Social Psychology Exam 1

Among the examples below, the strongest correlation coefficient is: a. +2.52 b. +0.30 c. -0.90 d. +0.05

-0.90

Josue wants to know which bathroom stall people are most likely to use. He asks his school's IRB if he can set up a camera in the bathroom to secretly record the users' behaviors. Why should the IRB deny Josue's request?

He is violating the participants' privacy.

What is indic ated by the p-value in a research study?

The probability of observing a particularly outcome in the study

What is the most fundamental principle of statistics?

Data collected in a study will vary.

Sometimes, a researcher's study is meant to be deceptive, but it actually contains hints and clues about its true nature. These hints are known as

Demand characteristics

What is the name for the piece of technology that automatically records brief snippets of conversation?

Electronically activated recorder

Which of the following provides evidence that the need to belong is a fairly universal human tendency?

Even people who are described as introverts report being happier when they are in social situations.

Operational definitions are encouraged in research in order to:

Make terms used in a study as explicit as possible

A background variable about an individual such as race, gender, or socioeconomic status is considered what kind of variable?

participant variable

Historical or publicly-available data is often used for what type of research

archival research

Jacinta beliefs that people who are military veterans are all brave, honorable, and respectable. She tends to treat them with an enhanced sense of consideration, and thanks them for their service whenever she can. These beliefs represent a(n) ________ that Jacinta has for veterans.

attitudes

Kym has collected data from a large group of research participants and he is pleased that the statistical analysis seems to be confirming his original hypothesis. To be sure that his conclusions are accurate, he must calculate a ________. This is done by dividing 1 by the square root of his sample size.

margin of error

John is testing the effects of exercise on mood. He defines exercise as the number of steps a person takes in a day, and he measures it with a special watch that participants wear. What did John do to the variable "exercise"?

operationalized it

Which of the following procedures in research is the most important in allowing for cause-and-effect conclusions to be drawn?

random assignment

A larger group of individuals to whom we would like to generalize our research findings is called a(n) ________.

sample

An example of an operational definition for anxiety is a:

score on an anxiety questionnaire

Mason has participants complete an online questionnaire. He then analyzes their responses for patterns. What type of study design is Mason using?

survey research

Which research technique is used in social psychology to avoid the problem of having participants change their thoughts or behaviors as a result of being watched?

naturalistic observation

Shortly after she gets to her new college 2,500 miles from home, Tomasa goes to the school's activity fair to find some groups to join. She immediately signs up to audition for two different musical clubs, which are her interest. Her desire to join these groups may help to satisfy her need to _______.

belong

In social psychological studies involving deception, sometimes a person who appears to be a participant is actually working for the researcher. What is this person called?

confederate

Archival research revealed that the number of lynchings between 1882 and 1930 rose as

cotton prices fell

An article headline claimed that "Drugs Cause Homelessness" due to a positive relationship found between homeless populations and drug use. Educated psychologists thought this might be flawed, because they thought unemployment was influencing both drug use and homelessness. This is an example of:

a third variable

________ are opinions, feelings, and beliefs that a person holds about another person, a concept, or a group

attitudes

Mitsue notices that all of the girls in her 6th grade class are wearing ribbons in their hair lately, and even though she doesn't really like the ribbons she starts wearing one too so that she can be like her friends. Mitsue is engaging in a form of social influence called ________.

conformity

In order for researchers to be able to say that Variable A causes Variable B, they must eliminate the possible influence of ________.

confounding variables

Children's behavior on a playground is observed and later parents complete a questionnaire regarding home behavior of these same children. This method would best be described as a:

correlational design

What would be the best method for examining the relationship between age and driving behavior?

correlational method

What type of research design shows that two variables are related to one another, but not that one causes the other?

correlational research design

Lily is counting the number of people who line up early to board an airplane. For half the trials, Lily has a flight attendant warn that they will begin boarding soon. For the other half, no warning is given. What type of experiment is Lily conducting?

field experiment

What do researchers use in order to make sure that their priming technique affected the participants?

manipulation check

Students who study for 7 hours o ver the course of a week will perform better than students who cram for 7 hours the night before the exam. The independent variable in this hypothesis is:

IV: Method of studying (spaced or cramming); DV: Exam performance

23. Which common saying is the foundation of the concept of reciprocity?

If you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

According to research which are the most stressful events in a person's life?

When they experience a loss of a relationship.

Jedediah reads that every astronaut who has ever stepped foot on the moon has been a vegetarian. He looks at his wife and says, "I wonder why being a vegetarian increases one's likelihood of going to the moon!" Jedediah has arrived at an (incorrect) __________ conclusion.

cause and effect

Jessica thinks the guy who cut her off on the freeway is a jerk. When she needs to exit she cuts off the driver next to her as she switches lanes. She does not believe that she, herself, is a jerk; instead, she thinks the situation led to her behavior. This is an example of __________.

fundamental attribution error

The tendency to overemphasize the importance of personality factors when explaining someone else's behaviors while overemphasizing situational factors when explaining your own behaviors is called the __________.

fundamental attribution error

The extent to which we can infer that findings with a sample will be true of the larger population from which it was drawn is referred to as _________.

generalizability

Dr. Shaw is conducting research on marital behaviors that predict divorce. He trains his students to observe and code videotapes of couples interacting. The students are looking for specific types of behaviors but they are unaware of the anticipated outcomes of the study. In this regard, the students are being ________.

kept blind to the research hypothesis

Researchers studied language development in the same group of children every year over a five year period. This research design is called:

longitudinal

Researchers rarely need to obtain informed consent when they are conducting what type of study?

naturalistic observation

Victor is attending a CPR class, and he watches as the instructor performs chest compressions on a mannequin. He watches for several minutes, and t hen repeats the behavior with almost perfect precision on a second dummy. Victor has obtained this skill through ________.

observational learning

Blake is selected for a study on musi c preference and happiness. He thinks the experimenter's hypothesis is that people who listen to classical music are happier. As a result, Blake reports listening to classical music more often than he really does, as well as inflated scores on self - reporte d happiness. This is an example of:

participant demand

In order to study fear, a neuroscientist connects Natividad to an electroencephalograph (EEG) and then shows her a brief movie of scary animals. These include wasps, snakes, and alligators. He then observes as Natividad shows activation in her amygdala. At which level of analysis has this scientist made his observations?

physiology

Dr. Ramsey conducts research and draws a conclusion about the college athletes who participated in his study. He will now generalize from these research participants to the larger ________ of college athletes outside of his study.

population

Given the current debates about health care and gun control, you are interested to know about people's political views. You decide to go to the mall and ask people their political affiliation as they walk by. This is an example of what type of research approach?

survey

Evidence reveals a correlation between the number of hours toddlers spend watching television and their level of hyperactivity in later childhood. What does this definitively indicate?

that there is a relationship between television viewing and hyperactivity

Participants in a study on the effects of Viagra are assigned to groups. One group receives a sugar pill while the other group receives Viagra. The number of erections over 30 days is recorded by participants in a journal. In this example, what is the independent variable?

the viagra

Researchers find a correlation of +1.20 between coffee consumption and mental alertness. This indicates that:

there is a flaw in the computation of the correlation coefficient

The numerical result computed from a sample (for example, a mean or a proportion) is called a(n)________.

statistic

When the findings in a research study are be lieved to be due to an actual phenomenon under investigation and not due to chance or random occurrence, this is called __________.

statistical significance

When Ashley conducts research an d determines that the results are highly unlikely to have been due to random chance, she can state that her findings are ___________.

statistically significant

The decision to follow the orders or requests of people who have authority of you is called ________.

obedience

Complementary views for assessing and understanding a phenomenon in psychology are referred to as levels of ________, and they range from the most general to the most specific.

analysis

Which of the following is the strongest correlation coefficient? a. 0.50 b.-0.92 c.-0.75 d. 0.75

.-0.92

Dr. Waehner is studying the relationship between sensation seeking behaviors and personality traits in college females. He finds that there is a relationship between these two variables, and that the relationship is significant. If he is using a typical cutoff to make that determination, then his study would have a p-value around ________ or less.

.05

Which of the following is not an important component to keep in mind when conducting a statistical investigation?

Adjusting data to confirm the pre-study hypothesis.

The likelihood that a research finding was due to random chance rather than being due to an actual observed change is called the __-value.

P value

A researcher would like to determine the effect of caffeine on memory. Participants are randomly assigned to receive a caffeine pill or a sugar pill. Both groups complete a recall task that assesses their memory. However, even those who received the sugar pill had a small increase in memory. This is likely due to:

The placebo effect

Dr. Tanaka wants to know if the teams in his son's baseball league are relatively even so that no one team has a significant advantage over another. What would be the best way for him to accomplish this goal?

To take a random sample of players from each team and test them on various baseball drills.

Dr. Parikh has conducted a study that involves gathering data about her students' performance on an exam. She observes that some students did very poo rly, while other students made no errors at all. This pattern of variation within her data set is referred to as the ________.

distribution

What is the correct term for a pattern of variation that is noted in a given data set?

distribution

The largest problem with samples of convenience is that they

don't accurately represent the true population

What would be the best method for studying the effect of listening to rap music on aggressive behavior

experimental method

Hailey wants to control the variables in her study as much as possible. She does not want any extraneous variables to affect her results. What type of study should Hailey use?

experimental study

The most accurate research method of determining whether caffeine supplements improve memory performance is:

experimental study

After making observations and forming a research question, scientists should

form a hypothesis

Amanda and Toni work for a polling institute. They spend hours polling citizens about their positions on various political topics and then the results are compiled. The polling institute then assumes that the trends they see in several hundred respondents apply to the larger population as a whole. This conclusion suggests that the findings are _________.

generalizable

In her research on social interactions, Dr. Fisher anticipates that people of the same racial background will interact more with each other than they will with people of different races. She then conducts research to test this idea. Dr. Fisher's prediction is an example of a(n) ________.

hypothesis

In science, a possible explanation that can be tested through research is called a ________.

hypothesis

One commonly-used test of nonconscious bias is the

implicit association test

The variable that gets manipulated in an experimental study is known as the

independent

Using an experimental research design, researchers manipulate the________ variable and measure the ________ variable.

independent; dependent

Conformity and obedience are two widely researched forms of social ________ that have received attention in the field of social psychology.

influence

Devin is interviewing candidates to work at the cash register in his convenience store. When Margaret applies, she indicates on her application that she has been in rehab for a drug addiction and that she has been clean and sober for over 3 years. Devin decides not to hire her, because he thinks that people with drug habits are not trustworthy. Devin is demonstrating a ________.

prejudice

Ellie is very subtly and nonconsicously reminding women of their gender before giving them a math test. What technique is Ellie using for her study?

priming

You want to study the effects of gender on math achievement. However, you know that you cannot randomly assign some people to male and others to be female, so you cannot have a true experiment. In this scenario, what type of research design would you use?

quasi-experiment

One reason for using random assignment is:

to help ensure that participant characteristics don't become confounding variables

In order to determine causal effects between variables researchers use:

true experiments

Researchers manipulate or control variables in order to conduct:

the double-blind procedure.

Why is it important to use random assignment when determining which research participants will comprise the different treatment groups in the study?

Random assignment balances out the differences that might naturally exist between participants.

The study of ________, which is a major topic of focus for social psychologists, examines the psychological processes involved in having a sexual interest in another person.

attraction

Vicenta is looking at a book at the local library when Daina brushes past her, gently pushing Vicenta backward. "Wow, she is very rude," Vicenta thinks. This is an example of social ________, which occurs when we make educated guesses about the efforts or motives of another person.

attribution

Whenever he travels to Denver for business meetings, Calvin notices that he gets bad headaches that don't go away until he returns home to Toronto. He assumes that it is just the travel that causes his migraines, but he does not consider that the elevation change and atmospheric pressure might be at fault. Calvin is making incorrect ________ conclusions about his headaches.

cause and effect

Jackson's study involves five independent variables that he is manipulating. He is measuring their effect on three dependent variables. What type of study design is Jackson using?

complex experimental design

A research ________ is a person who works with or for the researcher, and who poses as a participant or bystander. Sometimes they have instructions to behave a certain way to see how the actual participant will respond.

confederate

What is the highest level of analysis in psychology?

culture and the environment

In some parts of the United States people likely to respond to an insult with anger and increased cortisol because of concern for insults to their reputation. What is this cultural leaning called?

culture of honor

If a study involves deception, the experimenter should inform the participant of the true nature of the research during the

debriefing

Jasmeet is interested in conducting an experiment in which she manipulates the amount of food she gives her Siamese fighting fish. She ensures that the size of the fish tank is identical for each fish, and that fish are assigned into groups randomly. What aspect of this experiment has Jasmeet not worked out?

dependent variable

Which of the following is the correct method for calculating a margin of error in research?

divide 1 by the square root of the sample size

________ sampling refers to a method to select a subset of individuals for the sample from the population so that each has an equal chance of being assigned to the various study conditions.

random

Betty decided to conduct an experiment on the effectiveness of a new anti - anxiety pill. She decided that participants who had been diagnosed with anxiety would be in the treatment group and participants who had never been treated for anxiety would be the control group. Which aspect of proper research design did Betty ignore?

random assignment

Using some probability based method of dividing a sample of research participants into different treatment groups is called ________.

random assignment

When each participant has an equal chance of being assigned to a particular group, the research design uses

random assignment

Dr. Stuart wants to study whether there is a relationship between the number of hours a high school senior spends on social networking sites and their grade point average. He obviously cannot study every 12th grader, so instead he will select a smaller ________ of seniors to study.

sample

April was able to run much faster when she was with friends, rather than running alone. April is experiencing the benefits of

social facilitation

What is the name for the interdisciplinary field that combines biology and social psychology?

social neuroscience

The fact that none of us are alone in the world - that we are all affected by others and, in turn, affect others - is the emphasis of the study of ________.

social psychology

Rueben is in a biology class and the professor tells the students to find a lab partner. Rueben immediately approaches an Asian classmate because Rueben believes that all Asian students are naturally gifted in mathematics and science. Ruben's mental shortcut is an example of a(n) ________.

stereotype

A group of people who share some common feature and suffer from social disapproval based on that characteris tic is called a(n) ________ group.

stigmatized