AP Psych: Unit 2 Review #3

Joe believes that his basketball game is always best when he wears his old gray athletic socks. Joe is a victim of the phenomenon called a. statistical significance. b. the placebo effect. c. illusory correlation. d. the double blind.

C

The four families on your block all have annual household incomes of $25,000. If a new family with an annual income of $75,000 moved in, which measure of central tendency would be most affected? a. mean b. median c. mode d. standard deviation

A

Which of the following procedures is an example of the use of a placebo? a. In a test of the effects of a drug on memory, a participant is led to believe that a harmless pill actually contains an active drug. b. A participant in an experiment is led to believe that a pill, which actually contains an active drug, is harmless. c. Participants in an experiment are not told which treatment condition is in effect. d. Neither the participants nor the experimenter knows which treatment condition is in effect.

A

A researcher was interested in determining whether her students' test performance could be predicted from their proximity to the front of the classroom. So she matched her students' scores on a math test with their seating position. This study is an example of a. experimentation. b. correlational research. c. a survey. d. naturalistic observation.

B

Dr. Salazar recently completed an experiment in which she compared reasoning ability in a sample of females and a sample of males. The means of the female and male samples equaled 21 and 19, respectively, on a 25-point scale. A statistical test revealed that her results were not statistically significant. What can Dr. Salazar conclude? a. Females have superior reasoning ability. b. The difference in the means of the two samples is probably due to chance variation. c. The difference in the means of the two samples is reliable. d. She cannot reach any of these conclusions.

B

Rashad, who is participating in a psychology experiment on the effects of alcohol on perception, is truthfully told by the experimenter that he has been assigned to the "high-dose condition." What is wrong with this experiment? a. There is no control condition. b. Rashad's expectations concerning the effects of "high doses" of alcohol on perception may influence his performance. c. Rashad was given a placebo, so the results may be tainted. d. All of these statements are correct.

B

The concept of control is important in psychological research because a. without control over independent and dependent variables, researchers cannot describe, predict, or explain behavior. b. experimental control allows researchers to study the influence of one or two independent variables on a dependent variable while holding other potential influences constant. c. without experimental control, results cannot be generalized from a sample to a population. d. of all of these reasons.

B

To say that "psychology is a science" means that: a. psychologists study only observable behaviors. b. psychologists study thoughts and actions with an attitude of skepticism and derive their conclusions from direct observations. c. psychological research should be free of value judgments. d. all of the above are true.

B

You decide to test your belief that men drink more soft drinks than women by finding out whether more soft drinks are consumed per day in the men's dorm than in the women's dorm. Your belief is a(n) _________, and your research prediction is a(n) _________ a. hypothesis; theory b. theory; hypothesis c. independent variable; dependent variable d. dependent variable; independent variable

B

Bob scored 43 out of 70 points on his psychology exam. He was worried until he discovered that most of the class earned the same score. Bob's score was equal to the a. mean. b. median. c. mode. d. range.

C

If height and body weight are positively correlated, which of the following is true? a. There is a cause-effect relationship between height and weight. b. As height increases, weight decreases. c. Knowing a person's height, one can predict his or her weight. d. All of these statements are true.

C

Martina believes that high doses of caffeine slow a person's reaction time. To test this belief, she has five friends each drink three 8-ounce cups of coffee and then measures their reaction time on a learning task. What is wrong with Martina's research strategy? a. No independent variable is specified. b. No dependent variable is specified. c. There is no control condition. d. There is no provision for replication of the findings.

C

Your roommate is conducting a survey to learn how many hours the typical student studies each day. She plans to pass out her questionnaire to the members of her sorority. You point out that her findings will be flawed because a. she has not specified an independent variable. b. she has not specified a dependent variable. c. the sample will probably not be representative of the population of interest. d. of all of these reasons.

C

A friend majoring in anthropology is critical of psychological research because it often ignores the influence of culture on thoughts and actions. You point out that a. there is very little evidence that cultural diversity has a significant effect on specific behaviors and attitudes b. most researchers assign participants to experimental and control conditions in such as way as to fairly represent the cultural diversity of the population under study. c. it is impossible for psychologists to control for every possible variable that might influence research participants. d. Even when specific thoughts and actions very across cultures, as they often do, the underlying processes are much the same

D

A professor constructs a questionnaire to determine how students at the university feel about nuclear disarmament. Which of the following techniques should be used in order to survey a random sample of the student body? a. Every student should get the questionnaire. b. Only students majoring in psychology should be asked to complete the questionnaire. c. Only students living on campus should be asked to complete the questionnaire. d. From an alphabetical listing of all students, every tenth (or fifteenth, e.g.) student should be asked to complete the questionnaire.

D

Esteban refuses to be persuaded by an advertiser's claim that people using their brand of gasoline average 50 miles per gallon. His decision probably is based on a. the possibility that the average is the mean, which could be artificially inflated by a few extreme scores. b. the absence of information about the size of the sample studied. c. the absence of information about the variation in sample scores. d. all of these statements.

D

If eating saturated fat and the likelihood of contracting cancer are positively correlated, which of the following is true? a. Saturated fat causes cancer. b. People who are prone to develop cancer prefer foods containing saturated fat. c. A separate factor links the consumption of saturated fat to cancer. d. None of these statements are necessarily true.

D

The football team's punter wants to determine how consistent his punting distances have been during the past season. He should compute the a. mean. b. median. c. mode. d. standard deviation.

D

The scientific attitude of humility is based on the idea that a. researchers must evaluate new ideas and theories objectively rather than accept them blindly. b. scientific theories must be testable. c. simple explanations of behavior make better theories than do complex explanations. d. researchers must be prepared to reject their own ideas in the face of conflicting evidence.

D