yield information that is generalizable to the population from which it was drawn, a sample must be

representative of the population

In developmental psychology, one advantage of cross-sectional over longitudinal studies is that cross-sectional research

requires comparatively little time

Students from a journalism class ask only their friends to participate in a school newspaper survey and neglect to ask the rest of the student body. The journalism students' data may not be generalizable due to

sampling bias

The correlation between two measures obtained on a group of individuals is graphically represented as a

scatterplot

Standard deviation is a measure of how much

scores in a group differ from the mean of that group

The most distinctive characteristic of the experimental method is that it

seeks to establish cause-effect relationships

Researchers find that there is a significant, positive correlation between the number of hours students sleep and their grades. The researchers would be justified in concluding that

students who earn good grades tend to sleep more than those who do not

Professor Ahad has forty-three students in section one of the psychology classes she teaches and fifty-two students in section two. Section one meets at eight a.m. and, section two meets at one p.m. Professor Ahad gives all of her students the same final exam, and those in section two score significantly higher than those in section one. Professor Ahad concludes that her section one students are academically inferior to students in section two. The biggest problem with Professor Ahad's conclusion is that

time of day is a confounding variable in this scenario.