Chapter 2

Question 1

Mode

Answer 1

The value of the most frequently observed measurement

Question 2

Mean

Answer 2

The average value of all the measurements

Question 3

Median

Answer 3

The value that is found in the “middle”

Question 4

Range

Answer 4

The value of the largest measurement in a frequency distribution minus the value of the smallest measurement

Question 5

Standard deviation

Answer 5

A statistic that describes the average difference between the measurements in a frequency distribution and the mean of that distribution

Question 6

Correlation

Answer 6

Two variables are said to be correlated when variations in the value of one variable are synchronized with variations in the value of the other

Question 7

Positive correlation

Answer 7

Both variables increase or decrease together

Question 8

Negative correlation

Answer 8

As one variable increases, the other decreases

Question 9

Correlation coefficient

Answer 9

A measure of the direction and strength of a correlation (r). Ranges from -1 to 1.

Question 10

Natural correlation

Answer 10

Correlations that we observe in the world around us

Question 11

What can correlation not tell us?

Answer 11

Causality or directionality

Question 12

Third variable correlation

Answer 12

Two variables are correlated only because each is causally related to a third variable.

Question 13

Matched Samples Technique

Answer 13

Participants in two groups are identical in terms of a third variable

Question 14

Matched Pairs Technique

Answer 14

Each participant is identical to one other participant in terms of a third variable

Question 15

Experiment

Answer 15

A technique for establishing the causal relationship between variables through manipulation of one of the variables
Allows us to rule out the influence of other variables

Question 16

Self-selection

Answer 16

A problem that occurs when anything about a person determines whether he or she will be included in the experimental or control group

Question 17

Random assignment

Answer 17

Uses a random event to assign people to the experimental or control group.

Question 18

When can the results of an experiment be considered statistically significant?

Answer 18

If there is a less than 5% chance that our random assignment has failed (p < 0.05)

Question 19

Case method

Answer 19

Method of gathering scientific knowledge by studying a single individual (n=1)

Question 20

Random sampling

Answer 20

a technique for choosing participants that ensures that every member of a population has an equal change of being included in the sample

Question 21

What did the standardization of ethics (Nurembourg Code and Declaration of Helsinki) come in the wake of?

Answer 21

human experiments done by Nazi doctors

Question 22

Tuskegee Experiment

Answer 22

399 African American men with syphilis were denied treatment to observe the progression of the disease

Question 23

What was the purpose of Milgram’s study of obedience?

Answer 23

Measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience

Question 24

Describe Milgram’s study of obedience

Answer 24

• The experimenter (E) orders the teacher (T), the subject of the experiment, to give what the latter believes are painful electric shocks to a learner (L), who is actually an actor and confederate.
  The subject believes that for each wrong answer, the learner was receiving actual electric shocks, though in reality there were no such punishments.