Research Methods

To minimize the extent to which outcome differences between experimental and control conditions can be attributed to placebo effects, researchers make use of which safeguard?

Random assignment

To minimize the extent to which outcome differences between experimental and control conditions can be attributed to placebo effects, researchers make use of which safeguard?

Random assignment.

Which of the following is most useful for helping survey researchers avoid false generalizations?

Random sample

Why is replication important in scientific research?

Repeated research with similar results increases confidence in the reliability of the original findings.

Which of the following is the main disadvantage of the case study?

Results may not be applicable to other people or cases.

A survey is conducted to assess racial prejudice among its responders. Often, responders will report less prejudice than what would be expected based on other types or research. This finding can be best explained by which phenomenon?

Social desirability bias

The major obstacle in conducting longitudinal research is that?

Some participants may drop out for reasons that affect the conclusion of the study.

Of the following choices, which coefficient indicates the smallest correlation between two variables?

-0.05

If the correlation between the physical weight and IQ of children is + 0.80. What would this indicate?

Higher IQ scores are associated with greater physical weight among children.

Research shows that generally, the higher an incoming college students high school GPA, the higher the student's college GPA. Which of the following describes this relationship?

A positive correlation.

One of the best ways to determine whether one baseball teams is better than another is to play a game. But, while the outcome of a game is largely based on skill, chance plays a role as well. That is why teams play each other in series, and the league championships are determined with multiple games instead of a single-game. This allows us to conclude that a baseball game is:

A valid test of skill, but not reliable.

From time to time, someone suffers a brain injury due to an accident such as impaling the skull with a nail from a nail gun. Often these accidents lead to a change in behavior that is best understood using which research method?

Case study

From time to time, someone suffers from a brain injury due to an accident such as impaling the skull with a nail from a nail gun. Often these accidents lead to a change in behavior that is best understood using which research method?

Case study

Dr. Richard wants to discover whether his new medication is going to be effective for treating depression. In order to best eliminate his own biases as well as the biases of the participants he should:

Conduct a double-blind study in which neither the participants nor the researchers know who is in the control and experimental groups

If a high school teacher decides to use a new type of test on his students in order to examine the correlation between test style and test score and he posts the scores of both tests on his webpage, what ethical principle is violated?

Confidentiality

. In an experiment designed to study the effectiveness of a new drug research participants who receive a placebo are participating in which condition?

Control

In an experiment designed to study the effectiveness of a new drug, research participants who receive a placebo are participating in which condition?

Control

A researcher who deceives participants about the goals of the research needs to fully inform them of the true natures of the study later, according to which ethical principle of experimentation?

Debriefing

Dr. Young wants to see if drinking alcohol causes violent behavior. Dr. Young would be best advised to use what research method?

Experiment

Which of the following research methods would be best for testing the hypothesis that decisions made by sports officials such as referees on the field of play are influenced by the color of players jerseys?

Experimental

Dr. Wilson has recruited 36 students from his introduction to Psychology course to participate in his study on the effects of caffeine on perception. He wants to reduce bias by randomly assigning students to either the control or experimental group. Which of the following methods would be best?

Have every volunteer flip a con and assign heads to the control group.

A series of experiments conducted during the 1920's and 1930's at an electric factory sought to determine if there was a relationship between work productivity and the environment. One group of workers received more lighting and their productivity increased. Then the group worked in conditions with less light, and their productivity was still improved. Yet, after the experiment was over, the increased productivity vanished. Researchers concluded that special treatment, regardless of type, could affect a group's performance; this illustrated the need for a control group and a phenomenon known as the

Hawthorne effect

In a classic television show episode, one friend moves in with another. Within days, the refrigerator, which the apartment owner's parents bought for him when he first moved out on his own, suddenly stops working. He asks his new roommate to pay for half because it is obviously her fault that it stopped working since she just moved in. His assumption that the new roommate's arrival is related to the refrigerator breaking is an example of

Illusory correlation

A study regardless of what type it is, can be a complex undertaking. There are quite a few factors that one must consider to work to eliminate. One term for unintended variables is "confounding variables". What is another term for this concept?

Lurking variables

A researcher wants to investigate the impact of aerobic exercise satisfaction. The researcher decides to define aerobic exercise as 90 minutes a week of light jogging, and defines life satisfaction as the raw score on a self-reported survey. The researcher's decision to define these two variables highlights the importance of what?

Operational definitions

Dr. Ambrose is a member of an institutional review board (IRB). As a member, he is responsible for judging what?

Proposed research studies according to their safety and ethical guidelines.

A researcher wants to analyze the effects of a new strand of heroin that is mixed with fentanyl on addicts. He asks the addicts off the street to give their consent to the experiment and debriefs the results after he gives the participants different doses of the new form of heroin. The experimental group received heroin mixed with fentanyl and the control group received just regular heroin. What ethical principle did the researcher violate?

Protection from harm

Many crossing lights at many crosswalks are operated by a timer, yet still feature an inactive button for pedestrians to push in order to cross. These types of buttons are sometimes referred to as "placebo buttons". Why does the word placebo apply?

The button has no effect, but people still push it because they believe it does.

Recent candy bar commercials claim that "you're not you when you're hungry". Actors in the commercials show a variety of emotional outbursts until they have a chocolate bar and calm down. If one conducted an experiment to find out if "you're not you when you're hungry" is really true, what would "hunger" represent?

The dependent variable

All the following are ethical requirements that researchers must follow when working with human participants EXCEPT which one?

Wording effects

Sarah volunteered for a flu study to earn extra spending money in college. Upon arriving at the study sight, the researchers told her that after contracting the flu she will receive a pill which could be a placebo or real medication. She could not find out whether she had received a placebo or real medication until after the study was over. This study was

a blind study to prevent participant bias.

Sarah volunteered for a flu study to earn extra spending money in college. Upon arriving at the study site the researchers told her that after contracting the flu she will receive a pill which could be a placebo or real medication. She could not find out whether she had received real medicine or not until after the study was over. This study was

a blind study to prevent participant bias.

Which of the following statements are true of operational definitions?

by strictly defining the research variables and how they are measured, replication of research is made possible.

A researcher wants to find out how well high school attendance predicts student academic performance. Which type of research method should he or she use to determine the answer to this question?

correlational study

All of the following are common ethical rules of psychology EXCEPT

deception cannot be used on any studies involving harm.

The hindsight bias refers to people's tendency to do which of the following?

exaggerate their ability to have foreseen the outcome of a past event.

Dr. Wilson has recruited 36 students from his introduction to Psychology course to participate in his study on the effects of caffeine on perception. He wants to reduce bias by randomly assigning students to either the control group or the experimental group. Which of the following methods would be best?

have every volunteer flip a coin and assign heads to the control group.

A high school teacher gives an exam in first period that is multiple choice and an exam in second period that has free-response essay questions in order to research test type and how it correlates to academic success but does not tell the students in advance. What ethical principle has the teacher violated?

informed consent

A researcher wants to investigate the impact of aerobic exercise on life satisfaction. The researcher decides to define aerobic exercise of 90 minutes a week of light jogging and defines life satisfaction as the raw score on a self-reported survey. The researchers decision to define these two variables highlights the importance of what?

operational definitions

Most experiments involve just a sample of an entire population. Researchers are able to generalize their findings by making use of

random selection

Why is replication important to scientific research?

repeated research with similar results increases confidence in the reliability of the original findings.

Which of the following in the main disadvantage of the case study?

results may not be applicable to other people or cases.

Descriptive studies differ from correlational studies in that correlational studies:

show that one factor is predictive of another.

A survey is conducted to assess racial prejudice among its responders. Often responders will report less prejudice than what would be expected based on other types of research. This finding can best be expressed by which phenomenon?

social desirability bias

The major obstacle in conducting longitudinal research that

some participants may drop out for reasons that affect the conclusion of the study.

During the spring baseball season, concession stand attendants notice a negative correlation between the home team's score and total sales of food. This means:

the more runs scored by the home team, the lower the total sale of food.

In order to best determine the role of genetics in human traits psychologists make use of:

twin studies