Practice Final

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 be threatened by racism, and men of color threatened by sexism, and that these perceptions made participants expect unfair treatment.Which of the following questions assesses the construct validity of this study?

How did the researchers measure expectations of unfair treatment?

In which of the following ways is an institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) different from an institutional review board (IRB)?

IACUCs monitor the care and treatment of animals throughout the study; IRBs do not monitor the care of human participants throughout the study.

Dr. Cyril conducts a simple random sample of 500 men who became fathers for the first time in the past year. He finds that 23% of them report being unsure of their ability to be good fathers, plus or minus 4%. What does this mean?

If the study was done many times, the estimate of father uncertainty would be between 19% and 27%.

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." What is the problem with this question?

It is a leading question.

Why is plagiarism a violation of ethics?

It violates an APA standard.

Which of the following is true of the Belmont Report?

It was written at the request of the U.S. Congress.

Hannah just finished reading an empirical journal article for a class project. Where should she go if she wants to look for a list of the study's hypotheses or research questions?

Last paragraph of the introduction

Martin has found a correlation of r = .18 between the two variables of using prescription stimulants (e.g., Adderall) and frontal lobe activity. This correlation is more likely to be statistically significant if:

Martin used a larger number of subjects.

Which of the following is a necessary component of a longitudinal design?

Measuring the same variables at two points in time

Dr. Tanaka is an educational psychologist interested in students' attitudes toward science and the effect of those attitudes on performance on standardized tests. He chooses his local school district to study. There are 15 high schools, and he randomly chooses five. Then, of the 2,500 students in each of those five schools, he randomly recruits 250 students. This is an example of which of the following sampling techniques?

Multistage sample

For his research methods class, Felipe plans to watch how students treat other children in their classrooms who have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He will evaluate how positively or negatively the children are treated by their classmates. This is an example of what type of measurement?

Observational measurement

Which of the following is a unique threat to construct validity found only in behavioral observation?

Observer bias

The figure above depicts which type of research design?

Pretest/posttest design

Your professor says that researchers do not make ethical decisions alone. What does this mean?

Researchers must consider the opinions of others, including institutional review board (IRB) members and peers.

Angela reads about a study in which cell phone use is associated with migraine headaches. She says, "Well, that study is not valid because I use a cell phone more than anyone I know and I never get migraines." Based on her comment, Angela may be forgetting which of the following?

Science is probabilistic.

RESEARCH STUDY 2.1: Charlotte is studying subliminal messages and weight loss. She is curious whether people will lose more weight if they hear subliminal messages that encourage weight loss ("don't eat that food," "you want to be thin," etc.) in the music on their iPods compared to people who do not have subliminal messages in their music. She studies 40 people and finds the following results: Number Number who Who Lost did not lose Weight. weight Exposed (Cell A) (Cell C) to 15 5 Subliminal people. people Messages Not Exposed (Cell B). (Cell D) to Subliminal 10. 10 Messages. people. people. To understand whether the subliminal messages have an effect, Charlotte needs to consider which of the following cells in the chart?

She must consider all of the cells.

The phrase "especially for" would be used to describe which of the following results?

Spreading interactions

A study finds a correlation coefficient of r = .52. This number gives you information about which of the following?

Strength and direction of the relationship

RESEARCH STUDY 13.1: Dr. Fletcher is interested in whether joining a fraternity/sorority causes people to become more concerned about their attractiveness and appearance. He recruits a group of 55 freshmen (25 males, 30 females) who are planning to go through fraternity/sorority recruitment on his campus. After they join, he gives them a measure of attractiveness concern/appearance concern (the Body Concern Scale).Which of the following would Dr. Fletcher need to do to his current study design to make it an interrupted time-series design?

Take measurements of body concern before and after joining a fraternity/sorority

RESEARCH STUDY 13.1: Dr. Fletcher is interested in whether joining a fraternity/sorority causes people to become more concerned about their attractiveness and appearance. He recruits a group of 55 freshmen (25 males, 30 females) who are planning to go through fraternity/sorority recruitment on his campus. After they join, he gives them a measure of attractiveness concern/appearance concern (the Body Concern Scale).In addition to measuring the Body Concern of the participants who joined a fraternity/sorority both immediately before and immediately after they join, Dr. Fletcher measures them for the 3 weeks before and the 3 weeks after. This type of design would be able to better address which of the following threats to internal validity?

Testing

Which of the following is a disadvantage of using open-ended questions?

The answers must be coded.

A study finds a correlation coefficient of r = .52 and reports p < .05. The p value indicates which of the following?

The correlation is unlikely to have come from a zero association population.

You read an article that states, "How well you remember different types of information depends on the context in which you learned them." Based on this information, what else is true about this study?

The influence of context on memory depends on the type of information presented.

Dr. Cyril conducts a simple random sample of 500 men who became fathers for the first time in the past year. He finds that 23% of them report being unsure of their ability to be good fathers, plus or minus 4%. If Dr. Cyril increased his sample size to 1,000, which of the following would happen?

The margin of error would become smaller.

While reading about a research study, which of the following would tell you that an association claim is being made?

The measurement of two variables

Dr. Sanderson is curious as to whether exposing people to violent video games causes them to be more aggressive. She assigns half her participants to play a violent video game for 5 minutes and the other half to play the same game for 25 minutes. Afterward, she has them play a board game and has a well-trained coder determine whether they are very aggressive in their playing style, barely aggressive, or not at all aggressive. She finds that a vast majority of her participants, regardless of group assignment, are rated as very aggressive. This outcome would be known as a(n):

ceiling effect.

If a person is asking whether the variables in an association claim are measured appropriately, _________ is being interrogated.

construct validity

Which of the following can direct replication studies change?

The participants

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 definitions.

The pattern and parsimony approach to causation is a good example of which cycle in research?

Theory-data cycle

Neely is examining the graph of an interaction and sees that one line is flat and one line rises sharply to the right. Which of the following should Neely conclude?

There is a spreading interaction.

Why would a researcher interested in making a causal claim NOT do an experiment?

There may be ethical limitations of manipulating a variable.

Dr. Smitherman conducted a study 5 years ago, and his graduate student now recommends that they conduct the study again to see if the effect still occurs. Dr. Smitherman says, "No, I cannot do that study now; I think it is unethical." Which of the following is NOT a reasonable explanation for Dr. Smitherman's response?

There were no ethical guidelines 5 years ago, but there are now.

Which of the following is NOT true of finding a stronger effect size in an association claim?

There will be greater construct validity.

What are the two main reasons to conduct a factorial study?

To test limits and to test theories

Dr. Whetstone is curious about how self-esteem changes as a result of a new counseling program. She is concerned about testing threats in her study. Which of the following would you recommend to her as a way to address this type of threat?

Using a different measure of self-esteem at pretest than at posttest

Dr. Paul is concerned about a fence-sitting response set when he conducts his survey. Which of the following might you recommend to decrease fence sitting?

Using scales with an even number of response options

Using a matched-group design is especially important in which of the following cases?

When you have only a few people in your study

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 be threatened by racism, and men of color threatened by sexism, and that these perceptions made participants expect unfair treatment.The results of this study can be generalized to which of the following groups?

White women and African American men

Your friend Dominic is complaining about having to take the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), a test that is required to go to graduate school and is similar to the ACT and SAT. He complains, "Tests like the GRE don't really measure how well people actually do in graduate school." Dominic is questioning the ______________ of the test.

criterion validity

When conducting longitudinal research, researchers typically find _________ to be the most interesting.

cross-lag correlations

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, estrogen levels in participants were the ____________.

data

Dr. Gore is conducting a survey examining people's opinions toward funding for collegiate athletics on his campus. He notices that several participants agree with all 12 questions. This could be an example of all of the following EXCEPT:

fence sitting.

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

RESEARCH STUDY 13.1: Dr. Fletcher is interested in whether joining a fraternity/sorority causes people to become more concerned about their attractiveness and appearance. He recruits a group of 55 freshmen (25 males, 30 females) who are planning to go through fraternity/sorority recruitment on his campus. After they join, he gives them a measure of attractiveness concern/appearance concern (the Body Concern Scale).In addition to measuring the Body Concern of the participants who joined a fraternity/sorority both immediately before and immediately after they join, Dr. Fletcher measures them for the 3 weeks before and the 3 weeks after. This type of design is known as a(n):

interrupted time-series design.

RESEARCH STUDY 13.1: Dr. Fletcher is interested in whether joining a fraternity/sorority causes people to become more concerned about their attractiveness and appearance. He recruits a group of 55 freshmen (25 males, 30 females) who are planning to go through fraternity/sorority recruitment on his campus. After they join, he gives them a measure of attractiveness concern/appearance concern (the Body Concern Scale).In addition to measuring the group of participants who joined a fraternity/sorority, Dr. Fletcher decides to give the same measure to another group of 55 participants who decided to not join a fraternity/sorority. This type of design is known as a(n):

nonequivalent control group design.

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 be threatened by racism, and men of color threatened by sexism, and that these perceptions made participants expect unfair treatment.In this study, ________ is a conceptual definition of one of their primary variables.

perceived prejudiced attitudes

Which of the following phrases 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."

Which popular media headline might suggest that a multiple regression has been used?

"Vacations are important for happiness, even when length of vacation is controlled for."

Dr. Green is interested in conducting a 2 x 2 x 3 within-group factorial design, with 20 participants in each cell. How many participants does she need overall?

20

RESEARCH STUDY 2.1: Charlotte is studying subliminal messages and weight loss. She is curious whether people will lose more weight if they hear subliminal messages that encourage weight loss ("don't eat that food," "you want to be thin," etc.) in the music on their iPods compared to people who do not have subliminal messages in their music. She studies 40 people and finds the following results: Number Number who Who Lost did not lose Weight. weight Exposed (Cell A) (Cell C) to 15 5 Subliminal people. people Messages Not Exposed (Cell B). (Cell D) to Subliminal 10. 10 Messages. people. people. A change to which of the following cells will result in a different interpretation of the results of subliminal messages?

A change in any cell will result in a different interpretation.

Which of the following studies would probably require written informed consent?

A confidential study examining income level and voting behavior

Todd is studying the effect of popularity on academic success for his research methods project. He decides to measure popularity by asking each elementary school student to tell him how many friends he or she has. He assumes that more friends means the student is more popular. Which of the following best describes this variable?

A ratio scale of measurement

A cultural psychologist would be most interested in which of the following sets of participants?

A sample of Taiwanese grandparents

Which of the following types of study support external validity?

A study that adds a new independent variable

Dr. Morimoto is curious as to whether exposing people to violent video games causes them to be more aggressive. He assigns half his participants to play a video game for 5 minutes and the other half to play for 7 minutes. He finds that there is no relationship between playing the game longer and being more aggressive. What might be to blame for this null effect?

A weak manipulation

Dr. Merrick designs a study comparing the effects of mindfulness training to cognitive training on flexible thinking. In designing this study, what would be an appropriate manipulation check?

Adding a third group that receives flexibility training

Which of the following is true of multiple regression?

Adding more predictors means research is controlling for more variables.

In order to use the known groups paradigm to establish criterion validity, which of the following is necessary?

After testing, the groups should have significantly different scores on the measure.

Dr. Anderson conducted a study investigating whether exercising immediately before an exam boosted cognitive abilities. She randomly assigned participants to either do jumping jacks or count to 60 before giving them a geometry test. She did not find any differences between groups but believes there may have been a ceiling effect. What might be a clue that this was the case?

All participants' scores are centered around 100% correct.

Your friend Alanna says that when examining validity, you always want to see positive correlations. Why is she wrong?

Both the strength and the direction of a correlation matter when examining validity.

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.Dr. White publishes her findings in a scientific journal. Who is most likely to read her article?

Clinical researchers

RESEARCH STUDY 13.1: Dr. Fletcher is interested in whether joining a fraternity/sorority causes people to become more concerned about their attractiveness and appearance. He recruits a group of 55 freshmen (25 males, 30 females) who are planning to go through fraternity/sorority recruitment on his campus. After they join, he gives them a measure of attractiveness concern/appearance concern (the Body Concern Scale).Suppose Dr. Fletcher was concerned that students who choose to join fraternities/sororities are more concerned with their appearance overall. How could he test whether this type of selection threat exists?

Compare baseline levels of appearance concerns in fraternity/sorority students versus the average college student.

Dr. Alfonse, a developmental psychologist, conducts a study to determine whether children prefer books with drawn illustrations or with photographs. A group of 30 preschoolers are shown two copies of a book (Ferdinand the Bull) at the same time. Although the story is the same, one book is illustrated with drawings and the other is illustrated with photos. Students are then asked to indicate which book they prefer. This is an example of which of the following designs?

Concurrent-measures design

In a previous correlational study, Dr. Lafayette has found that owning dogs is associated with lower levels of daily stress in a sample of returning war veterans. Which of the following would constitute a shift from theory-testing mode to generalization mode?

Conducting a study on dog ownership using a sample of elderly participants from a local retirement home

Dr. Fern recently collected data for a study examining whether an intervention targeting coping strategies can reduce depression. After analyzing the results, she finds no effect of her intervention on depression symptoms. Which of the following would you recommend she do next?

Contact journal editors to see if they will publish null results.

Which of the following is NOT an example of a probability sample?

Convenience sample

Dr. Gong conducts a study where she randomly assigns participants to different experimental conditions. The testing for each condition occurs in a different room of the psychology building. After collecting her data, she learns that the air conditioning in one of the rooms had been turned off during data collection. Which of the following threats to internal validity should Dr. Gong be concerned with?

Design confound

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.What should Dr. White do next?

Evaluate the ways in which her study differed from previous studies that supported this theory

Why might a researcher choose purposive sampling over systematic sampling?

External validity is not vital to the researcher's study.

In the case of a factorial design, another term for independent variable is:

Factor

Tim tells you that the best way to make friends is by opening the conversation with a joke. He can easily recall all the friends he met by telling a joke and also the times he opened with chitchat and didn't befriend the person. If you were concerned that Tim was making the blind spot bias, what would you ask him?

Have you tested this conclusion systematically?

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.

Stefan wants to make a causal claim in his dissertation. Which of the following is necessary?

He must conduct an experiment.

For his research methods class project, Hiro is studying the effect of pet ownership on stress levels. Although a lot of research has been done on dog and cat owners, not much is known about other pets, so Hiro decides to study bird owners. Which of the following would demonstrate a purposive sampling technique?

He recruits bird owners by e-mailing members of the National Bird Owners Association and asking for participants.

Dr. Kline, an environmental psychologist, conducts a study to examine whether visiting zoos causes people to have more positive attitudes toward environmental conservation. He asks a group of 45 people attending the zoo on a Saturday morning about their attitudes. He finds that 69% of the people report having a positive attitude after their visit. Which of the following is true?

His study does not qualify as an experiment.

Dr. Ellison finds a relation between amount of sleep and problem solving. Specifically, having a higher amount of sleep the night before an exam is associated with higher scores on two measures of problem solving. This is an example of which type of association?

positive association

James is asked about the best way to study for an exam. He responds that the best way to study is by making flash cards. He easily thinks of all the times he used flash cards and he made As. However, he fails to take into consideration all the times he made As and did not use flash cards and the times he used flash cards and did not do well. His faulty thinking is an example of:

present/present bias.

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.Another depression researcher reads Dr. White's findings. This new researcher is LEAST likely to:

reject the theory of what causes depression.

RESEARCH STUDY 13.1: Dr. Fletcher is interested in whether joining a fraternity/sorority causes people to become more concerned about their attractiveness and appearance. He recruits a group of 55 freshmen (25 males, 30 females) who are planning to go through fraternity/sorority recruitment on his campus. After they join, he gives them a measure of attractiveness concern/appearance concern (the Body Concern Scale).In addition to measuring the group of participants who joined a fraternity/sorority, Dr. Fletcher decides to give the same measure to another group of 55 participants who decided to not join a fraternity/sorority. After conducting the study, Dr. Fletcher finds out that the people who joined a fraternity/sorority all saw a documentary on body image sponsored by the InterGreek Council the night before recruitment began. This threat to internal validity is known as a:

selection-history threat.

A threat to internal validity occurs only if a potential design confound varies _________with the independent variable.

systematically

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 factors influencing the results that haven't yet been examined that contributed to the results of studies on this topic.

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 be threatened by racism, and men of color threatened by sexism, and that these perceptions made participants expect unfair treatment.In this study, the article's headline is ________ because ________.

unjustified; the researcher did not study all groups of individuals who are sexist or racist

In a conceptual replication, the _________ are the same, but the _________ is/are different from the original study.

variables; operationalization