Research Methods Final Quiz
The "practice of relying on direct observation" is known as empiricism. When we engage in repeated, planned, and structured observations so that the observations tell us whether a hypothesis is supported or not, we are making the process of observation...
systematic.
As noted before, Dr. Friedman is interested in whether young women in warm-weathered Texas experience report higher mean levels of body image satisfaction than do young women in the near-tundra of Wisconsin. Dr. Friedman should conduct ...
t-test
When two variables appear to be correlated, but in actuality they only look correlated because each of them is linked with other variables, we have what is known as a ______________.
spurious correlation
When April starts talking p values, she is talking about __________; when she starts talking about how "big" or strong an association is, she is talking about __________.
statistical significance; effect size
Faking good is also known as
socially desirable responding.
Spontaneous remission in clinical studies is an example of which of the following threats to internal validity?
Maturation
What are three thoughts that run through your head when you take your first bite of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? (with space to respond provided)
Open-ended response
What type of claim is Issa making?
causal
Which of the following is a frequency claim?
"A majority of Americans like dogs."
Your friend Gaby loves reading articles about psychology studies in her monthly women's magazine. Which of the following would you tell her?
"Be careful about reading those articles because they may not present findings accurately."
Which of the following questions is most likely to result in a socially desirable answer?
"How often do you sext?"
Which of the following is a good reason a researcher may give for using observational methods as opposed to self-report methods?
"I want to measure something that people may not know how often they do it."
Which of the following is an association claim?
"Owning a dog is related to higher life satisfaction."
My friend got the flu shot but then ended up getting a bad case of the flu. She was mad and said she'd never get the flu shot again. Which of the following is a scientific response I should consider giving her?
"You know, I think the idea behind the flu shot is that people who get the flu shot are just less likely to get the flu than are people who don't get the flu shot."
Which of the following is NOT causal?
"is at higher risk of"
Which of the following is true of the distinction between scientific journals and popular magazines?
. Scientific journal articles are peer-reviewed; popular magazine articles are not.
A Type I error is known as which of the following?
. a false positive
In Dr. Win's experiment, how many women will take an oil that they think is Javva Oil, but actually is just a useless substance?
20
In Dr. Win's experiment, how many women will take no oil at all?
20
If rxy = .2, that means that __ % of the variance in y is accounted for by variance in x (and vice versa).
4
Which of the following is Dr. Ewell likely to give his research assistants to prevent observer bias?
A codebook
What key element is lacking in this study?
A comparison group
Deci and Ryan (1985, 2001) have proposed that there are three fundamental needs that 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's prediction that students who have all three needs met will experience greater satisfaction with their psychology class is an example of which of the following?
A hypothesis
Before using the measure in her study, Dr. Rodriquez gives the measure to a group of participants on the first day of the semester and again on the last day of the semester. Dr. Rodriquez is examining the scatterplot of the data she collected on the first day of the semester and the last day of the semester. On the scatterplot, she sees that the dots are very close to forming a diagonal line. This indicates which of the following?
A strong relationship
When using correlation coefficients to evaluate reliability, which of the following is desirable?
A strong, positive correlation coefficient
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
Which of the following is necessary for a sample to be considered representative?
All members of the population have an equal chance of being included in the sample.
Salma conducts a study and finds that her data do not completely support her theory. Which of the following statements should she say?
All of the above
Susan's hypothesis was not completely supported by her data. What does this mean?
All of the above are possible.
Naomi is studying how popularity relates to academic success for her research methods project. To do this, she has elementary school students rate how popular each member of their class is. She then uses this information to rank the students on popularity (e.g., John is the most popular, Vanessa is the second-most popular). Which of the following best describes this variable?
An ordinal scale of measurement
Which of the following is correct?
As far as we know, a measure that is valid is also certain to be reliable.
Sasha believes that she is a nice person. To confirm this, she asks all her friends whether she is a nice person; they all agree that she is. Sasha concludes that she is a nice person and says she has evidence of it. Sasha would likely draw a different conclusion if she did which of the following?
Asked her enemies if she was a nice person
What bias was Dan Ariely highlighting when he showed his visual illusion with the height and width of the two tables?
Bias blind spot
Which of the following "headlines" uses causal language?
Binge drinking negatively affects UWEC students' academic performance.
When reading an empirical journal article "with a purpose," why should you read the abstract first?
Because it provides an overview of the article
Why do researchers use probability sampling whenever they can, especially if they are testing a frequency claim?
Because it raises the likelihood of obtaining a representative sample.
A researcher wants to know what people really do, not what they think they do. Which method would you advise him to use?
Behavioral observations
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 what has Dr. Kramer done?
Collected a census
Which of the following "headlines" uses causal language?
Catholic schooling boosts students' achievement.
What kind of claim is made in both the newspaper article title AND the story itself?
Causal claim
What type of claim is being made in the headline?
Causal claim
More Review! Yesterday a job candidate was in town. He talked of studies showing a positive correlation between parental involvement in their children's education and children's success at school. Given that the variables in these studies are measured (parental involvement is not manipulated), which of the following is an appropriate claim that could be made on the basis of the studies the job candidate describes?
Children whose parents are involved in their education tend to do well in school.
The link between a Catholic education and academic achievement might be explained, at least in part, by a third variable. What is another technical term for a third variable/"z" variable?
Confound
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. Dr. Sheffield gives his measure to his supervisor, who is also an expert in pathological gambling. His supervisor says that his measure appears to test all the components of pathological gambling, including feeling restless when attempting to stop gambling, jeopardizing jobs in order to keep gambling, and using gambling to escape from problems and a bad mood. Based on this information, Dr. Sheffield thinks his measure has ...
Content validity
Of the following options, which is the most common sampling technique in behavioral research?
Convenience sampling
April developed a new measure of happiness, and called it the Happiness Inventory (HI). To demonstrate the validity of it, she showed that people who scored high on it also scored high on Diener's Life Satisfaction Inventory (a commonly used measure of happiness). This is an example of:
Convergent validity
Coach JoDee talks to the coach at UW-LaCrosse, who claims to have published data on the soccer test he uses. He says his test is quite good. But Coach JoDee likes her own test - it is much shorter. Coach JoDee demonstrates that how the women do on her soccer test is highly correlated with how they do on the UW-LaCrosse soccer test. Coach JoDee has demonstrated that her soccer test has ____________ (and now she should use her test, not the other coach's test).
Convergent validity
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
If what we know as "athleticism" is one's athletic ability, then individuals' scores on a test of "athleticism" should predict how much time it takes them to learn new sport skills and the level of performance they obtain after a specified amount of training. This is an example of:
Criterion validity
To demonstrate that his new measure of achievement motivation is valid, Professor T shows that individuals' scores on his new measure of achievement motivation correlate positively with their college GPA 10 years later. This is an example of:
Criterion validity
A measure that does NOT correlate with other measures that it shouldn't correlate with is showing:
Discriminant validity
If what we know as "intelligence" is one's mental ability, then individuals' scores on a typical intelligence test should not be good predictors of these same individuals' scores on a test of physical ability. This is an example of:
Discriminant validity
Based on this study, Dr. Kang can make which of the following claims?
Emotion enhances memory.
Dr. White reads about a new theory that states that depression is caused by increased levels of estrogen in the womb. Multiple studies have already offered support for the theory. Dr. White wants to test it as well, so she conducts 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 finds 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.
Len is interested in testing the hypothesis that the age at which children learn to lie is negatively associated with how many older siblings they have. Given what you have learned, why will Len choose nonprobability sampling over probability sampling?
External validity is not vital to Len's study.
Dr. Rodriquez is concerned about the validity of the measure of narcissism recommended by her colleague. She sends a copy of the measure to the faculty members in her psychology department to look at, and they tell her that, sure, it seems like a reasonable measure of narcissism. She now has evidence of which of the following?
Face validity
Which of the following best describes you? Choose one: I really like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. OR I really don't like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Forced response
Having a representative sample is most important in which of the following example claims?
Forty-three percent of psychology majors report being frustrated by people asking them if they are psychoanalyzing them."
"According to a new Gallup report, which surveyed more than 323,500 American adults, a majority of working moms with kids under age 18 said they would prefer to stay at home and take care of their house and family. Among moms employed full- or part-time, 54% said they would prefer to stay home. Only 40% said they prefer to work outside the home." What type of claim is being made?
Frequency claim
What can Jax have Dr. Win implement in her study to address this threat?
He can have her make sure she doesn't know which women are in which condition.
You and your friends go to see a speaker on campus. The speaker, Dr. Darian, is an "expert" on getting into graduate school. Which of the following should make you less skeptical about his advice?
His recommendations are based on systematic comparisons of students who got into graduate school with students who did not get into graduate school.
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.
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.
Elliott is double majoring in English and psychology. He plans on being a high school English teacher and is only majoring in psychology because he finds the classes interesting. Which of the following is an important reason for him to be a good consumer of research?
He will probably want to read research for knowledge that could help him enhance his teaching.
Dr. Ewell is concerned that the children will behave differently because of the presence of research assistants. Which of the following could he do to address this concern?
Hide a video camera in the daycare center and record the children playing without them knowing
Unobtrusive observation is done to counteract which of the following?
Observer effects
People assume a lot of things, just based on their personal experiences and emotions. For example, they assume that video games are all bad, that low self-esteem causes bullying, that Vitamin Water fends off colds, and so on. Which of the following is true, if you are a scientist?
How people feel about any of these ideas really says nothing about whether or not the ideas are actually valid.
When you are interrogating the external validity of a sample, which is the most important question to ask?
How was the sample collected?
Dr. Gonzalez is a peer reviewer for a manuscript submitted to a journal. He is likely to provide comments on which of the following?
How well the research was conducted
Dr. Cyril conducts a simple random sample of 500 men who became fathers for the first time in the past year. He find 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%.
Jax tells Dr. Win about his concern about power and sample size. Dr. Win doesn't have more participants, but she does have 12 weeks to study these participants. She decides on a new design, this one with two levels/conditions. She is going put her 60 participants together in one group and then test their hair and skin when they think they are taking Javva Oil and then again when they are actually taking Javva Oil.
Independent groups pretest/post-test desig
Consistency among judges who are observing and recording participants' behavior is known as:
Inter-rater reliability
Before using the measure in her study, Dr. Rodriquez analyzes the data she gets from her students. She looks at the relationship between each of the individual questions. She wants to know if participants who agree with Question 1 also agree with Question 2 and Question 3. This is a test of which of the following?
Internal reliability
Recall from last week that Coach JoDee has the women's soccer team complete a little soccer test -- a series of 10 timed physical activities involving the various skills used in soccer (e.g., juggling, passing, shooting, heading). In other words, her soccer "test" includes 10 items. Coach has found that girls who do well on one skill tend to do well on each of the other skills. What concept is relevant here?
Internal reliability
In what way does high within-groups variance obscure between-groups variance?
It causes more overlap between the experimental and comparison groups.
Which of the following is the reason that scientific journals use peer review?
It helps ensure that the studies published are of high quality.
Which of the following is true of probability sampling?
It is the best way to obtain a representative sample.
Both James and Thomas have theories that explain why listening to classical music while reading is associated with increased recall of the material. James' theory is much simpler than Thomas'. Thomas created his theory a few months before James did. According to the logic of Occam's Razor, which of the following is true?
James' theory would be considered better because it is more parsimonious.
Using a 10-point scale in which 1 = hate and 10 = love, rate how much you like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Likert-type/semantic differential rating scale
What type of study is this?
One-group pretest/post-test design
What are three things you should attend to when deciding whether a trade book is likely to be a credible source of information? Explain each one.
Looking at the references, do they have any references, and are those references reliable, look up the references they use and the authors of those references. Flipping through the book and looking if there are actual experiments or research being done. Is there bias? Is it being compared to anything? Research the author's name and see if they're credible. Are they cited in any other reliable sources? Do they have a Ph.D. or what kind of educational background do they have? Are they an expert on this subject?
Which of the following is true?
Most people who are depressed go on to die by suicide. Many people who do suffer from mental health issues report that they experienced trauma or abuse in the past
Which of the following "headlines" uses causal language?
Music lessons improve kids' brain development.
On the basis of the findings as described in the article, is Father Philip's statement justified?
No
Dr. Win's graduate student, Jax, is skeptical about the powers of Javva Oil and is worried that Dr. Win is too much in love with it to conduct a nonbiased study. In particular, he is concerned that Dr. Win is going to "see" change in her participants' hair and skin when she expects to see it but not see change when she expects to NOT see it. What is this internal validity threat called?
Observer bias
So, Dr. Win decides that half of the women will take the placebo oil for several weeks and then the real Javva Oil for several weeks; and the other half of the women will undergo the conditions in reverse order. This is known as..
Partial (incomplete) counterbalancing
What is a possible third variable (confound), that could account for both MORE Snapchat use and LESS happiness? Explain the variable you come up with.
Perhaps people who are having family or relationship issues are both Unhappy AND spend more time on Snapchat (use Snap as an escape).
Is the association between achievement and receiving a Catholic education positive or negative
Positive
When two variables go together more often than not, but not in all cases, we call it a generalization or a...
Probabilistic trend
UWEC is interested in how their recent graduates are faring in the job market. They send their employment information survey to a random sample of the 2007 graduates, a random sample of the 2008 graduates, and so on through the 2017 graduates. What type of sampling are they using?
Probability sampling
What should Dr. Win do to increase the likelihood that her groups are equivalent, on average, prior to undergoing one of the three treatment conditions?
Randomly assign them to condition
Imagine that in Dr. Schulenberg's study, he notes that all of the students ace the midterm exam. When he looks at the results of the final exam, he notices that all the students' exam scores went down. Given this information, which of the following threats might be present in his study?
Regression
Which of the following is true of question wording?
Researchers may alter the wording of a question to determine if wording has an effect on how people respond.
Nalee 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, Nalee may be forgetting which of the following?
Science is probabilistic.
In terms of their samples, online surveys commonly suffer from...
Self-selection
Taylor has struggled with dry, flaking skin and brittle hair for years. Her hair stylist tells her that she experienced similar issues and resolved them using Javva Oil. Taylor's stylist says that the product made her hair strong and shiny and her skin baby soft. Taylor looks at her stylist's beautiful face and hair and decides to give Javva Oil a try.
She is swayed by a good story. We don't even know this product actually "worked" for her stylist; she is just swayed by the story and the fact that her stylist is pretty. She is also being swayed by a supposed "authority" on beauty supplies. Taylor's skin and hair could have improved naturally, if it actually did. (Confounds). She can't know bc she wasn't measuring her hair and skin having NOT used the oil (counterfactual). Plus, when she looks at her hair and skin, she will see what she wants to see and expects to see, given how she feels about the oil and her belief in its wonderful powers (Confirmation bias).
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
Oversampling is a variant used in which of the following sampling techniques?
Stratified random sampling
UWEC is interested in how their 2007 graduates are faring in the job market. They send their employment information survey to a random sample of the arts and humanities graduates, to a random sample of the professional school graduates, and to a random sample of the social sciences and natural sciences graduates. What type of sampling are they using
Stratified random sampling
April has asked her students to tell her two things: (1) how often they attend class and (2) their cumulative GPA. She finds a statistically significant positive association between these two measured variables. Which of the following is a valid inference
Students who attend class frequently have higher GPAs than do students who do not attend class frequently.
Researchers recently found that individuals' scores on Diener's Life Satisfaction Inventory (DLSI) at age 18 correlated very highly with these same individuals' scores on the DLSI at age 28. This is an example of:
Test-retest reliability
Which of the following is a causal claim?
Texting while driving reduces impulse control.
Rachel was in a car accident and as a result has been suffering from intense pain in her back and neck. Her physical therapy sessions do not seem to be helping, and she is growing increasingly frustrated with her pain. Rachel's yoga instructor recommends that Rachel try Radiant Energy Therapy. He tells Rachel that the therapist won't even need to touch her, but that the therapist will be able to relieve Rachel's pain and emotional distress by radiating her healing energy towards Rachel's biofield. Rachel thinks the energy therapy sounds wonderful. Hopeful, she decides to try the treatment. During her first session, she and the therapist chat as Rachel slowly begins to relax on the table. As the therapist's hands hover just above her back and neck, Rachel immediately feels her pain lift and be replaced by a warm, calming sense of healing energy, just like the therapist said she would.
The Radiant Energy Therapy or therapist isn't truly doing anything, besides hovering their hands over her body. Since Rachel wants to feel better she is going to agree with whatever causes her to do so. Rachel is using confirmation bias in this scenario because the therapist isn't actually doing anything and is implementing a placebo effect that makes Rachel's pain go away.
Javier wants his lab partner to tell him if he thinks the article he found for their project is appropriate. Rather than have him read the article, which two parts of the paper could Javier have his lab partner read to get a summary of the article?
The abstract and the first paragraph of the discussion
Which of the following is true regarding interrogating frequency claims?
The chief concern is to evaluate the sampling technique.
Benjamin is a social psychologist who studies marriage. He believes that marital satisfaction has two components: the ability to trust one's partner and a belief that one can be a good spouse. He conducts a study to test his ideas. Assuming that his data match his theory, which of the following statements should he make?
The data provide support for my theory."
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 decrease.
Third, did the researchers avoid internal validity problems (alternative explanations for the association) by conducting an experiment? Answer yes or no and then explain.
The researchers only MEASURED snapchat use (the presumed causal variable here); they did not MANIPULATE it by randomly assigning people to different amounts of Snap use and then following them to see if there are changes in happiness. With no manipulated variable, there is no true experiment.
Two researchers tell you they study the same thing. However, when you look at their research papers, they do not use similar methods or measurements. How is this possible?
The researchers probably have similar conceptual definitions but different operational definitions.
Which of the following is a reason that a study might yield a null result?
There is too much within-group variance
Only some of the women at the Beauty Academy agreed to participate. Why does that suggest that selection bias is a threat to the conclusion that Javva Oil is effective?
These particular women might be extra invested in taking good care of their hair and skin.
As demonstrated by the previous question, which of the following is true about ceiling and floor effects?
They can be caused by poorly operationalized dependent variables.
Suppose I give my sample of 50 patients a new drug that I tell them will help with their test anxiety. The majority of my participants report a reduction in test anxiety and their test performance is better! I write up my results, claiming that the new drug is helpful for alleviating test anxiety, and submit my manuscript for publication. Alas, the paper is rejected. Why? Explain why my paper has been rejected and describe how the editor would tell me to re-design my study.
They have been TOLD the drug will help, so there is a placebo effect (expectancy effect) operating: the students may feel less anxiety because they expect to feel less anxiety and because they have faith in the drug. There should be 50 more participants, and I should randomly assign half to get the drug and half of them to get a fake drug (a sugar pill of sorts). If those on the real drug actually do better than those on the fake drug, I will have evidence the drug is useful.
Why are double-barreled questions problematic?
They may have poor construct validity.
How do reverse-worded items address concerns about nay-saying and acquiescence?
They slow down readers, making them answer more carefully.
Which of the following is a reason that psychological scientists publish their research in scientific journals?
To have their results reviewed by other psychologists
Her association is positive and her effect size, in terms of variance accounted for, is .28 (28%). This is a __________ effect.
strong
What can researchers do to reduce the risk of measurement error?
Use measures that are reliable and valid
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?
Use scales with an even number of response options
What effect size should she report?
V
Which of the following is a problem presented by the availability heuristic?
We do not examine all the evidence, only what we can quickly think of.
Second, do we know that there is temporal precedence? Answer yes or no and then explain.
We do not know. Because participants reported both their Snapchat use and their happiness level at the same general point in time, we don't know if they were unhappy BEFORE they began using Snapchat, or if the Snapchat use happened and THEN a change in happiness occurred.
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 present/present bias, what would you ask him
What about the times you opened with a joke and didn't become friends with the person?
In which of the following scenarios should you be skeptical of an authority?
When they suggest that their personal experience with the issue makes them an expert
Hosea is studying the relationship between caffeine consumption and problem-solving ability. Which of the following is a categorical way to operationalize caffeine consumption?
Whether or not the participant drank a caffeinated beverage in the 24 hours prior to the study
First, is there covariance between the two variables? That is, have the researchers documented an association? Answer yes or no and then explain.
Yes, because the more they use Snapchat, the less happy the students feel.
Of the four validities (recall Chapter 3!), which validities are most in jeopardy here? State at least two validities, for each one, correctly explain why it is in jeopardy.
Your Answer: External Validity: The study was done on rats, not humans, thus this study cannot be generalized to the human population and external validity is in jeopardy. Out of the four validities, internal validity is in the most jeopardy because we need to interrogate causal claims. Do A and B covary? Temporal precedence? Do we eliminate alternative explanations? An alternative explanation could be is because the study was done on rats, not humans.
Likert-type rating scales (such as scales that go from extremely dissatisfied to extremely satisfied), if they are well-designed with a neutral place in the middle, are generally considered to be on the ________ scale of measurement because we assume that the intervals between the numbers _________.
interval; are perceived as equal
Dr. Sandy is curious, too, 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 rate 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 ceiling effect
Dr. Schulenberg's study is an example of...
a double-blind study
Dr. Bloedorn is a health psychologist who studies 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 bomb 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 bomb calorimeter). Imagine that Dr. Bloedorn finds no difference between the calories consumed with the drink additive and without. This is known as:
a null effect
In science, the word "theory" means:
a principle or set of principles used to explain a body of data and generate new hypotheses
"Men tend to devote more effort than women do to short-term mating. But the link is not perfect. I cannot predict any given male's short-term mating effort with 100% accuracy; I can only give a relative likelihood compared to women." These sentences describe
a probabilistic trend
More Review! Suppose April documents a positive association (e.g., r = .3) between students' number of same-sex friends and students' number of opposite-sex friends. A female colleague says, "I don't believe it. I get along far better with guys than with girls. I have lots of guy friends and no woman friends." April reminds her colleague that the association is, after all, _____________.
a probabilistic trend
Researchers have found that men are more likely than women to engage in risky behaviors (ranging from sky diving and mountain climbing, to trading high-value stocks). Because this group difference is _____________ , there will be plenty of men who do not engage in risky behaviors and plenty of women who do engage in risky behaviors.
a probabilistic trend
What graph should she use to display her association?
a scatter plot
What graph should she use to display her association?
a stacked bar graph
Researchers have found that ACT scores predict Freshman GPA in college. Because this association is a probabilistic trend, there will still be...
a. people who score poorly on the ACT but do well their freshman year in college. b. people who score well on the ACT but do poorly their freshman year in college
If we were to interrogate this as a causal claim, which of the three criteria is missing?
addressing the possibility of confounds by manipulation of the "cause"
Which of the following criteria must be met to conclude that one variable causes another?
all of the above
Suppose you are discussing your roommate's recent breakup. She thinks the relationship dissolution was a product of her relentless jealousy. This explanation pulls at your emotions. However, you ask her: "Have you been in a relationship with someone else just like him/her, with whom everything else was the same except that you weren't jealous?" What are you doing by asking her this
asking her to consider the hypothetical counterfactual
Which of the following statements is an operational definition of "fear of snakes" that could be assessed as a structured question?
asking, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how afraid of snakes are you?"
Dr. LaSalle makes the claim: "Research shows that people with higher salaries also tend to spend less time with their family members." Which type of claim is Dr. LaSalle making?
association claim
What type of claim is being made in the newspaper article?
association claim
Check the two pairs that are correctly matched.
b. random assignment—internal validity Correct! c. random sampling—external validity
Research articles that use terms such as "unbiased sample," "random samples," or "representative sample" allow for readers to ....
be confident in a study's external validity
Why should Anton NOT interrogate the internal validity of the study showing that "middle school students who are bullied have low self-esteem"?
because the study's claim is an association claim
If you use nonprobability sampling methods, you are likely to have a ....
biased sample
What analysis should she run?
bivariate correlational analysis
When we investigate an association between two quantitative (Interval/Ratio) variables, we run a ______ analysis. Our resultant Pearson correlation coefficient is designated by the letter ______.
bivariate correlational; r
If you have a specific idea, and you can imagine a pattern of outcomes or observations that would disprove your idea, then your idea...
is falsifiable.
Suppose we find a negative association between two variables, like smoking and age of death. It is a probabilistic trend, which means that...
c. people who smoke will die earlier in life, on average, than will people who do not smoke.
Dr. Ramon makes the following claim: "Watching television leads people to spend less time communicating with their spouses, study says." Which type of claim is Dr. Ramon making?
causal claim
Question #4 was trying to emphasize a point April made in class about the importance of comparison. If you want to know what helps students succeed in college, you need to....
compare students who succeed in college with those who don't succeed in college
Sam is always in a good mood when he gets back from his evening tennis drill, which he has on Tuesday and Thursday nights with three buddies and his longtime tennis coach. One night he comments that playing tennis at night is the key to his well-being. He could be right, April thinks. But many different factors - also known as _______ - could account for feeling good after tennis.
confounds
April gave her students the Happiness Inventory and then followed them up many years later. She found that students' scores on the Happiness Inventory were negatively associated with their likelihood of ever having suffered from depression by the time they reached 30 years of age. This is an example of
criterion validity
To demonstrate the validity of her Happiness Inventory, April shows that people who score 2 standard deviations below the mean on the Happiness Inventory are six times more likely than other people to be diagnosed with depression in the following year. This is an example of
criterion validity
Most people think that self-esteem leads to positive outcomes, whereas in fact, as April mentioned, high self-esteem is actually linked to some negative outcomes like bullying and experimenting with drugs. In essence, psychology is not really about common sense; instead, psychology is about.... .
critical sense
April wants to test the hypothesis that upper-class (junior/senior) students are more likely than lower-class (freshmen/sophomore) students to report that they have ever engaged in binge drinking before. What analysis should she run?
cross-tabs-Chi-square analysis
What effect size should she report?
d
Dr. Schulenberg likely designed his study so that neither he nor his students knew which group they were in because he was watching out for ...
demand characteristics
April developed a new measure of happiness, and called it the Happiness Inventory (HI). She purposely showed that her measure has nothing to do with political orientation, by showing that people's happiness inventory scores were not related to their degree of political conservatism or liberalism. This is an example of:
discriminant validity
Unsystematic variability in a study is also known as...
error variance
Dr. Kang sends his study to a journal to be published. One of the peer reviewers expresses a concern that the difference is really just a fluke, that it happened by chance. The reviewer is concerned about ________ and requests that Dr. Kang replicate his study to see if he can get the effect twice.
external or internal validity
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?
external validity
Quinn's concern is addressing which of the following?
external validity
Suppose we send teams of researchers out to engage in observations of couples at the mall. Using their observations, each team member has to rate how "in love" each couple is. The _________ of each team's "in-love" ratings is going to be increased if the research team develops precise operational definitions of being (or acting) "in-love."
inter-rater reliability
Jax is concerned about having all the women undergo several weeks of the placebo oil first. By the time they get to the second condition of the experiment and get the real oil, they may be sick of the experiment and not take their dose as prescribed. Jax is concerned about the possibility of...
fatigue
Which of the following steps in conducting empirical research should, ideally, come first?
formulate your research hypothesis
Research out of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that the average American male has his first employment at the age of 17. What type of claim is being made here?
frequency claim
Some people believe that the events of 9/11 were the product of a governmental conspiracy. In order for this idea to gain traction among scientists, the idea needs to first generate testable hypotheses. Then, the research done to test those hypotheses must ; that is, the research must be presented to the scientific community to be replicated, criticized, or extended.
go through peer review
variable 2
happiness level
A statistically significant outcome is an outcome that...
has a very low likelihood (less than .05) of occurring if the null hypothesis is true.
The women began using the oil in May, right when the weather gets nice and people play and exercise outside as they prepare for "beach season." What threat is being described here?
history
Variable 1:
how much time a day the students spent on Snapchat.
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
To avoid insensitive measures, it is important to use measures that...
include multiple increments of the variable
Jax is also concerned that Dr. Win's design is going to have low power, because there will only be 20 participants per condition. If Javva Oil is effective but its effect is weak, 20 participants per condition won't be enough to demonstrate it. What is the primary source of within-group variability that is going to operate in Dr. Win's study to make it hard to detect any average difference between the groups?
individual differences
Dr. Ewell decides to collect his data at a neighborhood park. He has his two research assistants pose as a married couple having a picnic. While having their picnic, they take detailed records of the sharing behavior of the children and note whether the pairs are same sex or opposite sex. Given his use of two research assistants, Dr. Ewell must establish the _____ of their observations.
inter-rater reliability
When researchers conduct an experiment comparing two different treatment conditions, they are likely to be more concerned with _____ validity than with ______ validity
internal; external
April hypothesizes that performance in Psyc 271 is positively associated with enjoyment of Psyc 271. (Write out the hypothesis and the null hypothesis!) Her analysis reveals, r(93) = -.22 (95% CI: -.33, -.11]. We would want to run a scatter plot to see what's going on here, but still, based on this analysis, she should say that her hypothesis...
is not supported.
April gives a representative sample of UWEC freshmen a critical thinking test at the beginning of the fall semester. She gives the test to them again at the end of the spring semester to see if they have experienced any change. This is a(n) ________ design.
longitudinal
What specific word tells us the type of claim that Issa is making?
making
When examining the statistical validity of a frequency claim (e.g., that 3 of every 4 UWEC students believes in God), one should look for the:
margin of error estimate.
Is Variable 1 measured or manipulated?
measured
Is Variable 2 measured or manipulated?
measured
Variables such as sex or race or age of participant are ________ variables and they are ________.
measured; hard to manipulate
Suppose that Jax is worried, too, about internal reliability of the measures. He requests that Dr. Win have her participants weigh themselves three times on the last day of each treatment condition (6am, noon, and 6pm), instead of just once on the last day of each treatment condition, so that Dr. Win can aggregate their weight scores. By enhancing the reliability of Dr. Win's measures, what is Jax trying to minimize?
measurement error
Diego is interested in examining the relationship between a person's attachment style and his or her relationship satisfaction. He finds 65 studies that have examined this topic. He combines the results of all these studies and calculates an effect size. His research is most accurately described as a:
meta-analysis.
April uses personality scales that include a lot of items, because according to the principle of aggregation, with _________ items, all the random error of the items will _________ and the "signal" of the construct being measured will build up and shine through.
more; balance out to near-zero
Which of the following is an example of applied research?
n educational psychologist who looks for a way to increase math skills in 8-year-olds
What is the direction of the association?
negative
Being a critical consumer of information really means not trusting your "common sense." First, logic frequently shows common sense to be downright wrong. Second, your textbook author (Morling) has described a number of cases in which popular notions of the past that were based on "common sense" -- like bloodletting and facilitated communication -- are now considered ________________ . Thus, we should trust science instead!
nonsense
April argued in class that...
not all "evidence" should be considered credible evidence.
Look at the scatter plot. In it, there is an _________ outlier that is probably _________ the correlation coefficient.
off-line; deflating
Dr. Friedman is interested in whether young women in warm-weathered Texas experience report higher mean levels of body image satisfaction than do young women in the near-tundra of Wisconsin. His analysis will involve:
one categorical variable and one quantitative variable
Across campus, students complete course evaluations at the end of the semester. They often are given a series of statements and asked to respond using the following scale: 1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=agree, 4=strongly agree. What scale of measurement is this?
ordinal
Dr. Smith designs a scale asking people how old they are. The patients can respond with one of the following options: "18 or younger," "19-25," "26-40," "41 or older." How would you describe this scale of measurement?
ordinal
"I disagree with the finding that girls are less likely than boys to play ball sports. I, for example, was a complete tomboy as a child; I played football and kickball and baseball." The person quoted here is spitting out a __________ and forgetting that research findings ____________.
personal testimonial; are probabilistic
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
Another word for hypothesis is a(n)______________ .
prediction
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.
"The association between two variables occurs more often than not, but not in all cases." This is the definition of:
probabilistic trend
In one study, a sample of young adults was surveyed on their views of homosexual marriage. Researchers followed these young adults and surveyed them 30 years later, as middle-aged adults, to see if their views had changed over time. This study is:
prospective
Which type of research generally provides better quality data?
prospective research
Which of the following correlation coefficients is more likely to be statistically significant?
r(120) = -.33
April asks her students to report how many same-sex friends they have. She leaves a box for them to enter the exact number of same-sex friends they have. On what scale of measurement is the variable "number of friends"?
ratio
What scale of measurement has a true zero?
ratio
Dr. Ewell is concerned that the children will behave differently because of the presence of research assistants. He is concerned about:
reactivity.
The extent to which a sample exhibits the same distribution of characteristics as does the population is known as the ________ of the sample.
representativeness
You read research that found that first-born children tend to have higher IQs than their siblings. However, you typically earn higher grades than your older brother. Scientists might explain this discrepancy by saying that:
research is probabilistic.
April solicited feedback from all of her students on one of the new assignments she designed. However, she did not receive feedback from all of the students, and it is possible that the most dissatisfied students are the ones who refrained from offering feedback. Because of this ________, April must interpret with caution the feedback she does have.
response bias
We talked about how some studies are __________ , in that the researcher asks participants to look back and report on events in their past. In contrast, in _______________ studies, the researcher follows participants longitudinally over time.
retrospective; prospective
Check the two pairs that are correctly matched.
sampling method—external validity sample size—statistical validity
Dr. Meston is interested in measuring her participants' level of sexual arousal in response to viewing pornographic videos. She uses _________ measures when she asks participants to rate their level of arousal, on a 7-point scale, on a questionnaire. She uses ________ measures when she tracks her participants' heart rate and galvanic skin response as they view the videos.
self-report; physiological
________ is a technique for obtaining a representative sample of the population of interest.
simple random sampling
A researcher's attempt to control sounds, smells, and even temperature in a testing environment is meant to reduce which of the following?
situation noise
Ceiling effects are frustrating because they lead to...
small differences between the groups under comparison
In some classic research in the 1950s, a man named Kinsey interviewed a representative sample of thousands of American men and women face-to-face about their sexual behavior, including the sensitive issue of masturbation. Some researchers initially argued that Kinsey's findings would be invalid because his participants probably felt concerned about how Kinsey would think of them if they responded a certain way. The issue here pertains to:
socially desirable responding
Before using the measure in her study, Dr. Rodriquez gives the measure to a group of participants on the first day of the semester and again on the last day of the semester. She then compares the scores between the two time points. This is a test of which of the following?
test-retest
A common finding in the study of aggression is that exposure to television is associated with increased aggressive behavior in children. You know this relationship may not be causal because you are not sure which occurred first: watching television or being aggressive. You are questioning which of the following rules of causation?
the criterion of temporal precedence
Which of the following is the independent (manipulated) variable in Dr. Kang's study?
the emotional or neutral content of the words
We have noted the benefits of having large samples and going after big effect sizes. In keeping with those principles, a given correlation coefficient is more likely to be statistically significant if ________ , and also more likely to be statistically significant if _______ .
the sample is large; the magnitude of the association is large
Anderson is reading his morning paper and sees the following headline: "Men Should Avoid Rock Music When Playing Board Games." (This headline is based on a study conducted by Fancourt, Burton, & Williamon, 2016.) In the study, men and women played the game "Operation" when listening to different types of music. Male participants performed worse when listening to AC/DC than when listening to Mozart, but female participants' performance did not differ based on the type of music they listened to. Which of the following is a variable in this study?
the sex of the participant
Clarissa's concern is addressing which of the following?
the study's construct validity
A common finding in the study of aggression is that exposure to television is associated with increased aggressive behavior in children. You are curious as to whether peer pressure is really to blame (peer pressure encourages you to watch television and peer pressure encourages you to be aggressive). You are questioning which of the following criteria of causation?
the third-variable (alternative explanations) criterion
Psychological science can yield meaningful generalizations about human behavior, just like chemistry and biology yield meaningful generalizations about snowflakes and weather patterns. It is important to keep in mind, though, that ....
there are many exceptions to any given trend.
Research studies are superior to personal experience because:
they include at least one comparison group.
How did the researchers operationalize "Snapchat"?
they turned it into a measured variable of how many minutes a day a student spent on snapchat.
The stronger the correlation between two variables, the more _____________ the data cluster around an imaginary line running through them.
tightly
Vinai learns that people with schizophrenia have a problem labeling their emotions. Using this information, he designs a research study to examine whether teaching patients with schizophrenia to label the emotions of people they see in movie clips helps them to better label their own emotions. (Vinai hopes that the findings of this research might someday be used to create an intervention to treat schizophrenia.) Vinai's study is an example of:
translational research.
We can document a positive effect of caffeine on attention. As a probabilistic trend, that effect will be...
true more often than not, but not in all cases.
Dr. Ewell decides to collect his data at a neighborhood park. He has his two research assistants pose as a married couple having a picnic. While having their picnic, they take detailed records of the sharing behavior of the children and note whether the pairs are same sex or opposite sex. This observation technique is known as:
unobtrusive observation.
Which of the following can help check for the existence of a testing effect (or testing threat)?
using a comparison group
Dr. Rodriquez is concerned whether her measure will really measure narcissism or if it will measure some other related concept. She is concerned about the scale's....
validity
Dr. Rodriquez decides to test the internal reliability of her measure. Which of the following results would make her happy?
α = .80
