IB Psych Unit One Quiz

A researcher does an experiment to see how people respond to an elderly person who is asking for help on public transportation. In some cases she is dressed very fashionably; in a second condition, she is dressed in a tattered old dress. Which type of experiment is this? A. A field experiment B. A longitudinal experiment C. A natural experiment D. A quasi experiment

A

What is the key difference between an unstructured and a structured interview? A. Unstructured interviews are based on themes and does not have a strict list of questions that must be followed in a specific order. B. Structured interviews are more natural than unstructured interviews. C. Unstructured interviews are easier to analyse. D. Structured interviews are more valid.

A

What is the name given to the plan for carrying out an interview? A. An interview schedule. B. A transcript. C. An interview agenda. D. A memo.

A

Which of the following is not a limitation of using students as a sample in a psychological study? A. Students are young and lack life's experience. B. Students are more concerned about themselves, unlike older adults who are concerned about family members. C. Students often want to please professors - so they may be more at risk for demand characteristics. D. Students are pre-selected for their level of intelligence and cognition - so they are not representative of the larger population.

A

Which of the following is not true of a case study? A. They are highly controlled in order to avoid researcher bias. B. They make use of method triangulation. C. They are usually longitudinal. D. They are more holistic than simple experiments.

A

Which type of psychologist would most likely study the extent to which we can trust eyewitness testimony of children in domestic abuse trials? A. Forensic psychologist B. Educational psychologist C. Developmental psychologist D. Industrial-organizational psychologist

A

What is the name given to data that is based on personal experience?

Anecdotal data

A researcher carries out a study where the participants were asked to give electric shocks to a student in a study of learning. After the experiment, the researcher asks the participant why he thinks that he was willing to shock the student. He says that he "knew all along that this was fake." This is an example of A. Optimism bias B. Social desirability effect C. Screw-you effect D. Expectancy effect

B

A researcher wants to study men who have been victims of domestic violence. The researcher knows four men from a local emergency shelter. What would most likely be the most efficient way for him to find more participants? A. A stratified sample B. Snowball sampling C. Putting an ad in the newspaper D. Opportunity (convenience) sampling

B

The school is doing a study on student attitudes toward exercise. Students are given a survey which gives them a statement and then asks them to rank how strongly they agree with it. For example, the students read a statement like: I exercise in order to fit in with friends. Then they are asked to choose how strongly they agree with this statement: Strongly agree; agree; no opinion; disagree; strongly disagree. What type of survey is this? A. A longitudinal survey B. Likert Scale survey C. A Thurstone scale survey D. An open-ended questionnaire

B

What is meant by the sentence "There was an inverse correlation between the amount of time the students studied and their scores on the exam?" A. Some students did better and some did worse when they studied a lot - so it comes down to participant variables. B. The more that students studied, the worse they did on the exam. C. There is no relationship between the amount of time a student studied and exam success. D. The less that students studied, the worse they did on the exam.

B

What is the key difference between a quasi-experiment and a "true experiment?" A. Quasi experiments take place in naturalistic environments; true experiments take place in laboratories. B. In a quasi experiment, participants have a trait that determines which condition they are in; in a true experiment, they are randomly allocated. C. Quasi experiments do not have controlled variables. D. Quasi experiments are cross-sectional; true experiments are longitudinal.

B

What is the relationship between a sample and a population? A. A sample is a group that is representative of the larger pool of people from which it is drawn. B. A sample is the participants that are taken from a group to which you want to generalize the results of the study. C. Samples always come from the researcher's culture; populations are global. D. Samples are all the people possible for a study; the population is the participants that actually show up.

B

Which of the following is a null hypothesis for a study of the role of aerobic exercise on one's mood? A. 16-year-old female participants who run on a treadmill for 30 minutes will score lower on a test for depressive symptoms than those that do not exercise. B. There will be no significant difference in the scores of on a test for depressive symptoms among 16-year-old female participants who run on a treadmill for 30 minutes and those that do not exercise. C. 16-year-old female participants who run on a treadmill for 30 minutes will score either higher or lower on a test for depressive symptoms than those that do not exercise. D. None of the 16-year-old female participants who run on a treadmill for 30 minutes will have depression, according to their scores on a test for depressive symptoms.

B

Which of the following is not a characteristic of a good theory? A. It is able to be empirically tested. B. It is reductionist - that is, it is focused on a single approach. C. It predicts behaviour D. Its concepts can be measured.

B

Which of the following is not a limitation of a focus group? A. Participants may demonstrate conformity to group opinions. B. They are not highly naturalistic. C. They are difficult to manage. D. There is a problem with guaranteeing confidentiality of the responses.

B

Which of the following is not an order effect? A. Fatigue B. Social desirability effect: participants give responses that are "socially acceptable." C. Boredom with the study D. Practice effect - participatns get better at the skill being studied, just because they keep doing it during the experiment.

B

Which of the following is not true of a repeated measures design? A. Fewer participants are needed than for an independent samples design. B. Participants are less likely to show demand characteristics than in an independent samples design. C. Participant variables are controlled. D. Participants are more likely to show order effects - such as improvement of a skill through practice - than in an independent samples design.

B

Which of the following is the best explanation of the difference between a quasi-experiment and a natural experiment? A. Natural experiments randomly allocate participants to conditions; quasi-experiments do not. B. The IV in both is not manipulated - but in a quasi experiment the IV is a trait of the individual and in a natural experiment it is an environmental factor. C. All quasi experiments are natural experiments, but not all natural experiments are quasi experiments. D. Quasi experiments are done in a lab; natural experiments are done in the field.

B

Which type of psychologist would most likely study strategies for getting people to stop drinking high-caffeine drinks? A. Consumer psychologist B. Health psychologist C. Educational psychologist D. Aviation psychologist

B

Why would a researcher use a matched pairs design? A. So that each participant experiences both conditions of an experiment. B. To control for participant variability within a sample. C. To make sure that the order in which the experiment is done does not affect the results. D. To make sure that there are equal numbers of participants in each group.

B

A researcher wants to find out if talking on a hands-free mobile phone affects one's driving ability. Participants were asked to take a driving test in a driving simulator that monitored their mistakes. In one condition, the participants were asked simply to take the driving test. In the second condition, the participants were asked to dial up a friend and to have a conversation while taking the driving test. Half the group did the first condition and half the group did the second condition. Then both groups took a one hour break before taking the test again - but in the other condition. What is the best description of the design of this study? A. A longitudinal case study B. A counterbalanced independent samples design C. A counterbalanced repeated measures design D. A counterbalanced matched pairs design

C

A researcher wants to see the effect of stress on the health of teachers in an IB school. Blood pressure and t-cell cell count is measured when they are hired. They are also interviewed about their level of stress and fill in a checklist survey regarding their health. Every year thereafter, the researchers carry out these blood tests to measure the long-term effects of stress and carry out interviews to discuss work stress and their health over the past school year. What type of study is this? A. A cross-sectional, prospective case study. B. A longitudinal, retrospective case study. C. A longitudinal, prospective case study. D. A cross-sectional, retrospective case study.

C

According to Carol Dweck's theory, students who have a fixed mindset ... A. listen to feedback with the goal of improving their skills. B. are of limited intelligence. C. are less likely to take risks because they fear failure. D. complete their cognitive development by the age of 12.

C

If an experimental situation is too artificial, psychologists say that it lacks A. Predictive validity B. Internal validity C. Mundane realism D. External validity

C

If extraneous (confounding) variables are not well controlled, this may affect A. Ecological validity B. Population validity C. Internal validity D. Construct validity

C

Which of the following is important if researchers hope to determine the reliability of their findings? A. the results must predict what will happen in a real-life situation. B. The sample must be stratified. C. the procedure must be highly standardized. D. All confounding (extraneous) variables must be controlled.

C

Which of the following is not an example of triangulation? A. Having a team of researchers all carry out an observation of free time behaviour in an urban public high school and comparing their data. B. Using both interviews and observations to see how young teachers deal with problematic student behaviour. C. Taking results of a study back to the participants and asking for their feedback. D. Having a social worker, a psychologist and a biologist look at data from a study of the role of stress on health.

C

Which of the following strategies increases the generalizability of a single case study? A. Take the results back to the participant and ask him/her if it reflects their understanding of the study. B. Using method triangulation C. Providing rich data about the context of the study D. Having several researchers interpret the data.

C

You read in the newspaper that a study of the amount of time people spend on Facebook and one's level of depression showed a strong correlation, but that issues of bidirectional ambiguity could not be resolved. What does this mean? A. The sample was not representative. B. Reseachers are not able to control all the variables to determine a cause and effect relationship. C. Reseachers don't know if using facebook causes depression or whether people who are depressed use Facebook more. D. Depression is poorly defined, so the results are not clear - they are ambiguous.

C

A study is carried out at your school to see how the winter weather affects the moods of students. On a dreary day in winter, students in each grade are given a test of their mood. In the spring, the test is given again. In both cases the names of the students are not collected - they are simply asked to indicate their gender on the top of the test. Which of the following best describes this study? A. A repeated measures experiment. B. A longitudinal case study. C. A correlational study. D. A cross-sectional survey.

D

If a researcher does a study at your school and asks for volunteers, but only psychology students sign up to take part, what is the problem of this study? A. Ethnocentrism B. The sample is too small. C. It cannot be replicated. D. Sampling bias

D

In order to carry out your internal assessment on problem-solving, you use the pre-IB English class. What type of sample is this? A. A random sample B. A snowball sample C. A purposive sample D. An opportunity (convenience) sample

D

Independent measures designs have the problem of participant variability. What does this mean? A. Participants are not the same as the general population and the results cannot be generalized. B. Participants drop out of the study because of boredom. C. Participants have different levels of skill, so some understand the directions better than others. D. Differences in the traits and past experiences of the participants in each condition may affect the results of the study.

D

When participants change their behaviour because they know that they are being observed, this is called A. Event sampling B. Expectancy effect C. Interviewer effects. D. Reactivity

D

Which of the following is an example of a stratified sample? A. Using both the IB HL and the IB SL English classes B. When half of the participants are randomly allocated to one condition - and the other half to the other. C. When participants are not included in the sample because of past experience relevant to the topic being investigated in the study. D. A sample which is 30% male and 70% female which is the composition of your high school's population.

D

Which of the following is not a problem with retrospective studies? A. They may be influenced by mis-remembering the past (memory distortion) B. Data from the past may not be verified. C. Participants may have a bias about their perception of past events. D. They are highly time consuming.

D

Which of the following is not an advantage of field experiments? A. They are naturalistic. B. Consent is often not required. C. The studies have high ecological validity. D. They are easily replicated.

D

Which of the following is not essential for a study to be a "true" experiment? A. Random allocation to conditions. B. Extraneous variables are controlled. C. One or more independent variables are manipulated and the effect on the dependent variable is measured. D. All ethical considerations must be met.

D

Which type of psychologist would most likely study the effects of poverty on brain development? A. Educational psychologist B. Clinical psychologist C. Health psychologist D. Developmental psychologist

D

Prejudice is an example of a(n)...

attitude