Research Methods in Psychology

What sample size is often cited as the optimal balance between accuracy and effort?

1,000

Susan designed a study in which she had a group of younger adults (18-24 year-olds) and older adults (50-65 year-olds). She had both groups recite a poem by memory once in front of an audience of 50 people and once in a room by themselves. She counterbalanced the order of these tasks between participants. She had the participants rate their level of anxiety right before they recited the poem each time. What is the factorial notation for this design?

2 x 2

How many independent variables and how many cells are there in a 2 × 3 × 4 study?

3 independent variables, 24 cells

__________ is a simple study that uses a separate group of participants that is generally completed before conducting the study of primary interest in order to confirm the effectiveness of a manipulation.

A pilot study

______________ by Cartwright-Hatton and his colleagues (2010) summarizes 10 studies on the effectiveness of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) as a treatment for anxiety disorders of childhood and adolescence.

A review journal article

What kind of research paper is Uchida et al. (2004)?

A review paper

Which style of writing will you be expected to know and use in this course?

APA Style

Participants in a research study are given a list of words to study for 3 minutes and then, following a delay, are asked to recall the list. The length of the delay is manipulated between participants to be either 2 minutes, 5 minutes, or 10 minutes. Which of the following scenarios would present a design confound in this experiment?

All participants in the 2-minute condition are tested at 8:00 a.m.; those in the 5-minute condition are tested at noon; and those in the 10-minute condition are tested at 4:00 p.m.

Research suggests that the time a student spends studying for an exam is positively related to the grade that student receives on the exam. However, last week you took an exam without studying and got an A on the exam. What should you conclude about the relationship between study time and exam scores?

Although your experience with one exam is an exception, the research findings explain a certain proportion of the many possible cases.

Why do the authors argue that it is important to consider cross-cultural perspectives of happiness?

Because different cultures are likely to have different definitions of happiness, motivations to achieve happiness, and predictors of happiness

What does it mean to say that research is probabilistic?

Conclusions are meant to explain a certain proportion of possible cases.

Which statistic is used to represent the internal reliability of multiple-item self-report scales?

Cronbach's alpha

Dr. Joseph thinks that most people are generally trusting of strangers. He did a study at his university in the United States to test this idea, and the results confirmed his hypothesis. Dr. Joseph is discussing the results of this study with a friend who is a psychology researcher in China, Dr. Ming. Dr. Ming thinks that people in Eastern cultures, such as China, are less trusting of strangers than people in Western cultures, such as the United States. Dr. Joseph and Dr. Ming decide to run a second study where they have a group of participants in China and a group of participants in the United States both complete the task used in Dr. Joseph's study. This second study is an example of ______________.

Cross-Cultural Psychology

Daniel's teacher tells him that his theory about dating is not strong because it is not falsifiable. What does she mean?

Daniel's theory cannot be disproven.

True or false: There is good evidence that on average, people in individualist cultures truly are happier than people in collectivist cultures.

False

Which of the following statements are true, according to the authors? Select all correct answers.

Happiness in East Asian cultures is thought of as a reflection of social harmony. Happiness in European-American cultures is thought of as a personal achievement.

There is a strong positive association between years of education and income. The mean income for American adults in 2005 was $32,000 and the average number of years of education was 12. Mr. Lopez has 16 years of education. What would you predict about his income?

His income is probably higher than $32,000.

Which of the following questions addresses construct validity?

How well has the researcher measured or manipulated the variables in the study?

Which of the following is an example of a causal claim?

Ice applied to a twisted ankle prevents swelling.

Which of these is NOT part of the definition of a culture, according to the authors?

Indigenous practices of a country's minority groups

In which type of culture is self-esteem most likely to have a strong positive correlation with happiness?

Individualistic cultures

Professor Hammond studies ethical behavior and designs a study to examine the amount of cheating at her school. At the beginning of class each day, she passes around a chart showing the dates of the class meetings, with boxes for students to initial if present. She photocopies the sheet after each class so that she can find if any students initial for days in the past that they were absent. The students are not aware that they were participating in the study until the end of the quarter. What standard of Ethical Standard 8 does this violate?

Informed Consent to Research

Professor Hammond studies ethical behavior and designs a study to examine the amount of cheating at her school. At the beginning of class each day, she passes around a chart showing the dates of the class meetings, with boxes for students to initial if present. She photocopies the sheet after each class so that she can find if any students initial for days in the past that they were absent. She waits until she has recruited her target number of participants before writing a proposal for the IRB. Which standard of Ethical Standard 8 of the APA does waiting to propose the study violate?

Institutional Approval

Which of the following is NOT a reason why basing one's conclusions on research is superior to basing one's conclusions on intuition?

Intuition is always wrong.

___________ are the means for each level of an independent variable, averaging over levels of the other independent variable.

Marginal means

As part of an assignment for his Introduction to Psychology class, Gilbert has to read a journal article, summarize it, and compare it to what is reported in his textbook. Gilbert selects the article "Effects of Severe Daily Events on Mood," Stone & Neale (1984). If Gilbert wanted to repeat the study, which section would he consult to find the details of the study's design?

Method

Dr. Rhodes is interested in how differing levels of light affect how people perceive color. He finds participants for this research study by making an announcement in several psychology classes at his university. Should Dr. Rhodes be concerned about using this sampling method?

No, because external validity probably isn't very important for the type of claim he is making.

A researcher develops a happiness questionnaire, and includes the following item: "How often do you feel approval from your friends and family?" Will this item have good construct validity in a cross-cultural study of happiness in Canada and Japan?

No, because people in Canada are less likely than people in Japan to define happiness as approval in close interpersonal relationships

A researcher develops a happiness questionnaire, and includes the following item: "How many times do you recall feeling happy during the past week?" Will this item have good construct validity in a cross-cultural study of happiness in Canada and Japan?

No, because people in Japan are less likely than people in Canada to define happiness as the recollection of happy feelings

Professor Law wants to construct a survey to assess involvement with computer games. Which question is a double-barreled question?

On a scale of 0 (Not at all) to 5 (Very much), rate how much you like and play your favorite game.

Professor Law wants to construct a survey to assess involvement with computer games. Which question uses a Likert-type scale?

On a scale of 1 (Strongly agree) to 5 (Strongly disagree) scale, rate the following statement: Computer games are a great pastime.

Which of the following is NOT a reason why basing one's conclusions on research is superior to basing one's conclusions on personal experience?

Research definitively proves theories.

What is the "file drawer problem" in psychology?

Significant findings are more likely to be published than null effects.

Professor Fofana wonders if there is an association between students' grades and whether they complete extra credit in his classes. He makes a scatterplot, with the number of extra credit points earned on the x-axis and the numerical grade in his course without extra credit on the y-axis. He finds that r = 0.28. What does this correlation tell him about which students take advantage of the extra credit option?

Students with higher grades are more likely than students with lower grades to do extra credit work.

What do cultural definitions of emotion say about emotions?

That emotions are embedded in cultural contexts and have culture-specific meanings

Mendoza et al. (2009) introduced a coin rotation task as a convenient test of motor dexterity. It involves timed completion of twenty 180° rotations of a nickel using the thumb, index, and middle fingers. The results were compared to the results of another widely used test of motor dexterity, the finger-tapping task, in which participants tap their index fingers as many times as possible in 10 seconds. The results indicated that there was a statistically significant relationship between the finger-tapping task and the coin rotation task (r = -.40). What would a scatterplot of these results (coin rotation scores on the x-axis, finger-tapping scores on the y-axis) look like?

The cloud of points would slope downward from left to right.

Which of the following criteria is NOT required for a causal claim?

The correlation between the independent variable and dependent variable is zero.

Koordeman et al. (2011) conducted a study on the effect of alcohol commercials on alcohol consumption in a movie theater. Participants saw one of two types of beverage commercials: alcoholic or nonalcoholic. Their consumption of alcohol during the movie was then measured. Finally, they completed a questionnaire on their usual drinking habits. Koordeman et al. found that young adults who generally consume large amounts of alcohol each week were influenced to drink more alcohol when they saw alcohol commercials, whereas the alcohol consumption of young adults who generally consume small amounts of alcohol each week was not influenced by the type of commercial shown. Which of the following can be inferred from the study?

The effect of the alcohol commercial on alcohol consumption depended on whether the viewer was usually a heavy drinker or a light drinker.

Which of the following is NOT one of the categories of ethical violations that occurred in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study?

The investigators fabricated data.

There is a negative association between exercise and obesity. Which of the following would a researcher need to demonstrate in order to make the claim that a lack of exercise causes obesity?

The lack of exercise came before the obesity.

Which of these is NOT a characteristic of an edited book?

The peer-review process for edited books is more rigorous than for that of a journal.

Some theories are better than others. Which of the following is NOT considered a feature of a good theory?

The theory makes sense intuitively.

When the data from a study do not support the theory behind the study's hypothesis, what does that mean for the theory?

The theory should be revised.

Dr. Stevens wants to examine the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and depression. He selects a sample of American athletes who are currently training for the summer Olympic Games as his research subjects. Dr. Stevens finds no relationship between BMI and depression. What is one problem with his research design that could have kept him from finding a relationship between those variables?

There is a restriction of range problem.

Professor Fofana wonders if there is an association between students' grades and whether they complete extra credit in his classes. He makes a scatterplot, with the number of extra credit points earned on the x-axis and the numerical grade in his course without extra credit on the y-axis. He finds that r = 0.28 and that p<0.001. What does this mean?

There is probably a positive association between numerical grade and extra credit points in the full population of students.

Which of the following is the essential feature of studies that support association claims?

They involve two measured variables.

Which of the following is true about open-ended questions?

They provide rich data, but they can be time-consuming for researchers because the responses need to be coded.

True or false: There is good evidence that on average, people in individualist cultures report higher levels of subjective wellbeing than people in collectivist cultures.

True

Imagine you read a research article that concludes that people in Hong Kong are less happy than people in England. Which of the following questions should you ask to interrogate the construct validity of this study?

Was happiness measured in a way that applies equally well to both European and East Asian cultures?

Imagine you read a research article that concludes that people in Hong Kong are less happy than people in England. Which of the following questions should you ask to interrogate the statistical validity of this study?

What was the effect size for the difference in happiness between the two countries?

Is it ethical for psychological researchers to observe people in a public place?

Yes, because in those settings people can reasonably expect their behavior to be public, not private.

Mr. Stratford is the president of a national organization of lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender people in the United States. He wants to survey 1,000 members of his organization about the position they want the organization to take on several political issues. He knows that transgender people make up only 5 percent of his organization, but he wants to make sure that their views are accurately represented. He decides that he will randomly sample 100 of the transgender members and then adjust the final results so that transgender people are weighted to their actual proportion in the organization. Is Mr. Stratford collecting a representative sample?

Yes, because the transgender people in the final sample were sampled randomly from the population of transgender people in the organization.

Dr. Kim is researching treatments for childhood cancer. There is some risk that patients who undergo Dr. Kim's new therapy may be harmed by the procedure. However, based upon preliminary lab testing, the patients might benefit substantially from his treatment. If you were on the IRB evaluating Dr. Kim's research proposal to test his new treatment, what would make you more likely to approve the proposal?

You decide that the potential benefits of the study outweigh the potential risks.

Which sample would be most likely to represent the population of American teenagers?

a cluster sampling of 1,000 teenagers from around the United States

Which of the following would NOT be considered an operational definition of memory?

a cognitive process to retain and restore past information

Seligman (1975, 1991) proposed that animals who cannot escape an aversive outcome don't even try to avoid the aversive experience later, when they can escape it, because they don't perceive themselves as having control ("learned helplessness"). Latecia thinks this concept may apply to people's working conditions. She conducts a study and has 20 research participants work in an office space with some dilapidated supplies (e.g., pens that barely write, crumpled papers). The participants are split into two rooms. In one work room, Latecia offers to replace any of the run-down supplies with newer items. In another work room, Latecia tells the participants that they have to work with what they have. After a few days of working with this set-up, both groups' work spaces now include both the old supplies as well as new supplies. Latecia predicts that the participants who had to work with the dilapidated supplies for the first few days of the study will continue to use the less functional supplies on the last day, even when there are new supplies available in the room. Latecia's prediction that "the participants who had to work with the dilapidated supplies for the first few days of the study will continue to use the less functional supplies on the last day" would best be described as which of the following?

a hypothesis

Reading the news on the Internet, Johan comes across the headline, "When Stress is Increased, Men Rush Ahead, Women More Cautious." (This headline is based on a study conducted by Lighthall et al., 2011.) In this study, men and women were asked to perform a decision task as many times as possible in a set period, in either a stressed or unstressed condition. In the unstressed condition, men and women performed similarly. However, in the stressed condition, the number of decision tasks performed by men increased while the number performed by women decreased. In this study, the number of decision tasks performed is best described as which of the following?

a measured variable

If the relationship between two variables changes depending on the level of another variable, what is this other variable called?

a moderator

Which of the following is NOT a way that a researcher might indicate a statistically significant result in a journal article?

a notation of p = .20

Which of the following is an example of a field setting?

a preschool playground with video cameras

Seligman (1975, 1991) proposed that animals who cannot escape an aversive outcome don't even try to avoid the aversive experience later, when they can escape it, because they don't perceive themselves as having control ("learned helplessness"). Latecia thinks this concept may apply to people's working conditions. She conducts a study and has 20 research participants work in an office space with some dilapidated supplies (e.g., pens that barely write, crumpled papers). The participants are split into two rooms. In one work room, Latecia offers to replace any of the run-down supplies with newer items. In another work room, Latecia tells the participants that they have to work with what they have. After a few days of working with this set-up, both groups' work spaces now include both the old supplies as well as new supplies. Latecia predicts that the participants who had to work with the dilapidated supplies for the first few days of the study will continue to use the less functional supplies on the last day, even when there are new supplies available in the room. Seligman's proposal that "animals who cannot escape an aversive outcome don't even try to avoid the aversive experience later, when they can escape it, because they don't perceive themselves as having control" would best be described as which of the following?

a theory

Which of the following could be considered a source of empirical evidence?

a thermometer

Lisa is interested in how well people are able to detect whether another person is a "Cooperator", a "Competitor", or an "Individualist" simply by looking at a picture of the person's face. She wants to know what kind of face can be identified most easily, and whether this varies by the race of the person in the picture. She designs a 2 x 3 within-group design where she has participants in her study look at faces from African-American and Caucasian people who are "Cooperators", "Competitors", or "Individualists." The participants try to identify the personality of the person in each picture and Lisa keeps track of the number of pictures accurately identified for each picture type. Caucasian "Competitors" were identified more easily than the other two Caucasian personality types, but there was no difference in accuracy for African-American faces. What does this describe?

a two-way interaction between race and personality

In research, a confound is ____________.

an alternative explanation for an outcome that comes about because more than one thing changed at the same time.

Which of the following is NOT an example of information researchers must be careful to protect to ensure research participants' confidentiality?

answers to a completely anonymous questionnaire

Research done specifically to add to our general understanding of psychology is known as ______________.

basic research

Even when people are aware that people generally think in a biased way, they tend to think that they are unlikely to fall prey to those biases. This kind of bias is called ___________.

bias blind spot

Following a study using deception, how does the researcher attempt to restore an honest relationship with the participant?

by debriefing each participant in a structured conversation

In a business class experiment on the endowment effect, Theo is comparing the value of a coffee mug to someone who owns it and is selling it to someone who is buying it. The endowment effect describes the tendency of sellers to value something they own more than buyers do. Participants are randomly assigned to be buyers or sellers of a mug with their first name on it. Buyers select the maximum price they would pay for the mug. Sellers select the minimum price they would accept for the mug. How is Theo controlling for selection effects?

by using random assignment of participants

In a developmental psychology class, Trina learned about Baumarind's (1971, 1991) work on parenting styles. She recognized that her parents used an authoritarian style of parenting, as did all her relatives. Since that was the style of parenting she planned to use, she researched the advantages to that style, while ignoring any studies that support the use of another parenting style. What is the term for what she was doing?

cherry-picking the evidence confirmatory hypothesis testing

Horselenberg et al. (2003) conducted an experiment based on Kassin and Kieche (1996) in which the participant was falsely accused of striking a computer key that caused the data to be deleted. The earlier study showed that 69 percent of the participants were willing to sign a confession that they had struck the key. Horselenberg's study included a change in procedure where the signed confession included giving up part of the participation fee. What type of study was Horselenberg's?

conceptual replication

What is the name for the level of the independent variable that is intended to represent a neutral condition?

control group

What is the name for a variable that the experimenter holds constant on purpose?

control variable

Which of the following is NOT required to establish causality?

convergent validity

When authors of a research article are describing just the results of a factorial study, which of these terms would you NOT expect to see?

correlation

The Yerkes-Dodson law (1908), shows that performance increases with arousal up to a point, but beyond that, performance decreases with increasing arousal. What type of association is this?

curvilinear

Dr. Sanders conducted a study that investigated the happiness of people listening to different kinds of music. He predicted that people would report being happier when they were listening to rock music than when they were listening to country music. Dr. Sanders threw out the data from several participants who reported being very happy while listening to country music because he thought that they weren't being honest. Dr. Sanders has committed what kind of ethical violation?

data falsification

Which of the following is an example of a categorical variable?

declared major in college

Dimitri is interested in understanding the effects of sleep deprivation on short-term memory. Which of the following is an empirical approach Dimitri could take to answer this question?

design and execute a study which measures short-term memory function following different amounts of sleep

In psychology lab, Tatiana is conducting an experiment on depth perception using the Howard-Dolman box. Inside the box are two vertical rods and a horizontal ruler. The participant manipulates the rods until they appear to be aligned at the same distance away, then the experimenter measures how far out of alignment they are. Participants complete three conditions: left eye only, right eye only, and both eyes. Tatiana is using a repeated-measures design. What is the dependent variable in this experiment?

distance out of alignment of the rods

Mendoza et al. (2009) introduced a coin rotation task as a convenient test of motor dexterity. It involves timed completion of twenty 180° rotations of a nickel using the thumb, index, and middle fingers. Research participants' results on the coin rotation task are compared with their results on a test of grip strength — a measure of another construct: global upper-extremity strength. The correlation between the coin rotation task and the grip strength task were found to be not statistically significant. This comparison provides support for which type of measurement validity?

divergent validity

Psychological scientists base their conclusions on the evidence. They collect data and use it to develop, support, or challenge a theory. This approach is known as ____________.

empiricism

Horselenberg et al. (2003) conducted an experiment based on Kassin and Kieche (1996) in which the participant was falsely accused of striking a computer key that caused the data to be deleted. The earlier study showed that 69 percent of the participants were willing to sign a confession that they had struck the key. Horselenberg's study included a change in procedure where the signed confession included giving up part of the participation fee. In Horselenberg's study the researcher made the accusation rather than a peer, so that the situation more closely paralleled false confessions of a crime. By having the accusation made by a researcher, what did the researchers most clearly increase?

experimental realism

Horselenberg et al. (2003) conducted an experiment based on Kassin and Kieche (1996) in which the participant was falsely accused of striking a computer key that caused the data to be deleted. The earlier study showed that 69 percent of the participants were willing to sign a confession that they had struck the key. Horselenberg's study included a change in procedure where the signed confession included giving up part of the participation fee. Horselenberg et al. conducted their study in the Netherlands and found similar results to Kassin's. The fact that this finding was observed in multiple contexts supports which validity?

external

Which of the following is NOT an operational definition of stress?

feelings of anxiousness and pressure

Typically, in which type of claim is it most important to have a random sample?

frequency

Which type of claim is always done in generalization mode?

frequency

Dr. Reynolds develops a treatment for social anxiety disorder. After he has shown his treatment to be effective in very controlled laboratory studies, he decides to test it in other settings. He collaborates with clinicians who work in a variety of clinical settings across the country. Dr. Reynolds trains the clinicians on his treatment, but doesn't supervise them closely. He also allows patients with some common co-morbidities, such as depression, to participate in the study. This study is in _________.

generalization mode

Which of the following pieces of information should be provided to potential research participants as part of the informed consent process?

information about the risks and benefits of participating in the research study

For an association claim, you should interrogate all of the following validities EXCEPT __________.

internal

Professor Nakum designs a memory experiment to test the effect of word familiarity on memory. Three lists of words are created: common words, uncommon words, and made-up words. Participants are randomly assigned to study one of the lists of 30 words for 5 minutes, do math problems for 5 minutes, then write all the words they recall from the list. Their score is the number of words correctly recalled. The use of random assignment of participants increases which of the following?

internal validity of the study

Julie has developed an intervention to improve the relationship between parents and pre-school-aged children. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of her intervention, Julie video records the parents interacting with their children at the end of the study. She has two research assistants watch the videos and rate the level of warmth in the interaction. Julie then correlates the ratings of the raters. She finds a high positive correlation (r = .87) between the two raters. What type of reliability is she examining?

interrater

Which principle from the Belmont Report and the APA's Ethical Principles do animal rights activists draw upon to argue against the use of animals in experiments?

justice

Dr. Kamran studies domestic violence and has designed a self-report scale that is meant to assess men's negative attitudes toward women. To validate her scale, she administers it to two groups of recently incarcerated male prisoners: prisoners convicted of domestic violence and prisoners convicted of other crimes. Dr. Kamran finds a statistically significant difference in the mean scores of the two groups. What technique is Dr. Kamran using to validate her scale?

known-groups paradigm

de Abreu, Gathercole, and Martin (2011) found that the correlation of non-word repetition and digit recall in a memory was r = .59. Based on Cohen's (1992) guidelines, how would you describe this effect size?

large

In an experiment, researchers:

manipulate one variable and measure another.

What is it called when a researcher mathematically averages the results of many studies that have been completed with the same variables?

meta-analysis

Which of the following is NOT a form of replication in psychological research?

meta-analysis replication

Susan designed a study in which she had a group of younger adults (18-24 year-olds) and older adults (50-65 year-olds). She had both groups recite a poem by memory once in front of an audience of 50 people and once in a room by themselves. She counterbalanced the order of these tasks between participants. She had the participants rate their level of anxiety right before they recited the poem each time. What kind of study design is this?

mixed factorial design

According to Cohen's conventions for effect size, how do you describe an effect size when d = 0.50?

moderate

The campus safety committee has asked Professor Ibrahim to study bicycling on his campus. He trains two observers and has them observe the number of cyclists and their safety at various points around campus. He selects ten observation locations at random from the places bicycles can be ridden on campus and five one-hour spans of time at random from the daylight hours for each place. He has his observers make observations at each of the ten places for each of the five time spans. What type of sampling is he using?

multistage sampling

Professor Lee is curious if there is any pattern to who earns extra credit in her course. She examines this question by graphing a scatterplot of her students' exam grades and the number of extra credit points earned. She finds that the students with the lowest exam grades tend to have the most extra credit points. What type of association is this?

negative

Jenny recently learned of plans to cut down an old beautiful tree on her campus to make way for a new bike path. Jenny is opposed to cutting down the tree, and she decides to survey some students at her university to see if others also oppose cutting down the tree. She plans to share the results of her survey with the school administration to argue to keep the tree. One question on Jenny's survey asks, "Do you oppose not cutting down this tree?" A problem with this question is that it is a _____________.

negatively worded question

Georgina graduated as valedictorian of her high school class because of her class ranking. What type of scale is used for the quantitative variable of class ranking?

ordinal scale

Mr. Stratford is the president of a national organization of lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender people in the United States. He wants to survey 1,000 members of his organization about the position they want the organization to take on several political issues. He knows that transgender people make up only 5 percent of his organization, but he wants to make sure that their views are accurately represented. He decides that he will randomly sample 100 transgender members and then adjust the final results so that transgender people are weighted to their actual proportion in the organization. What type of sampling is Mr. Stratford using?

oversampling

Dr. Keller wants to test the effect of a new anti-anxiety medication. He recruits a group of anxious patients and randomly assigns them to two groups. One group will receive his new medication and the other will receive a sugar pill. What is the second group called?

placebo group

What type of research misconduct involves representing the ideas or words of others as one's own?

plagiarism

Carolyn sometimes taps on the basketball before shooting a free throw. When she thinks of her last few games, she can think of several times that she made her shot after tapping the basketball, so she decides to tap before every shot from now on. Carolyn is experiencing the __________.

present/present bias

Cara is running a study to examine the effect of music on mood. She randomly assigns participants to three conditions — rock, jazz, and country. She has the participants rate their mood with a short questionnaire, then listen to their assigned music for 20 minutes, and then fill out the mood questionnaire again. What kind of design is she using?

pretest/posttest

Dr. Jennings is doing a study on the experience of being a racial minority on a college campus. He goes to the Asian Student Association, Black Student Union, and Hispanic Student Group on his campus to recruit participants for his study. Dr. Jennings only includes Asians, African-Americans, and Hispanic participants in his study. What type of sampling is Dr. Jennings using?

purposive sampling

Dr. Lawrence is the director of Counseling Services at her university. She is planning to conduct a survey of 100 students at the university to see how aware they are of the counseling services that are offered at the university. She wants the proportion of males and females in her sample to reflect the proportion in the university as a whole (55 percent female and 45 percent male). Dr. Lawrence plans to stand in the Student Union and ask people to participate until she has given the survey to 55 females and 45 males. What type of sampling method is Dr. Lawrence going to use?

quota sampling

Which of the following is most important for enhancing external validity?

random sampling

Dr. Joseph thinks that most people are generally trusting of strangers. He did a study at his university in the United States to test this idea, and the results confirmed his hypothesis. Dr. Joseph is discussing the results of this study with a friend who is a psychology researcher in China, Dr. Ming. Dr. Ming thinks that people in Eastern cultures, such as China, are less trusting of strangers than people in Western cultures, such as the United States. Dr. Joseph and Dr. Ming decide to run a second study where they have a group of participants in China and a group of participants in the United States both complete the task used in Dr. Joseph's study. This second study is a ____________.

replication-plus-extension

Which of the following describes a "fence-sitting" response to a survey?

responding to a controversial question on a survey by selecting the response right in the middle

Participants in a research study are given a list of words to study for 3 minutes and then, following a delay, are asked to recall the list. The length of the delay is manipulated between participants to be either 2 minutes, 5 minutes, or 10 minutes. Since different groups need different amounts of time, the first 25 participants who arrive are assigned to the 10-minute group, the next 25 are assigned to the 5-minute group, and the final 25 are assigned to the 2-minute group. What confound does this create?

selection effect

Lorenzo is studying aggression in children. First, Lorenzo administers a questionnaire to the children that asks them about their feelings of aggression. Then Lorenzo and his lab partner observe the children while they play and record instances of aggression. What type of measure is the questionnaire?

self-report

Joseph wants to find out what customers at his restraint think about the food and the service. He creates a survey for diners to fill out at the end of their meal with three questions: 1) Please rate the food from 1-10, where 1 is yucky and 10 is delicious; 2) Please rate the service from 1-10 were 1 is unacceptable and 10 is outstanding. What kind of question format is Joseph using?

semantic differential

Which of the following is an example of a physiological measure?

skin conductance

A sample is always __________ a population.

smaller than

Jenny reads the headline, "Tea Party Supporters Have Slipped To 20 Percent." She asks, "What is the margin of error of the estimate?" What validity is she interrogating?

statistical validity

Marvin reads a journalistic report of a research study and asks, "How strong was the effect?" Which validity is Marvin asking about?

statistical validity

Which of the following is considered a representative sampling method?

systematic sampling

Vida is studying the connection between school grades and time spent using social media. She finds a strong correlation, showing the students with lower grades spend more time using social media. She decides that before she can claim that increased use of social media causes grades to drop, she must make sure that the social media came before the low grades. What criterion of causality is she thinking about?

temporal precedence

Dr. Johnson wants to do a study to investigate whether the physiological measure, heart rate variability, varies over time or whether it is a trait that stays stable within the same person over time. He records participants' heart rate variability once at the beginning of the semester and once at the end of the semester. He finds a high positive correlation (r = .65) between the first and second time points. What type of reliability is he examining?

test-retest

When using a measure to assess a trait that is expected to remain stable over time, a researcher would expect to get consistent results each time the measure is used. This type of reliability is known as which of the following?

test-retest

After two students from his school die of alcohol poisoning, Marcelino thinks that the most likely cause of death in teenagers is alcohol poisoning. What type of bias is affecting in his thinking?

the availability heuristic

In a factorial design study, which effect is usually considered the most important effect?

the interaction

The campus safety committee has asked Professor Ibrahim to study bicycling on his campus. He trains two observers and has them observe the number of cyclists and their safety at various points around campus. Initially, the observers can't agree about what is dangerous behavior. Professor Ibrahim refines his codebooks to clearly define the rating scales and retrains the observers. What is he addressing by doing this?

the reliability of the measurement

Which of the following is NOT a required member of an institutional review board (IRB)?

the researcher whose study is under review

Professor Fofana wonders if there is an association between students' grades and whether they complete extra credit in his classes. He makes a scatterplot, with the number of extra credit points earned on the x-axis and the numerical grade in his course without extra credit on the y-axis. He finds that r = 0.28. In addition to this correlation coefficient, what other information would Professor Fofana need to determine whether this result is statistically significant?

the sample size

Which of the following are two ethical issues raised by Milgram's studies of obedience?

the stress experienced by the "teachers" and the lasting effects of the study on the "teachers"

Professor Nakum designs a memory experiment to test the effect of word familiarity on memory. Three lists of words are created: common words, uncommon words, and made-up words. Participants study one of the lists of 30 words for 5 minutes, do math problems for 5 minutes, then write all the words they recall from the list. Their score is the number of words correctly recalled. Which of the following is the independent variable in this study?

the type of word list

In _________, external validity matters much less than internal validity.

theory-testing mode

What are the two main reasons researchers use factorial designs?

to test the limits of an effect and to test theories

Which of the following is NOT an example of a participant variable?

treatment group

How many possible orders for full counterbalancing are there in a study with four conditions?

twenty-four

Susan ran a study in which she had a group of younger adults (18-24 year-olds) and older adults (50-65 year-olds). She had both groups recite a poem by memory once in front of an audience of 50 people and once in a room by themselves. She counterbalanced the order of these tasks between participants. She had the participants rate their level of anxiety right before they recited the poem each time. Susan found that there was a main effect for age such that younger people reported being more anxious than older people. She found a main effect for audience size such that people were more anxious in the room with 50 people than they were in the room by themselves. She did not find an interaction in the results. If Susan were to graph her results, what would they look like?

two parallel diagonal lines

Koordeman et al. (2011) conducted a study on the effect of alcohol commercials on alcohol consumption in a movie theater. Participants saw one of two types of beverage commercials: alcoholic or nonalcoholic. Their consumption of alcohol during the movie was then measured. Finally, they completed a questionnaire on their usual drinking habits. Koordeman et al. found that young adults who generally consume large amounts of alcohol each week were influenced to drink more alcohol when they saw alcohol commercials, whereas the alcohol consumption of young adults who generally consume small amounts of alcohol each week was not influenced by the type of commercial shown. Which of the following is a factor in this study?

type of commercial shown

Which of the following is NOT one of the ways that researchers can avoid reactivity in observational studies?

use a masked or blind study design

Which of the following is a method to control for observer bias?

use a masked or blind study design

Jenny recently learned of plans to cut down an old beautiful tree on her campus to make way for a new bike path. Jenny is opposed to cutting down the tree, and she decides to survey some students at her university to see if others also oppose cutting down the tree. She plans to share the results of her survey with the school administration to argue to keep the tree. One question on Jenny's survey asks, "Would you be in favor of brutally cutting down this majestic tree to make way for a stupid bike path?" How could this question be changed to improve its construct validity?

use more neutral language so that it is not a leading question

When people are asked why they made a certain choice, they ______________.

will tell you why they think they made that choice, but they may not be accurate at identifying the true reason for their choice