Methods Psych Final Exam
Matthew is reading an empirical journal article and wants to know whether the authors used the Big Five Inventory (BFI-44) or the NEO-PI to measure extraversion. In which section would he find this information?
method
Scientific journals and magazines are similar in what way?
new editions come out on a regular basis (usually monthly)
Masked or blind study designs are designed to deal with
observer bias
which phrase describes a manipulated variable?
"Participants were placed in the high tempo music condition, the low tempo music condition, or the no music condition based on which color card they randomly drew from a deck."
If a study uses an unrepresentative sample, what question should you ask when assessing its external validity?
"are the characteristics that make the sample biased actually relevant to what is being measured?"
what kind of question is most likely to result in a socially desirable answer?
"have you ever sent a sext?"
When interrogating the construct validity of the dependent variable in an experiment, what question should be asked?
"how well was this variable measured?"
Dr. Gavin is conducting a 2 × 4 independent-groups factorial design. How many interactions will Dr. Gavin need to examine?
1
RESEARCH STUDY 12.1: Dr. Singh was interested in the way people recognize objects as members of categories. For example, what makes us recognize a dog as being a dog and not a cat? More specifically, she was curious as to whether people think about categories in a more complex way if they contemplate an "opposite" category first. For example, does a person think differently about the category of "southern" if they first think about the category of "northern"? She was also curious as to whether people categorize differently if they are shown examples of those categories (e.g., looking at pictures of different animals) compared with generating those examples themselves (e.g., drawing pictures of different animals). Dr. Singh has four groups of participants (with 30 people in each group). In Group A, participants were told to cut out pictures of dogs and cats from magazines. In Group B, participants were told to cut out pictures of just dogs from magazines. In Group C, participants were told to draw pictures of cats and dogs. In Group D, participants were told to draw pictures of just dogs. After doing this for 30 minutes, participants in all groups were asked to list the attributes that define the "dog" category. Having a higher number of attributes listed was considered to be an indication of thinking about the category in a more complex way. The results of her study are below. To determine if there is a main effect for type of activity, Dr. Singh must examine how many marginal means?
2
The American Psychological Association's ethical guidelines have ________ principles and ________ standards.
5; 10
Establishing construct validity would probably be most important for which of the following? A. a measure of heart rate B. a measure of the number of times a person eats alone during a month C. a measure of spirituality D. a measure of income
C. a measure of spirituality
Lakshmi wants to know whether a new TV show helps children learn their ABCs. She discovers there is an interaction with whether or not parents watched the show alongside the child. Which of the following statements best describes this finding? A. The show improved ABC skills only for kids whose parents watched along with them. B. The show did not improve ABC skills because parents had to be there. C. Only parents can teach children their ABCs. D. Learning ABCs depends on watching a TV show.
A. the show improved ABC skills only for kids whose parents watched along with them.
Dr. Jewell is interested in measuring people's attitudes toward proposed tax cuts. One of his items reads, "People who support cutting taxes are not well informed about how the government works." Which of the following items should Dr. Jewell use instead to improve construct validity? A. "Most Americans believe that there should not be tax cuts. Please rate your opinions about tax cuts on a 1 (Disagree) to 5 (Agree) scale." B. "Please rate your opinions about tax cuts on a 1 (I strongly disagree with tax cuts) to 7 (I strongly agree with tax cuts) scale." C. "The government should never raise taxes. Please rate your agreement on a 1 (Disagree) to 7 (Agree) scale. D. "Do you agree that tax cuts are an important issue and there should be tax cuts? Yes or No."
B. "Please rate your opinions about tax cuts on a 1 (I strongly disagree with tax cuts) to 7 (I strongly agree with tax cuts) scale."
Which of the following is an example of applied research? A. a social psychologist who is interested in the components of self-concept B. an educational psychologist who looks for a way to increase math skills in eight-year-olds C. a personality psychologist who studies the difference between introverts and extroverts D. a cognitive psychologist who looks at the difference in problem-solving abilities of men and women
B. an educational psychologist who looks for a way to increase math skills in eight-year-olds
RESEARCH STUDY 5.2: 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 his clients and at the same time measures how many times they have been gambling in the past month. He predicts that clients who score higher on his measure will also report gambling more times in the past month. This procedure is meant to provide evidence for which of the following? A. face validity B. content validity C. criterion validity D. discriminant validity
C. criterion validity
Dr. Dormeur was concerned that asking participants how long it took them to fall asleep would lead them to suspect that was the purpose of the study. Her decision to measure how long it took participants to go to sleep using the EEG instead of self-report was meant to decrease which of the following? A. order effects B. selection effects C. demand characteristics D. counterbalancing effects
C. demand characteristics
Which of the following is true about research using surveys and polls? A. surveys and polls can support only frequency claims B. surveys and polls are an accurate way to measure people's actual behavior C. surveys and polls can efficiently measure people's subjective feelings D. surveys and polls utilize only one type of question format
C. surveys and polls can efficiently measure people's subjective feelings
Which the following statements are correct about the question format of survey and polls? A. The format of a question has a larger impact on construct validity than wording. B. The format of a question has a larger impact on construct validity than wording. C. Researchers compute an average to score a survey with forced-choice questions. D. Open-ended questions usually include rich and spontaneous information.
D Open-ended questions usually include rich and spontaneous information.
In which of the following cases would a large sample especially be needed? A. a study of high school students B. a study of first-time homeowners C. a study of people who have been to the doctor in the past year D. a study of teenagers whose parents are both deployed overseas in the military
D. a study of teenagers whose parents are both deployed overseas in the military
The issue of obtaining informed consent deals with which of the following principles of the Belmont Report? A. the principle of beneficence B. the principle of justice C. the principle of integrity D. the principle of respect for persons
D. the principle of respect for persons
Elliott is double majoring in English and psychology. He plans on being a high school English teacher and is majoring in psychology only because he finds the classes interesting. What is an important reason for him to be a good consumer of research?
He will probably want to read research related to enhancing his teaching.
In which of the following ways is an institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) different from an institutional review board (IRB)?
IACUC's monitor the care and treatment of animals throughout the study; IRBs do not monitor the care of human participants throughout the study
All of the following are true of institutional review boards (IRBs) in the United States EXCEPT that
IRBs must have a psychologist as a member
Shoppers often leave reviews for products that they purchased online. What best describes the external validity of product reviews on an online shopping site?
The external validity is low because this is a self-selected sample of online shoppers.
According to its conceptual definition, a variable should be related to a particular behavior. If a researcher is able to demonstrate that his measure of the variable is related to the behavior, then he has established which of the following?
criterion validity
When examining an association in which one variable is categorical and one is quantitative, what is most likely to be used?
a bar graph
what is never found in a one-group, pretest/posttest design?
a comparison group
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 to know is known as
a confirmation bias
When examining an association claim using a bar graph, an association is indicated by what?
a difference in the height between the bars
RESEARCH STUDY 11.1: In previous studies, Dr. Hamid has established that finding meaning in one's everyday work activities can lead to greater success in the workplace (e.g., productivity, creativity). He is curious as to whether this can happen in the college classroom. Specifically, he is curious whether finding meaning in one's classroom experience can lead to greater academic performance. In the spring semester, he has his teaching assistant randomly assign half the class to write a paragraph each class period about how the material has meaning for their lives (meaning group). The other half writes a paragraph about what they did to prepare for class (preparation group). He does not know which of his students are writing which paragraph, and the students are not aware they are responding to different writing assignments. To measure academic performance, he gives the students a midterm essay exam and a final exam. The study described above is an example of what?
a double-blind study
RESEARCH STUDY 10.1: Dr. Lonsbary is a cognitive psychologist who is curious about how mood affects memory. She recruited 60 high school students and divided them into three groups. Group A listened to a 5-minute piece of music intended to make them feel happy ("Happy" by Pharrell). Group B listened to a 5-minute piece of music intended to make them feel sad (a song titled "Home Is Such a Lonely Place" by Blink-182). Group C listened to no music and instead was asked to sit quietly for 5 minutes (thought to make them feel neutral). Dr. Lonsbary's study contains what technique designed to address a threat to construct validity?
a manipulation check
RESEARCH STUDY 4.1: Dr. Kushner is planning on conducting a study next semester. He is curious as to whether sleep deprivation is associated with poorer cognitive performance. For example, if you sleep poorly the night before a big exam, will you do worse? Dr. Kushner is especially curious about selective sleep deprivation, where people are kept from entering REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Using an electroencephalograph (EEG) to monitor brain waves, he plans to let participants sleep until they enter REM sleep and then wake them. After the participants are awake for one minute, Dr. Kushner plans to let them return to sleep. As they enter REM sleep again, he will wake them again and follow the same procedure. He plans to do this through the entire eight-hour sleep session. The following morning, participants will be asked to take a sample SAT test. Imagine that Dr. Kushner is a clinical psychologist who volunteers his time at a local prison counseling several inmates. Because of his connections there, he is considering using prisoners as his participants. Why is this choice potentially problematic?
according to the Belmont Report, prisoners are entitled to special protection
RESEARCH STUDY 7.1: Professor Kramer has decided to measure how happy his students are with his teaching this semester. He is teaching two classes this semester—Psychology and Law and Introduction to Neuroscience. He gives his students a survey. What is Dr. Kramer's likely population of interest?
all students he is currently teaching
What is the best description of a peer-reviewed journal article?
an article written by experts and reviewed by other professionals in the same field of study
Dr. Granger notices that 20 students in their longitudinal study of 100 college students dropped out of the experiment over time. When they look at the missing data, they discover that those 20 students had significantly lower pretest scores than the 80 with complete data. Which type of threat is this an example of?
attrition
ethical decision making is
based on a balance of priorities
An independent-groups design is also known as a design __________.
between-subjects
When bivariate association claims do not meet the criteria of temporal precedence and internal validity, this means that ________ cannot be ________.
causal inferences; made
what is the term for a researcher's definition of the variable in question at a theoretical level?
conceptual definition
Kalilah just read a story in the most recent issue of Psychology Today that has grabbed her interest. As a thoughtful consumer of information, what should Kalilah do?
consider comparing the media coverage of the story to the original research report
If a person is asking whether the variables in an association claim are measured appropriately, what is being interrogated?
construct validity
In graphing the results of her study, which of the following would be true for Dr. Singh?
dr. singh would see a difference in differences for one variable but not the other variable
Random selection enhances ________ validity, and random assignment enhances ________ validity.
external; internal
Fatima is trying to measure gender role stereotypes using a gender role survey. She believes that her participants will be able to tell that she is measuring gender role stereotypes because the survey looks like it is measuring stereotypes. Fatima believes that her scale has what type of validity?
face
External validity is most important for which of the following claims? frequency claims association claims causal claims external validity is equally important for all claims
frequency claims
what is something that is likely to be part of a debriefing?
fully informing participants about all aspects of the study
Dr. Sheffield has decided to test the discriminant validity of his new measure. He has a group of first-time Gamblers Anonymous (GA) attendants complete his measure and finds that they score higher than a group of people who do not attend the group. Which of the following results would provide evidence for discriminant validity?
he finds that the measure of gambling is not correlated with a measure of sensation-seeking in either of his two groups of people
Julian creates a survey asking participants first to report how happy they are in their marriage and then second to report how happy they are in their life. His advisor, Dr. Fuentes, recommends that he create a second version of the survey that reverses the order of these questions. Why is Julian's advisor recommending this?
he is concerned that julian's results could be affected by question order
Luis has just finished planning a study to explore personality traits that predict how open adults are to altering their beliefs when presented with findings from scientific studies. Before beginning data collection, Luis preregisters his hypothesis. One of the primary benefits of preregistering his hypothesis is that
he is less likely to be suspected of developing his hypotheses after analyzing his findings
Dr. Tung is investigating the association between smartphone use and mindless eating. In his first study with a sample size of 25 college students, he finds r = .32. In his second study with a sample size of 100 college students, he finds r = .31. With all else equal, what should Dr. Tung expect to find in terms of 95% CI in his two studies?
he should find that the interval is wider for his first study
RESEARCH STUDY 11.2: Dr. Bloedorn is a health psychologist who researches nutrition. She is curious as to whether a new drink additive will help people consume fewer calories during a meal. The drink additive is a white, odorless, tasteless powder that a person can add to any drink. She collects a random sample of 63 overweight students on campus and measures the calories they eat during lunch using a calorimeter. She then gives this additive to the same 63 participants to use at dinner and measures how many calories they eat (again using the calorimeter). The addition of a control group that does not use the drink additive would help Dr. Bloedorn address what threats to internal validity?
history
RESEARCH STUDY 11.2: Dr. Bloedorn is a health psychologist who researches nutrition. She is curious as to whether a new drink additive will help people consume fewer calories during a meal. The drink additive is a white, odorless, tasteless powder that a person can add to any drink. She collects a random sample of 63 overweight students on campus and measures the calories they eat during lunch using a calorimeter. She then gives this additive to the same 63 participants to use at dinner and measures how many calories they eat (again using the calorimeter). The addition of a control group that does not use the drink additive would help Dr. Bloedorn address which of the following threats to internal validity?
history
What does the impact factor of a journal tell you?
how often, on average, papers in that journal have been cited
what does the impact factor of a journal tell you?
how often, on average, papers in that journal have been cited
RESEARCH STUDY 1.2: Dr. White reads about a new theory that states that depression is caused by increased levels of estrogen in the womb. To test this theory, she conducted a study comparing the level of estrogen in amniotic fluid in individuals who were later diagnosed with depression with the level of those who did not develop depression. Dr. White found no differences between the groups in estrogen levels in the amniotic fluid. In this study, "depressed individuals will have higher estrogen levels" was the
hypothesis
what is an example of a history threat?
in a study of school performance, a hurricane closes the school for two weeks
When researchers conduct an experiment comparing two different treatment conditions, they are likely to be more concerned with ________ validity than ________ validity.
internal; external
In interrogating the construct validity of a measure, which question should a researcher ask?
is there enough evidence that this measure is valid?
In what way does high within-groups variance obscure between-groups variance?
it causes more overlap in scores between experimental/comparison groups
what is true about 95% CIs?
it deals with precision estimates about the population
In developing a 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: "I frequently solve and enjoy solving crossword puzzles and Sudoku puzzles." What is the problem with this question?
it is a double-barreled question
The arithmetic means for each level of an independent variable, averaging over levels of the other independent variable, are called
marginal means
RESEARCH STUDY 11.2: Dr. Bloedorn is a health psychologist who researches nutrition. She is curious as to whether a new drink additive will help people consume fewer calories during a meal. The drink additive is a white, odorless, tasteless powder that a person can add to any drink. She collects a random sample of 63 overweight students on campus and measures the calories they eat during lunch using a calorimeter. She then gives this additive to the same 63 participants to use at dinner and measures how many calories they eat (again using the calorimeter). What threats to internal validity should Dr. Bloedorn be worried about?
placebo effects
RESEARCH STUDY 7.1: Professor Kramer has decided to measure how happy his students are with his teaching this semester. He is teaching two classes this semester—Psychology and Law and Introduction to Neuroscience. He gives his students a survey. If all the students in Dr. Kramer's two classes complete the survey, then Dr. Kramer has done what?
relied on a census
statistical significance depends on what?
sample size and effect size
a helpful tool for visualizing test-retest reliability and interrater reliability is a
scatterplot
ceiling effects can lead to
small variance between groups
Dr. Chandler is a personality psychologist who is interested in studying the characteristics of people who report being abducted by UFOs. She finds several people in an online support group for UFO abductees to participate and asks them if they can provide the names and contact information of other people who have also been abducted. Upon contacting these new participants, she asks them to refer her to even more people they may know who have been abducted. This is an example of what kind of sampling?
snowball sampling
A study finds a correlation coefficient of r =.52. This number gives you information about what
strength and direction of the relationship
RESEARCH STUDY 1.1: Deci and Ryan (1985, 2001) have proposed that three fundamental needs are required for human growth and fulfillment: relatedness, autonomy, and competence. Susan predicts that students who have these needs met in their psychology class feel happier and more satisfied with the class. She collects data and finds that students who feel more related and competent do feel happier, but that feeling more autonomous does not seem to matter. Susan thinks that maybe autonomy is necessary only when people are in situations in which they are not being evaluated. After Susan collects and analyzes her data, which of the following is the next logical step?
susan designs a new study to test her new hypothesis
which of the following results in an unbiased sample?
systematic sample
Professor Adeyemi is examining well-being after retirement in a city, and it is important to have excellent external validity. Professor Adeyemi selects two random numbers, 4 and 6, and gets a list of all of the retired people in the city. If Professor Adeyemi obtains the sample by starting with the 4th person on the list and selecting every 6th person, what sampling technique is most likely being used?
systematic sampling
A threat to internal validity occurs only if a potential design confound varies with the independent variable
systematically
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 quickly recall only books that say 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 what?
the availability heuristic
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?
the external validity of the study
an author might use all of the following methods to indicate statistical significant EXCEPT
the inclusion of a graph
RESEARCH STUDY 3.4: Dr. Kang, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of all the participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B. Dr. Kang's decision to assign participants randomly to Group A and Group B increases which of the following?
the internal validity of the study
Dr. Gavin decides that instead of conducting a 2 × 4 independent-groups factorial design, he is going to conduct a 2 × 4 within-groups factorial design. Which of the following things will change?
the number of participants needed
Mrs. Raynor, a school psychologist, tracks the number of students that are reported by teachers as having concerning behaviors in the classroom. At the end of the year, she calculated that 12.4% of the students in her school have been identified as having behaviors that impact their performance in the classroom. She understands that there is a margin of error to this estimate and reports that the number of children who have behavior problems at school may be as low as 10.2% and as high as 14.6%. What is the term used to describe the 12.4% calculation made by Mrs. Raynor?
the point estimate
What was the primary ethical concern in the Milgram study?
the potential risks to participants outweighed the value of knowledge we can gain
who is responsible for deciding which validity is prioritized in a study?
the researcher
Two researchers tell you they study the same thing. However, when you look at their research papers, they do not use similar methodologies or measurements. How is this possible?
the researchers have the same conceptual definitons
A correlation coefficient and a scatterplot both provide which of the following pieces of information?
the strength and direction of the relationship between two measurements
RESEARCH STUDY 3.4: Dr. Kang, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of all the participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B. What makes Dr. Kang's study an experiment?
the study included a manipulated variable and a measured variable
RESEARCH STUDY 3.3: Anton and his friends are discussing a study he read about in his developmental psychology class. In the study, the researcher made the claim that most middle school students who are bullied have low self-esteem. Clarissa questions the study, saying, "I am not sure that I am convinced. I am not sure you can really measure being bullied." Quinn also questions the study, saying, "Which middle school students did they study? I am curious if they included both private and public school students." Manish is also curious about the study, asking, "I wonder how strong the relationship is between bullying and self-esteem. Could you predict one from the other?" Quinn's concern is addressing which of the following?
the study's external validity
RESEARCH STUDY 3.3: Anton and his friends are discussing a study he read about in his developmental psychology class. In the study, the researcher made the claim that most middle school students who are bullied have low self-esteem. Clarissa questions the study, saying, "I am not sure that I am convinced. I am not sure you can really measure being bullied." Quinn also questions the study, saying, "Which middle school students did they study? I am curious if they included both private and public school students." Manish is also curious about the study, asking, "I wonder how strong the relationship is between bullying and self-esteem. Could you predict one from the other?" Manish's concern is addressing which of the following?
the study's statistical validity
Though there are no statistics in the table, what do you expect was the finding based on the marginal means?
there appears to be a main effect of memory technique
RESEARCH STUDY 12.1: Dr. Singh was interested in the way people recognize objects as members of categories. By examining the marginal means, it appears that in this study
there is a main effect of focus of the activity
RESEARCH STUDY 1.2: Dr. White reads about a new theory that states that depression is caused by increased levels of estrogen in the womb. To test this theory, she conducted a study comparing the level of estrogen in amniotic fluid in individuals who were later diagnosed with depression with the level of those who did not develop depression. Dr. White found no differences between the groups in estrogen levels in the amniotic fluid. Based on these results, Dr. White should conclude that
there may be unexamined factors influencing the results that contributed to the results of other studies on this topic
A study finds that exercise improves concentration, especially for students who took a yoga class as opposed to step aerobics. What can we infer about the study based on this finding?
there was an interaction in the results
Dr. Guidry creates a scatterplot of the relationship between the experience of daily stress and life satisfaction. In doing so, she realizes there are three scores that seem to be very extreme and are nowhere near the other points on the scatterplot. Specifically, it appears that three people report very high levels of daily stress and very low levels of life satisfaction. Which of the following statements is true?
these scores are less likely to have an effect because of the large sample size
Why are empirical and journal review articles considered prestigious publications?
they are both peer-reviewed
One of the reasons that research studies are superior to personal experience is that
they include at least one comparison group
one reason researchers use within-group designs is...
they require fewer participants
what is a reason psychological scientist publish their research in scientific journals?
to have their results reviewed by other psychologists
According to the text, the bridge between basic and applied research is known as
translational research
While reading about a research study, what would tell you that an association claim is being made?
two measured variables
what might be a reason that a study might yield a null result?
two much within-group variance
RESEARCH STUDY 3.5: Jenny reads the following headline on an online article: "If You're Sexist, People Will Think You're Racist, and Vice Versa." (This headline is based on a study conducted by Sanchez and colleagues, 2017.) This study found that members of stigmatized groups are threatened by prejudice directed at other stigmatized groups. Their results showed that White women can feel threatened by racism, men of color feel threatened by sexism, and that these perceptions made participants expect unfair treatment. The results of this study can be generalized to what groups?
white women and men of color
