Exam 1 - Research Methods
Which of the following is an association claim?
"Owning a dog is related to higher life satisfaction."
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."
RESEARCH STUDY 4.1: Dr. Kushner is planning on conducting a study next semester. He is curious as to whether sleep deprivation is associated with poorer cognitive performance. For example, if you sleep poorly the night before a big exam, will you do worse? Dr. Kushner is especially curious about selective sleep deprivation, where people are kept from entering REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Using an electroencephalograph (EEG) to monitor brain waves, he plans to let participants sleep until they enter REM sleep and then wake them. After the participants are awake for one minute, Dr. Kushner plans to let them return to sleep. As they enter REM sleep again, he will wake them again and follow the same procedure. He plans to do this through the entire eight-hour sleep session. The following morning, participants will be asked to take a sample SAT test. As a psychologist who primarily does research, Dr. Kushner is most concerned with which APA standard of ethics?
2
The American Psychological Association's ethical guidelines have principles and standards.
5; 10
Which of the following is NOT a reason that psychologists might fabricate or falsify their data?
A journal might require it.
Which of the following is NOT possible?
A measure is valid but not reliable.
What is the difference between a ratio scale of measurement and an interval scale of measurement?
A ratio scale of measurement has a zero value that actually means "nothing" or "the absence of something," but an interval scale does not.
Which of the following is the first section of an empirical journal article?
Abstract
In order to use the known groups paradigm to establish criterion validity, which of the following is necessary?
After testing, the groups should have significantly different scores on the measure.
Establishing construct validity is most important for which of the following?
An abstract concept
Which of the following is an example of applied research?
An educational psychologist who looks for a way to increase math skills in 8-year-olds
If you are interested in reading an overview of peer-reviewed scientific research within a specific area, which of the following reading sources would you choose?
An expert's dissertation
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 is the difference between advice from an authority and that from a researcher?
Authorities often base their advice on intuition, while researchers rely on facts.
Which of the following is true of the difference between basic and applied research?
Basic and applied research have different goals.
In looking at a scatterplot of interrater reliability, why would a researcher want to see all the dots close to the line of agreement?
Because it indicates that the researcher's two research assistants/raters are making similar measurements
In which of the following ways are content and face validity similar?
Both are preferred by psychologists as ideal measures of validity.
From an ethical standpoint, in what way is researching prisoners with tuberculosis similar to researching children with ADHD?
Both groups of participants have less autonomy than other types of participants.
Why are convergent and discriminant validity often evaluated together?
Both involve collecting information from a lot of psychological measures of theoretical interest.
Your friend Alanna says that when examining validity, you always want to see positive correlations. Why is she wrong?
Both the strength and the direction of a correlation matter when examining validity.
What is the difference between data that is collected anonymously and data that is collected confidentially?
Confidential research collects participants' names but separates them from the data; anonymous research does not collect participants' names.
To evaluate how well a study supports a frequency claim, you need to focus most on evaluating which of the following validities?
Construct validity and external validity
A correlation-based statistic called _____________ is commonly used to determine internal reliability.
Cronbach's alpha
Tim tells you that the best way to make friends is by opening the conversation with a joke. He can easily recall all the friends he met by telling a joke and also the times he opened with chitchat and didn't befriend the person. If you were concerned that Tim was making the blind spot bias, what would you ask him?
Did you go into conversations where you opened with jokes thinking that you would make friends?
RESEARCH STUDY 1.2: Dr. White reads about a new theory that states that depression is caused by increased levels of estrogen in the womb. To test this theory, she conducted a study comparing the level of estrogen in amniotic fluid in individuals who were later diagnosed with depression with the level of those who did not develop depression. Dr. White found no differences between the groups in estrogen levels in the amniotic fluid.What should Dr. White do next?
Evaluate the ways in which her study differed from previous studies that supported this theory
How can you ensure that a popular media article accurately reflects the original research of a scientific study?
Find and read the original scientific article
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 research he conducted for his dissertation.
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 general public will understand the study
In which of the following ways is an institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) different from an institutional review board (IRB)?
IACUCs monitor the care and treatment of animals throughout the study; IRBs do not monitor the care of human participants throughout the study.
Which of the following is the reason that scientific journals use peer review?
It ensures that the studies published are of the highest quality.
Compared with doing a generic Internet search, why is PsycINFO a superior way to find scientific sources?
It searches only sources in psychology and related fields.
Why is it unethical to provide an incentive that is too large to refuse (for example, offering undergraduate students free tuition for a semester for participating in a study)?
It unduly influences people into participating.
Hannah just finished reading an empirical journal article for a class project. Where should she go if she wants to look for a list of the study's hypotheses or research questions?
Last paragraph of the introduction
Dr. Stewart is an editor of a psychology journal. She wants to ensure that reviewers give honest reviews of the papers they are asked to read. Which of the following could she do to increase the likelihood of honest feedback?
Make sure the peer reviewers are anonymous
For his research methods class, Felipe plans to watch how students treat other children in their classrooms who have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He will evaluate how positively or negatively the children are treated by their classmates. This is an example of what type of measurement?
Observational measurement
Which of the following is NOT a section or subsection commonly found in an empirical journal article?
Outcomes
Which of the following events did NOT occur in the Tuskegee Study?
Participants in the study were given/infected with the disease.
RESEARCH STUDY 4.1: Dr. Kushner is planning on conducting a study next semester. He is curious as to whether sleep deprivation is associated with poorer cognitive performance. For example, if you sleep poorly the night before a big exam, will you do worse? Dr. Kushner is especially curious about selective sleep deprivation, where people are kept from entering REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Using an electroencephalograph (EEG) to monitor brain waves, he plans to let participants sleep until they enter REM sleep and then wake them. After the participants are awake for one minute, Dr. Kushner plans to let them return to sleep. As they enter REM sleep again, he will wake them again and follow the same procedure. He plans to do this through the entire eight-hour sleep session. The following morning, participants will be asked to take a sample SAT test.Dr. Kushner plans to use deception in his study and is thinking about a debriefing session. Which of the following is true of the debriefing?
Participants must be told the reasons for the deception.
The use of debriefing in a study such as Milgram's obedience study appeals to which principle of the Belmont Report?
Principle of beneficence
When conducting animal research, which guideline states that alternatives to animal research should be considered?
Replacement
Which of the following is a benefit of the peer-review process?
Reviewers' names are kept anonymous so they can be open in their critiques of an article.
In considering whether research is ethical, which of the following are balanced against each other?
Risk to participants versus value of the knowledge gained
Angela reads about a study in which cell phone use is associated with migraine headaches. She says, "Well, that study is not valid because I use a cell phone more than anyone I know and I never get migraines." Based on her comment, Angela may be forgetting which of the following?
Science is probabilistic.
RESEARCH STUDY 2.1: Charlotte is studying subliminal messages and weight loss. She is curious whether people will lose more weight if they hear subliminal messages that encourage weight loss ("don't eat that food," "you want to be thin," etc.) in the music on their iPods compared to people who do not have subliminal messages in their music. She studies 40 people and finds the following results: To understand whether the subliminal messages have an effect, Charlotte needs to consider which of the following cells in the chart?
She must consider all of the cells.
Which of the following is true of operational definitions?
Some psychological concepts are more difficult to operationally define than others.
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 method section
Which of the following indicates that an article's claims are based on research?
The article describes how a scientific study measured a variable.
Nadia submits her article to a scientific journal for publication. Who makes the final decision on whether her article is published in that scientific journal?
The editor of the journal
Hannah just finished reading an empirical journal article for a class project. What information might she get out of reading the references section of her article?
The name of an article that researched a similar topic
When determining whether a study should be conducted, we have to balance which two issues?
The potential risks to participants vs. the value of knowledge we can gain
The need to balance the potential costs and benefits to participants taking part in a research study is done to address which principle of the Belmont Report?
The principle of beneficence
The belief that the participants in a research study should be representative of the type of people who would also benefit from the findings of the research stems from which principle of the Belmont Report?
The principle of justice
A correlation coefficient and a scatterplot both provide which of the following pieces of information?
The strength and direction of the relationship between two measurements
RESEARCH STUDY 1.1: 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 thinks that maybe autonomy is only necessary when people are in situations in which they are not being evaluated.Susan's hypothesis was not completely supported by her data. What does this mean?
The theory may need to be amended.
How many subcategories of quantitative variables exist?
Three
Why might a researcher debrief his participants even if his study didn't include any deceptive elements?
To ensure that his participants had a good research experience
Which of the following is a reason psychological scientists publish their research in scientific journals?
To have their results reviewed by other psychologists
In which of the following scenarios should you be skeptical of an authority?
When they based their opinions on their intuition
Translational research is best thought of as __________________ basic research and applied research.
a bridge between
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.
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?"
Research that is done specifically to add to our general understanding of psychology, like distinguishing the components of extraversion or predicting the time it takes a person to determine whether an object is a face or another object, is known as:
basic research.
RESEARCH STUDY 3.3: Anton and his friends are discussing a study he read about in his developmental psychology class. In the study, the researcher made the claim that most middle school students who are bullied have low self-esteem. Clarissa questions the study, saying, "I am not sure that I am convinced. I am not sure you can really measure being bullied." Quinn also questions the study, saying, "Which middle school students did they study? I am curious if they included both private and public school students." Manish also is curious about the study, asking, "I wonder how strong the relationship is between bullying and self-esteem. Could you predict one from the other?" Why should Anton NOT interrogate the internal validity of the study?
because the study's claim is an association claim
Two biases of intuition discussed in the text are:
being swayed by a good story and being persuaded by what comes easily to mind.
Asking questions to get the answers we want is known as:
confirmation bias.
RESEARCH STUDY 3.5: Jenny reads the following headline on an online article: "If You're Sexist, People Will Think You're Racist, and Vice Versa." (This headline is based on a study conducted by Sanchez and colleagues, 2017.) This study found that members of stigmatized groups are threatened by prejudice directed at other stigmatized groups. Their results showed that White women can be threatened by racism, and men of color threatened by sexism, and that these perceptions made participants expect unfair treatment. Because of the design of this study, Sanchez and colleagues are likely more interested in ____________ than _____________.
construct validity; generalizing to all minority groups
Which of the following could be an independent variable in a causal claim?
one that is manipulated
RESEARCH STUDY 3.5: Jenny reads the following headline on an online article: "If You're Sexist, People Will Think You're Racist, and Vice Versa." (This headline is based on a study conducted by Sanchez and colleagues, 2017.) This study found that members of stigmatized groups are threatened by prejudice directed at other stigmatized groups. Their results showed that White women can be threatened by racism, and men of color threatened by sexism, and that these perceptions made participants expect unfair treatment. In this study, ________ is a conceptual definition of one of their primary variables.
perceived prejudiced attitudes
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
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.
When examining the statistical validity of a frequency claim, one should look for the:
strength of the association.
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?
the external validity of the study
The principle of justice calls for a balance between and .
the kind of people who participate in research; the kind of people who benefit from it
Who is responsible for deciding which validity is prioritized in a study?
the researcher
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 could then be used to create an intervention to treat schizophrenia. Vinai's study is an example of:
translational research.
RESEARCH STUDY 5.1: Dr. Rodriquez is considering conducting a study examining whether narcissistic people have poorer romantic relationships than those who are not narcissistic. One of her first tasks is to determine which of her participants are narcissistic and which are not. She decides to use the scale created by a colleague, the Donal scale. Question 1 reads, "I tend not to think about other people as much as I think about myself." Question 2 reads, "I do not have a high opinion of myself." Question 3 reads, "I think other people think I am really special."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
When using correlational coefficients to evaluate reliability, which of the following is undesirable?
A negative correlation coefficient
RESEARCH STUDY 5.1: Dr. Rodriquez is considering conducting a study examining whether narcissistic people have poorer romantic relationships than those who are not narcissistic. One of her first tasks is to determine which of her participants are narcissistic and which are not. She decides to use the scale created by a colleague, the Donal scale. Question 1 reads, "I tend not to think about other people as much as I think about myself." Question 2 reads, "I do not have a high opinion of myself." Question 3 reads, "I think other people think I am really special." 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
Which of the following is an example of basic research?
An experimental psychologist who examines people's ability to perceive a "sweet" taste
Which of the following is the difference between claims based on personal experience (anecdotal) and frequency claims?
Anecdotal claims are not based on scientific studies but frequency claims are.
RESEARCH STUDY 1.2: Dr. White reads about a new theory that states that depression is caused by increased levels of estrogen in the womb. To test this theory, she conducted a study comparing the level of estrogen in amniotic fluid in individuals who were later diagnosed with depression with the level of those who did not develop depression. Dr. White found no differences between the groups in estrogen levels in the amniotic fluid.Dr. White publishes her findings in a scientific journal. Who is most likely to read her article?
Clinical researchers
What is the term for a researcher's definition of the variable in question at a theoretical level?
Conceptual definiton
RESEARCH STUDY 5.2: 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 decides to test the criterion validity of his measure. Dr. Sheffield gives his measure to a group of people that includes suspected problem gamblers and non-gamblers. Which of the following options below could he also do to get evidence for criterion validity?
Correlate the measure with a behavior, such as amount of money lost in a casino during the past year
Which of the following questions assesses the internal validity when evaluating causal claims?
Does the study establish temporal precedence?
RESEARCH STUDY 3.4: Dr. Kang, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of all the participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B. Which of the following makes Dr. Kang's study an experiment?
Dr. Kang manipulated one variable and measured another
RESEARCH STUDY 3.4: Dr. Kang, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of all the participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B. Based on this study, Dr. Kang can make which of the following claims?
Emotion enhances memory.
Stefan wants to make a causal claim in his dissertation. Which of the following is necessary?
He must conduct an experiment.
Which of the following is true of variables?
Some variables can be either manipulated or measured.
When researcher's conduct an experiment comparing two different treatment conditions, they are likely to be more concerned with _______ validity than _____ validity.
Statistical; contruct
RESEARCH STUDY 1.1: 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 thinks that maybe autonomy is only necessary when people are in situations in which they are not being evaluated.After Susan collects and analyzes her data, which of the following is the next logical step?
Susan alters or amends the theory to fit her data.
Which of the following is a reasonable causal claim?
Texting while driving reduces impulse control
Two researchers tell you they study the same thing. However, when you look at their research papers, they do not use similar methodologies of measurements.How is this possible?
The researchers have the same conceptual definitions.
Which of the following is true operational definitions?
The specifications of operational definition is one of the creative aspects of the research process.
Dr. Rodriquez calculates a correlation coefficient (r) to examine the relationship between Question 1, 2, and 2. She finds a correlation coefficient of r= -0.73 between Questions 1 and 2 and a correlation coefficient of r= 0.74 between questions 1 and 3. Which of the following is true of her findings?
There appears to be good internal reliability in the scale
In addition to being ethical violations, why are data falsification and fabrication problematic?
They impede scientific progress.
Why is it important to adopt the mindset of a scientific reasoner?
To avoid falling into the pitfalls of personal biases
RESEARCH STUDY 5.2: 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.To test his measure, Dr. Sheffield gives his measure to a group of people in Gamblers Anonymous (GA) and another group in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). He finds that people in the GA group have higher scores on his new measure than people in the AA group. Why did Dr. Sheffield do this?
To obtain evidence for criterion validity
RESEARCH STUDY 3.5: Jenny reads the following headline on an online article: "If You're Sexist, People Will Think You're Racist, and Vice Versa." (This headline is based on a study conducted by Sanchez and colleagues, 2017.) This study found that members of stigmatized groups are threatened by prejudice directed at other stigmatized groups. Their results showed that White women can be threatened by racism, and men of color threatened by sexism, and that these perceptions made participants expect unfair treatment. The results of this study can be generalized to which of the following groups?
White women and African American men.
RESEARCH STUDY 3.1: Anderson is reading his morning paper and sees the following headline. "Men Should Avoid Rock Music When Playing Board Games." In the study, men and women played the game "Operation" when listening to different types of music. Male participants performed worse when listening to ACDC than when listening to Mozart, but female participants' performance did not different based on music. In this study, the researchers recorded how many errors participants committed. This is an example of which of the following?
a measured variable
Todd is studying the effect of popularity on academic success for his research methods project. He decides to measure popularity by asking each elementary school student to tell him how many friends he or she has. He assumes that more friends means the student is more popular. Which of the following best describes this variable?
a ratio scale of measurement.
Naomi is studying the effect of popularity on 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.
Dr. Ramon makes the following claim: "Watching television leads people to spend less time communicating with their spouses, study says." Dr. LaSalle makes the claim: "Research shows that making more money correlates with spending less time talking with your spouse." Which type of claim is Dr. La Salle making?
association claim
Which of the following allow us to make strong predictions using association claims?
both strong positive associations and strong negative associations
Dr. Ramon makes the following claim: "Watching television leads people to spend less time communicating with their spouses, study says." Dr. LaSalle makes the claim: "Research shows that making more money correlates with spending less time talking with your spouse." Which type of claim is Dr. Ramon making?
causal claim
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
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. To test his measure, Dr. Sheffield gives his measure to a group of his clients and at the same time measures how many times they have been gambling in the past month. He predicts that clients who score higher on his measure will also report gambling more times in the past month. This procedure is meant to provide evidence for which of the following?
criterion validity
Your friend Dominic is complaining about having to take the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), a test that is required to go to graduate school and is similar to the ACT and SAT. He complains, "Tests like the GRE don't really measure how well people actually do in graduate school." Dominic is questioning the ______________ of the test.
criterion validity
Asking an expert or experts to evaluate a measure is used to establish validity.
face
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 al tell her it looks like it will measure narcissism. She know has evidence of which of the following?
face validity
If a measurement looks like it is a plausible operationalization of a conceptual variable, then it has:
face validity
Dr. Sheffield has decided to test the discriminant validity of his new measure. He has a group of first-time Gamblers Anonymous (GA) attendants complete his measure and finds that they score higher than a group of people who do not attend the group. Which of the following results would provide evidence for discriminant validity?
he finds that the measure of gambling is not correlated with a measure of life satisfaction in the same two groups of people.
What does it mean that "reliability is necessary but not sufficient for validity"?
if a measure is valid, it is also reliable
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 sees the participations who agree with Q 1 also agree with Q 3 and disagree with question 2. This is a test of which of the following?
internal reliability
Which of the following is NOT an example of physiological measurement?
number of panic attacks a patient reports
An educational psychologists is testing the discriminant validity of a new measure of numerical learning difficulties. He gives his measure to a group of students along with another measure of verbal difficulties, which he predicts should not be strongly related to numerical learning difficulties. Which of the following correlations would be the psychologist hope to find in order to estbalsh discriminant validity?
r=-0.18
A helpful tool for visualizing test-retest reliability and interrater reliability is a:
scatterplot
For her research methods class, Serena plans to interview several teachers about their attitude toward teaching children who have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This is an example of what type of measurement?
self-report measurement
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. She then compares the scores between the two time points. This is a test of which of the following?
test-retest reliability
RESEARCH STUDY 3.4: Dr. Kang, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of all the participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B. Dr. Kang sends his study to a journal to be published. One of the peer reviewers questions the way Dr. Kang manipulated emotion, arguing that being exposed to emotional words does not make one emotional. The reviewer is questioning which of the following?
the construct validity of the study
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
RESEARCH STUDY 3.4: Dr. Kang, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of all the participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B. Which of the following is the dependent variable in Dr. Kang's study?
the number of words remembered
RESEARCH STUDY 3.1: Anderson is reading his morning paper and sees the following headline. "Men Should Avoid Rock Music When Playing Board Games." In the study, men and women played the game "Operation" when listening to different types of music. Male participants performed worse when listening to ACDC than when listening to Mozart, but female participants' performance did not different based on music. Which of the following is a variable in this study?
the sex of the participant
RESEARCH STUDY 3.3: Anton and his friends are discussing a study he read about in his developmental psychology class. In the study, the researcher made the claim that most middle school students who are bullied have low self-esteem. Clarissa questions the study, saying, "I am not sure that. I am convinced. I am not sure you can really measure being bullied." Clarissa's concern is addressing which of the following?
the study's construct validity
RESEARCH STUDY 3.3: Anton and his friends are discussing a study he read about in his developmental psychology class. In the study, the researcher made the claim that most middle school students who are bullied have low self-esteem. Clarissa questions the study, saying, "I am not sure that I am convinced. I am not sure you can really measure being bullied." Quinn also questions the study, saying, "Which middle school students did they study? I am curious if they included both private and public school students." Manish also is curious about the study, asking, "I wonder how strong the relationship is between bullying and self-esteem. Could you predict one from the other?"Manish's concern is addressing which of the following?
the study's statistical 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-varialbe criterion
RESEARCH STUDY 3.1: Anderson is reading his morning paper and sees the following headline. "Men Should Avoid Rock Music When Playing Board Games." In the study, men and women played the game "Operation" when listening to different types of music. Male participants performed worse when listening to ACDC than when listening to Mozart, but female participants' performance did not different based on music. Which of the following is a constant in this study?
the type of game
Hosea is studying the relationship between caffeine consumption and problem-solving ability. Which of the following is a quantitative way to operationalize problem-solving ability?
time spent solving a math problem.
RESEARCH STUDY 3.1: Anderson is reading his morning paper and sees the following headline. "Men Should Avoid Rock Music When Playing Board Games." In the study, men and women played the game "Operation" when listening to different types of music. Male participants performed worse when listening to ACDC than when listening to Mozart, but female participants' performance did not different based on music. How many variables are included in this study?
two
RESEARCH STUDY 3.5: Jenny reads the following headline on an online article: "If You're Sexist, People Will Think You're Racist, and Vice Versa." (This headline is based on a study conducted by Sanchez and colleagues, 2017.) This study found that members of stigmatized groups are threatened by prejudice directed at other stigmatized groups. Their results showed that White women can be threatened by racism, and men of color threatened by sexism, and that these perceptions made participants expect unfair treatment. Which of the following questions assesses the construct validity of this study? How did the researchers measure expectations of unfair treatment? In this study, the article's headline is _______ because _______.
unjustified; the researcher did not study all groups of individuals who are sexist and racist.
Dr. Rodriguez is considering conducting a study examining whether narcissistic people have poorer romantic relationships than those who are not narcissistic. One of her first tasks is to determine which of her participants are narcissistic and which are not. She decides to use the scale created by a colleague, the Donal scale. Question 1 reads, "I tend to not think about other people as much as I think about myself." Question 2 reads "I do not have a high opinion of myself." Question 3 reads "I think other people think I am really special". 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
If Dr. Sheffield's measure does not actually measure pathological gambling, his measure is said to lack which of the following?
validity
RESEARCH STUDY 3.1: Anderson is reading his morning paper and sees the following headline. "Men Should Avoid Rock Music When Playing Board Games." In the study, men and women played the game "Operation" when listening to different types of music. Male participants performed worse when listening to ACDC than when listening to Mozart, but female participants' performance did not different based on music. In this study, the authors were interested in participants' board game performance. Which of the following would be a reasonable operational definition of performance?
whether participants won against a partner
Dr. Hoda measures job satisfaction and number of years of education. In examining her scatterplot, she sees the cloud of points has no slope. This indicates which type of relationship?
zero association
RESEARCH STUDY 5.1: Dr. Rodriquez is considering conducting a study examining whether narcissistic people have poorer romantic relationships than those who are not narcissistic. One of her first tasks is to determine which of her participants are narcissistic and which are not. She decides to use the scale created by a colleague, the Donal scale. Question 1 reads, "I tend not to think about other people as much as I think about myself." Question 2 reads, "I do not have a high opinion of myself." Question 3 reads, "I think other people think I am really special."Dr. Rodriquez decides to test the internal reliability of her measure. Which of the following results would make her happy?
α = 0.95
RESEARCH STUDY 2.1: Charlotte is studying subliminal messages and weight loss. She is curious whether people will lose more weight if they hear subliminal messages that encourage weight loss ("don't eat that food," "you want to be thin," etc.) in the music on their iPods compared to people who do not have subliminal messages in their music. She studies 40 people and finds the following results: A change to which of the following cells will result in a different interpretation of the results of subliminal messages?
A change in any cell will result in a different interpretation.
RESEARCH STUDY 5.2: 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. Given this information, Dr. Sheffield's measure has evidence of which of the following?
Content validity
RESEARCH STUDY 3.3: Anton and his friends are discussing a study he read about in his developmental psychology class. In the study, the researcher made the claim that most middle school students who are bullied have low self-esteem. Clarissa questions the study, saying, "I am not sure that I am convinced. I am not sure you can really measure being bullied." Quinn also questions the study, saying, "Which middle school students did they study? I am curious if they included both private and public school students." Manish also is curious about the study, asking, "I wonder how strong the relationship is between bullying and self-esteem. Could you predict one from the other?"Quinn's concern is addressing which of the following?
the study's external validity
RESEARCH STUDY 1.1: 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 thinks that maybe autonomy is only necessary when people are in situations in which they are not being evaluated. Deci and Ryan's general statement of how the three needs are related to growth and fulfillment is an example of which of the following?
A theory
RESEARCH STUDY 3.5: Jenny reads the following headline on an online article: "If You're Sexist, People Will Think You're Racist, and Vice Versa." (This headline is based on a study conducted by Sanchez and colleagues, 2017.) This study found that members of stigmatized groups are threatened by prejudice directed at other stigmatized groups. Their results showed that White women can be threatened by racism, and men of color threatened by sexism, and that these perceptions made participants expect unfair treatment. Which of the following questions assesses the construct validity of this study?
How did the researchers measure expectations of unfair treatment?
RESEARCH STUDY 4.1: Dr. Kushner is planning on conducting a study next semester. He is curious as to whether sleep deprivation is associated with poorer cognitive performance. For example, if you sleep poorly the night before a big exam, will you do worse? Dr. Kushner is especially curious about selective sleep deprivation, where people are kept from entering REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Using an electroencephalograph (EEG) to monitor brain waves, he plans to let participants sleep until they enter REM sleep and then wake them. After the participants are awake for one minute, Dr. Kushner plans to let them return to sleep. As they enter REM sleep again, he will wake them again and follow the same procedure. He plans to do this through the entire eight-hour sleep session. The following morning, participants will be asked to take a sample SAT test. Imagine that Dr. Kushner is a clinical psychologist who volunteers his time at a local prison counseling several inmates. Because of his connections there, he is considering using prisoners as his participants. Why is this choice potentially problematic?
According to the Belmont Report, prisoners are entitled to special protection.
RESEARCH STUDY 4.1: Dr. Kushner is planning on conducting a study next semester. He is curious as to whether sleep deprivation is associated with poorer cognitive performance. For example, if you sleep poorly the night before a big exam, will you do worse? Dr. Kushner is especially curious about selective sleep deprivation, where people are kept from entering REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Using an electroencephalograph (EEG) to monitor brain waves, he plans to let participants sleep until they enter REM sleep and then wake them. After the participants are awake for one minute, Dr. Kushner plans to let them return to sleep. As they enter REM sleep again, he will wake them again and follow the same procedure. He plans to do this through the entire eight-hour sleep session. The following morning, participants will be asked to take a sample SAT test. Which of the following is true regarding obtaining informed consent in Dr. Kushner's study?
He needs to obtain informed consent because there is a likelihood of risk in his study.
RESEARCH STUDY 5.2: 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 has now decided that he wants to test his measure on some university students (who some estimates say have a 6% prevalence rate of compulsive gambling). He has a group of 100 university students complete his measure. He also has them complete two other measures (one that measures addictive behavior in general and one that measures general attitudes toward gambling). He finds that his new measure is positively associated with each of these other measures. This procedure has provided evidence for the _____ of Dr. Sheffield's measure.
convergent validity
