Psyc Exam 1 review
______ methods in psychological research are approaches to data-gathering that are tied to actual measurement and observation.
Empirical
Dru is reading about the different types of research. If he reads, "This type of research has the primary advantage of allowing a scientist to determine cause and effect relationships," what kind of research method is he studying?
a laboratory experiment
In correlational research, the strength of the relation between two variables is indicated by
a mathematical score ranging from +1.0 to -1.0
Dr. Magill is conducting research on whether giving monkeys ice cold water in the morning will cause them to be less aggressive during the day. He has several graduate students observing the monkeys and he regularly comments to the students that ice water is "definitely making a difference." As a result, the graduate students are less likely to rate minor aggressive incidents as true aggression. The research in this example has been compromised by ______.
experimental expectations
The most accurate research method of determining whether caffeine supplements improve memory performance is
experimental study
Dr. Tylka is conducting research about the risk of developing eating disorders in adolescent boys. She concludes that her findings apply not only to the sample of high school boys she studied, but to other males in other settings and contexts. In this regard, Dr. Tylka is stating that her findings have high __________ validity.
external
The ability to arrive at broad conclusions based on smaller ones is known as __________. It requires that the sample under investigation be representative of the larger population from which it was drawn.
generalizability
Looking for the best ways to help people monitor and control their blood pressure through behavioral changes would be the concern of psychologists within which sub-field?
health
You want to study the effects of gender on math achievement. However, you know that you cannot randomly assign some people to male and others to be female, so you cannot have a true experiment. In this scenario, what type of research design would you use?
quasi-experiment
Science is described as a cumulative process. This means that:
science builds on prior discoveries.
An example of an operational definition for anxiety is a:
score on an anxiety questionnaire
The development of ___________ has provided a new level of advantage for gathering information from research participants at specific times, often randomly selected, throughout a given day.
smartphones
Personal experience is associated with _______, whereas, scientific method is associated with ________.
opinion; fact
It is important to design research experiments that are associated with real-world situations in order to ________ findings to a larger problem.
Generalize
Dr. Hart is interested in the role of relationships in preventing heart disease. As her patients come into her office in Bluebell, Alabama, she asks them two questions: Are you a in a relationship? Have you experienced any heart problems in the last 8 years? Based on her findings, she concludes that relationships cause cardiovascular (heart) problems. One issue with her methodology is that the results are not generalizable. What does this mean?
Her results may not be true for the entire population.
Taylor walked into the psychology lab and was welcomed by the researcher. The first document given to him by the researcher described the research experiment and what it was to entail, which also required his signature. What was this ethical document?
Informed Consent
_________ refers to the degree to which causal inferences can be made in the study; _________ refers to the degree that the study's findings can be applied to the larger population.
Internal validity, external validity
What type of research highlights causality, allowing the cause to be separated from the effect?
Laboratory experiments
The purpose of ethical guidelines in psychological research is to:
Protect the rights of human and animal subjects
Betty took part in a study where she was told the purpose was to further examine perceptual cognitive processes. Once the study was over, however, the researcher explained to her that the study's real purpose was to assess automatically of stereotypes. This study is an example of research that used _________ in their methods to hide the true nature of the study. And we see that as a result, the researchers fully _________ participants afterwards.
deception; debriefed
The value of random assignment is that it
ensures the equivalence of the experiment and control groups.
A positive correlation between two variables suggests that
high scores on one variable relate to high scores on the second variable.
The hypothesis in a research study is defined as the
idea, or prediction, that can be tested.
In an experiment testing the effect of caffeine on alertness in students with attention deficit disorder, the caffeine is the
independent variable
The degree to which a study allows unambiguous causal inferences has ________.
internal validity
When researchers take special care to include and control for every possible variable, the study is likely to have high _________, even though the results may not generalize to a more realistic situation.
internal validity
If you were to spend some time watching people in the checkout line of a local discount store to see how many read the tabloid newspapers displayed next to the register, you have chosen the _________ research method to answer your question.
naturalistic observation
Evidence reveals a correlation between the number of hours toddlers spend watching television and their level of hyperactivity in later childhood. What does this definitively indicate?
that there is a relationship between television viewing and hyperactivity
In an experiment on the effects of light on reading speed, which of the following is the dependent variable?
the measured reading speed
The main focus of clinical psychology is on which aspect of human behavior?
understanding and treating psychological disorders