Psych Chapter 2 Quiz

A researcher plans to study the relationship between people's smoking behavior and their tendency to have minor physical illnesses (such as colds or the flu). Most likely, he will use correlational research for the study because

It is not practical or ethical to manipulate people's smoking behavior

Sampling bias is a problem because it

Limits the generality of the findings

IQ score, age, weight, grade point average, and income are all examples of

Variables

Suppose researchers find that greater alcohol consumption is associated with poorer performance on a skills test. Which of the following fictitious correlation coefficients could possibly represent that correlation?

-.47

Laura answered a series of written questions that asked about her attitudes and opinions on a number of current issues. The method of data collection that was being used in this case was

A questionnaire

Dr. Marqueta believes that "misery loves company." Based on this belief, Dr. Marqueta predicts that people who have received bad news will seek out other people. Dr. Marqueta's belief is an example of ___, and her prediction is an example of ___.

A theory; an hypothesis

One advantage of naturalistic observation is that it

Allows behavior to be studied in realistic settings

A researcher is measuring the heart rate of subjects as an index of anxiety. In this study, heart rate is

An operational definition of anxiety

A researcher tries to make sure that subjects in the experimental and control groups are very similar to each other in order to protect against

Confounding variables

A researcher is investigating the effects of caffeine consumption on student writing performance. Because the researcher will evaluate both the speed of assignment completion and the number of grammatical errors, her study includes more than one ___.

Dependent variable

Conclusions concerning cause-and-effect relationships are only possible when the ___ method is used.

Experimental

David and Alexandra both take part in a research study that is investigating the effects of sleep deprivation on reaction time. David is kept awake for 24 hours straight while Alexandra follows her normal sleep routine. In this study, David is part of the

Experimental group

An experimenter tests the hypothesis that physical exercise improves mood. Subjects in both the experimental and control groups participate on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. In this experiment, days of the week are...

Extraneous variable

If we view an experiment as an attempt to establish a cause-effect relationship, the ___ variable would be the cause and the ___ variable would be the effect.

Independent; dependent

Publication of research findings is extremely important to the scientific method because (choose the BEST answer):

It allows for critique and self-correction

The FDA found that people who used a particular diet drug combination had more heart valve defects than people who had not taken the diet drug combination. This suggests that the use of the diet drug combination and heart valve defects ar

Positively correlated

Dr. Critell is studying aggression in children and plans to define aggression as the number of times one child pushes or strikes another child. Defining aggression in this way would

Represent an operational definition

Suppose a researcher discovered a +.87 correlation between the length of a person's toes and the number of shoes the person owns. In general, people who own the fewest number of shoes would have

Small toes

One of the disadvantages of the experimental method is (choose the BEST answer)

The artificial, contrived situations in which experiments are often conducted

An experimenter tests the hypothesis that physical exercise improves mood. Subjects in the experimental group participate on Mondays and Tuesdays and those in the control group on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Which is the confounding variable?

The day of the week

Manipulating a variable under carefully controlled conditions and observing the changes in a second variable defines

The experimental approach

Researchers who are studying plant growth raised plants in two separate rooms. One room had taped conversations playing 24 hours a day; the other room was silent. The researchers found that the plants grew better in the room that had the conversations playing. In this study, the type of room (conversation or silence) would be

The independent variable

An experimenter tests the hypothesis that physical exercise improves mood. Subjects in the experimental group participate on Mondays and Tuesdays and those in the control group on Wednesdays and Thursdays. What is the dependent variable.

The mood (degree of happiness)

Dr. Kalmagura plans on introducing a new exam procedure in his chemistry classes. To check the effectiveness of the new procedure, he is going to have half his students try the new technique for one semester while the remaining students review in the way they have always done in the past. He asks each student to decide which of the techniques they would like to use, the new technique or the standard technique. In this example, Dr. Kalmagura's procedure illustrates

The use of non-random assignment

Naturalistic observation, case studies and surveys all have in common that

They do not manipulate the variables under study