PSY 212: Exam 2 Activity Questions

The desire to maximize the benefits of one's study is central to which ethical principle?

beneficience

What sampling method? The police set up checkpoints at randomly selected road locations, then inspected every driver at those locations

cluster random sample

What sampling method? A principal orders t-shirts and wants to check some of them to make sure they were printed properly. She randomly selects 2 of the 10 boxes of shirts and check every shirt in those 2 boxes

cluster random sampling

A measure of pain which captures the full range of variation would differentiate between "no" pain, "some" pain, "moderate" pain, and so forth. Based on this description, the measure was...

content validity

What sampling method? A politician asks his neighbors their opinions about a controversial issue

convenience sample

What sampling method? A professor asks the first 5 students who arrive to class to participate in a research study about young adult sleep patterns.

convenience sample

What sampling method? A professor asks the first 5 students who arrive to class to participate in a research study about young sleep patterns

convenience sample

What sampling method? A restaurant leaves comment cards on all of its tables to learn about customer satisfaction. Each comment card is a brief survey that customers can fill out if they want

convenience sample

What sampling method? A researchers polls people as they walk by on the street

convenience sampling

Sally informs research participants that they performed well or performed poorly on a simple cognitive test regardless of the participants' actual performance on the test. She is employing the use of __________ in her study

deception of commission

Consider the following argument: If I arrive by 6PM, I'll get a table at the restaurant. I got a table at the restaurant. Therefore I arrived by 6PM. This argument is...

deductively invalid

Based on numerous hypotheses that have been tested and supported, Michele theorizes that too much exercise impairs muscle growth. The theory (T1) explains 20 different findings, but recently the theory was simplified (T2) and now T2 explains half as many results. What feature of scientific theories has been compromised by this simplification?

descriptive adequeacy

A researcher who examines the causal relationship between amount of exercise (randomly assigned as 30 minutes per day or none) and memory abilities is using the _____ research design.

experimental

Which of the following is a not good operational definition of "hunger?"

general feeling of emptiness in one's stomach

The number of people that need to be in a room before the odds are greater than 50% that two of them have the same birthday is 23, however most people guess a number much higher than this. This is known as the "birthday paradox" and it is an example of...

how our intuitions are biased

A poll samples n = 2000 US adults and estimates that 10% of are left-handed with a margin of error of 2.2% at a 95% confidence level. Which of the following will reduce the sampling error?

increase the sample size, all else equal

A newspaper headline reads, "Heavy Drinkers Get Lower College Grades." Based on the headline, what type of study was this based on? What type of claim is supported by this type of study?

the claim is based on a correlation study, which supports association claims

A poll samples n =1000 US adults and estimates that 53% prefer Pepsi with a margin of error of 3.2% at a 95% confidence level. What happens if you increase the confidence level to 99%?

the sample size decreases, all else equal

According to the reading, the present-present bias is the tendency to focus on cases in which...

the treatment and outcome are both present

According to the reading, functional theories provide the _____ and mechanistic theories provide the _____

why; how

Which of the following would be the least legitimate reason for conducting research on methods of teaching French?

you know in your own mind which method of teaching French is best, but lack empirical evidence of its superiority

According to the reading, when analyzing an empirical article, you should ask yourself...

1) what is the argument? 2) what is the evidence for the argument?

_____ reliability refers to how similar the scores of interviewers/raters are when they measured the same person or object, which has the potential to significantly affect the findings and outcome of a study.

Inter-rater

A poll samples n =3000 US adults and estimates that 20% of people exercise more than 3 times per week with a margin of error of 1.8% at a 95% confidence level. Reducing the variability in your survey (by asking questions more clearly, for example) has the same effect on the sampling error as...

increasing the sample size, all else equal

A study looking at whether art lessons improve IQ establishes covariance among the variables, temporal precedence, and has ruled out confounds. This study has high...

internal validity

The use of a control group in a treatment effectiveness study can raise ethical concerns based on which principle?

justice

A researcher was interested in how women's hair color affected their self-image. A focus group was conducted, and research assistants recorded the hair color of each individual from behind a two-way mirror. The research assistants largely disagreed about the hair color (for instance, whether someone's hair was red or brown). The measure of hair color has...

low inter-rater reliability

Which of the following is a means of controlling observer bias?

making sure the observer does not know the study's hypotheses

A poll samples n = 200 US adults and estimates that 38% own an Apple product with a margin of error of 7.1% at a 95% confidence level. To reduce the sampling error to 1.4%, how big does the sample need to be?

n = 5000

A _____ relationship indicated that as values on one variable increase, the values on the other variable decrease

negative

You are interested in factors that predict loyalty to sports teams. Which of the following would be an example of purposive sampling strategy?

obtain a directory of season ticket holders of a professional sports team

Each time a hypothesis is not supported by a research study:

our confidence that the hypothesis is correct decreases

A study found that college students who score higher on a measure of "public service motivation" (which includes dimensions such as attraction to policy-making, feelings of compassion, and attitudes about civic duty) are more likely to work for a government agency or nonprofit organization rather than a for-profit business when they graduate. Based on this description, this measure has...

predictive validity

While writing an ethics proposal, a researcher discloses to the IRB that he will be misleading research participants as part of his empirical strategy. The researcher is concerned that his research violates the principle of...

respect of persons

What sampling method? Each law firm in one state registers its phone number with the state court system. An employee of the state court system uses a computer to select 500 random registered phone numbers, and the law firms associated with those numbers will be selected for an audit

simple random sample

What sampling method? Each student at a school has a student identification number. Counselors have a computer generate 50 random identification numbers, and the students associated with those numbers are asked to take a survey.

simple random sampling

_____ refers to the tendency of respondents to provide more socially acceptable answers in the presence of an interviewer

social desirability bias

According to the reading, a theory that can predict 60% of the data is...

statistically deterministic

What sampling method? A student council surveys 100 students by taking random samples of 25 freshmen, 25 sophomores, 25 juniors, and 25 seniors.

stratified random sample

What sampling method? A large company surveys 100 employees by taking samples of 10 managers and 90 non-managerial employees

stratified random sampling

A teacher wanted to try out a new test to measure eighth grade students' knowledge of geometry. The students took the test on Monday and the same test again on Wednesday. Although there were no new geometry lessons that week, the students' scores were much different. Some scored higher the second time, while others scored lower. This method for determining reliability is called...

test-retest reliability

Steve's theorizes that some behaviors are due to one's astrological sign.. What features of good scientific theories is Steve missing?

testability, falsifiability, prediction