Introduction to Psychological Research: Commonly Missed Test Questions

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.

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. You are concerned that Tim is making the blind spot bias. As a researcher, what would you most likely ask him to consider?

Do you think that you should test this out by opening some conversations with a joke and some conversations with chitchat?

Which of the following ethical violations did NOT occur in the Tuskegee Study?

Participants in the study were given/infected with the disease.

What makes certain constructs harder to operationalize?

Some constructs are difficult to observe.

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?

edited books

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 independent variable in Dr. Kang's study?

the content of the words

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

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 is also 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-variable criterion

The American Psychological Association's ethical guidelines have ________ principles and ________ standards

5; 10

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?

8

RESEARCH STUDY 1.1: Deci and Ryan (1985, 2001) have proposed that three fundamental needs 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 necessary only 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 designs a new study to test her new hypothesis.

Dr. Rodriquez is a health psychologist who is interested in studying the effects of cannabidiol (CBD) oil on perceptions of pain in college student athletes with sports injuries. She became interested in studying this topic after hearing multiple claims by the media that CBD oil was effective in treating pain. However, she could not find any empirical studies that reported findings of the effectiveness for CBD oil for sports injuries. Her decision to conduct a study to test the media claims is an example of which of Merton's scientific norms?

organized skepticism

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