Exam 1 Research Methods
Which of the following is an association claim?
"Owning a dog related to higher life satisfaction"
basic research
"knowledge for knowledges sake" Just curiosity ex. what are stars made of?
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"
Michael is a psychology student. Why is it important for him to know how to be a producer of research?
-Because he might have to write an APA-style paper -Because he might need to conduct a study as part of a class -Because he may work in a professor's research lab
motivational biases
-cherry picking -confirmatory hypothesis testing -bias blindspot
faulty thinking
-good stories -availability heuristic -present/presnt bias
what do you need from variables to have an expiermiment?
-manipulated variables and measured
Which of the following are features of good theories?
-supported by data -parsionomus -falsifiable
the problem with basing your beliefs off of experience
1. no comparison groups 2. has confounds (not everything is a confound though)
The American Psychological Association's ethical guidelines have _________ principles and __________ standards.
5, 10
A change to which of the following cells will result in a different interpretation of the results of subliminal messages?
A change in any of the cells will affect the interpretation
Variable
A factor that can change in an experiment
ordinal scale
A scale of measurement using ranks rather than actual numbers. ex- order of swimmers that finished a race
Mozart Effect
A set of research results indicating that listening to Mozart's music may induce a short-term improvement on the performance of certain kinds of mental tasks known as "spatial-temporal reasoning;"
What is a margin of error?
A statistical figure that creates a range in which the true value for a population is expected to lie.
Imagine that Dr. Kline 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.
Sasha believes that she is a nice person. To confirm this, she asks all her friends whether she is a nice person and they all agree that she is. Sasha concludes that she is a nice person and says she has evidence of it. Which of the following should Sasha do to prevent Cherry-picking evidence for her belief?
Asked her enemies if she was a nice person
the two biases of intuition discussed in the text are:
Being swayed by a good story and being persuaded by what comes easily to mind.
categorical variables
Categorical variables take on values that are names or labels. The color of a ball (e.g., red, green, blue), gender (male or female), year in school (freshmen, sophomore, junior, senior). These are data that cannot be averaged or represented by a scatter plot as they have no numerical meaning.
A psychiatrist is testing a drug that treats depression. He has given the drug to all his patients and all of them have experienced a decrease in depressive symptoms. Although this is interesting, his experience is limited because he does not have a:
Comparison group that did not receive the drug
What do causal claims and association claims have in common?
Frequency claims measure a single variable, while association and causal claims measure more than one.
What does it mean that behavioral research is probabilistic?
Inferences drawn from behavioral research are not expected to explain all cases.
empirical journal articles
Initial report, methods, statistics, results
Which of the following is the reason that scientific journals use peer review?
It ensures that the studies published are of the highest quality.
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 identity of peer reviewers is unknown
face validity
Measures whether a test looks like it tests what it is supposed to test.
Patrick is confident that his short-term memory is better than most people's. He knows this because compared with his friends, he can remember more names than they do. Which of the following should we do?
Not believe that his short-term memory is better than most people's because confidence does not ensure accuracy
present/ present bias
The tendency to rely only on evidence that is present (e.g., instances in which both a treatment and a desired outcome are present) and ignore evidence that is absent (e.g., instances in which a treatment is absent or the desired outcome is absent) when evaluating the support for a conclusion. ex- "every time it rains I am late"
Researchers at a beverage company conclude from an intial study that their new mineral water does not improve the metabolism or promote health. Many followup studies conclude that the water has does have health benefits. What kind of mistake did the first study make?
Type II Error; It claimed the water had no health benefits when in fact it did.
Vanessa claims that she sleeps better when she falls asleep to music. She has a comparison group, because she has noticed that she does not listen to music every night, only when she remembers to plug in her iPod. She typically remembers her iPod on nights when she is able to finish studying earlier. What problem do you see in Vanessa's reasoning about sleeping better to music?
Vanessa may be sleeping better because she is less distracted by studying/going to bed sooner.
The problem with the Availability Heuristic is which of the following?
We do not examine all of the evidence, only what we can quickly think of.
To address the Belmont Principle of Beneficence, Dr. Kline would need to ask which of the following questions?
What can I do to decrease the potential harm experienced by my participants?
When reading an empirical journal article "with a purpose," which two questions should you ask yourself as you read?
What is the argument? and What is the evidence to support the argument?
Dr. Kline is deciding whether he needs to give participants a reason for waking them up several times during the night. He knows that he cannot tell them the real reason, but he is unsure whether he should deceive them (give them a false reason why he is waking them up) or provide them with no cover story at all. Which of the following issues should be considered most heavily when deciding whether or not to use deception?
Whether he can conduct the study just as well without deception
content validity
a measure must capture all parts of a defined construct -an IQ test must measure intelligence with different parts.
ratio scale
a quantitative scale of measurement in which the numerals have equal intervals and the value of zero truly means "nothing" -number of exam ?'s correct
interval scale
a scale of measurement in which the intervals between numbers on the scale are all equal in size. no true zero -IQ score, shoe size
operational definition
a statement of the procedures (operations) used to define research variables. For example, human intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures.
measured variable
a variable in an experiment whose levels are observed and recorded
When reading an empirical journal article "with purpose," which section should you read first?
abstract
A local committee that reviews research that is conducted on animals is known as __________.
an IACUC
Ellie is looking for a summary of research on the effects of childhood abuse on adult functioning. Which of the following scientific sources would NOT be an ideal source?
an empirical journal study
When reading about a single empirical research study, you would be most likely to find a detailed description of the study's methods and results in which of the following sources?
an empirical journal study
construct validtiy
anytime you talk about the measurement- it is construct ex. variables
-if you have 2 variables and they're both measured its -correlate
association claim
Research that is done specifically to add to our general understanding of psychology, like distinguishing the components of extroversion or predicting the time it takes a person to determine whether an object is a face or another object, is known as:
basic research
Journals and magazines are similar in all the following ways EXCEPT:
both tend to have their articles peer reviewed
physiological
breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion
conceptual vs operational
can change how we define and measure a variable
-one is responsible for the other -advice and strong verb phrases
casual claim
An alternative explanation for an outcome is known as a/an:
confound
reliability
consistency of measurement
To evaluate how well a study supports a frequency claim, you need to focus on evaluating which of the following validities?
construct validity and external validity
Upon receiving IRB approval, Dr. Kline trusts his graduate student to conduct the study. However, his graduate student does not conduct the study and instead provides Dr. Kline with invented results that support his hypotheses. This is known as which of the following?
data fabrication
____________ is the approach of collecting data and using it to develop, support, and/or challenge a theory.
empiricism
availability heuristic
estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common
criterion validity
evaluates whether the measure under consideration is related to a concrete outcome, such as behavior, that it should be related to, according to the theory being tested -is a salesperson test measuring their correlation to sell.
data
evidence; information gathered from observations
Operationalize
ex. how much money they spent or how many bottles they drank
variables
factors that can change in an experiment have at least 2 levels
type 2 error
false negative
Type 1 error
false positive
-if you have 1 variable and its measured -if it uses a number in the headline
frequency claim
Stefan wants to make a causal claim in his dissertation. Which of the following is necessary?
he must conduct an exp.
What is the importance of Hypotheses in the Theory-Data cycle?
hypotheses are used to determine if a theory is supported or not
IRB
internal review board external person outside the study that gets to review and approve your study
Which of the following validities CANNOT be examined in all research claims?
internal validity
the problem with basing your beliefs off of
intutiojn
Matthew is reading an empirical journal article and wants to know whether the authors used the Big Five Inventory (BFI-44) or the NEO-PI to measure extroversion. In which section would he find this information?
method
cherry picking
only take in evidence that supports you. ex- i don't believe in climate change, goes on google and only clicks on articles that are in favor of you
Occam's razor states that the simplest solution is the best, all things being equal. This speaks to a theory's:
parsimony
Which of the following events did NOT occur in the Tuskegee Study?
participants in the study were given or infected with the diesase
self report
people answer questions about themselves
Dr. Kline's decision about the type of participants to recruit should be informed by which of the following principles of the Belmont Report?
principal of justice
observational
recording observable behaviors
conceptual
relating to or based on mental concepts ex-defining what happiness is
animal research
replace refine and reduce
translational research
research that uses knowledge derived from basic research to develop and test solutions to real-world problems ex- fuel sources. what is best?
sir carl popper
science must begin with myths and with the criticism of myths
applied research
scientific study that aims to solve practical problems ex. testing a therapy. not WHY just YES or NO
convergent and discriminant validity
scores on the measure are related to other measures of the same construct ex- depression test correlates with self reported measures of depression
constant
something that stays the same
Dr. Kline suspects that the people who will most benefit from his study are high school and college students, who are asked to perform cognitive functions in various states of sleep deprivation. Given this information, what type of participants should Dr. Kline recruit for his study?
students form a community college
empiricism
supported by data
bias blindspot
the belief that we are unlikely to fall prey to cognitive biases
Risk vs. Benefit
the benefits to the patient far outweigh the risks
Which of these is true if a causal claim does NOT meet the criteria of covariance between the variables?
the claim can no longer be made
validity
the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to
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
Dr. Kline asks his participants to provide informed consent. Doing this is adhering to which principle of the Belmont Report?
the principals of respect for persons
levels
the specific values that the experimenter chooses for a factor
confirmatory hypothesis testing
the tendency to ask only the questions that will lead to the expected answer
According to the text, the bridge between basic and applied research is known as:
translational
confirmation bias and cherry picking are essential the same. true or false
true
independent variable
variable that is manipulated
quantitative variables
variables that can be counted or measured
internal validity
what is the cause? ex. you go to chipotle for first time, get sick and then you assume its chipotle. Then you go to chipotle and mcdonalds, get sick again. You can't figure out what was the thing that made you sick. thats a confound issue. measurable effects on your results. only applies to experiments
why are hypotheses important in theory data cycle?
your hypothesis is an extension of your theory. -if the hypothesis is supported, then the theory is supported
Dr. Hoda measures job satisfaction and number of years of education. In examining her scatterplot, she sees that the cloud of points has no slope. This indicates which type of relationship?
zero association
