Chapter 2: Research Methods

Question 1

Blind

Answer 1

Unaware of whether one is in the control or experimental group.

Question 2

Experimenter Expectancy Effect

Answer 2

A phenomenon in which researchers’ hypotheses lead them to unintentionally bias the outcome of a study.

Question 3

Double-Blind

Answer 3

When neither researchers nor participants are aware of who’s in the experimental or control group.

Question 4

Illusory Correlation

Answer 4

A perception of a statistical association between two variables where none exists.

Question 5

Experiment

Answer 5

A research design characterized by random assignment of participants to conditions and manipulation of an independent variable.

Question 6

Random Assignment

Answer 6

Randomly sorting participants into two groups; experimental and control.

Question 7

Experimental Group

Answer 7

The group of participants, in an experiment, that receive the manipulation.

Question 8

Control Group

Answer 8

The group of participants, in an experiment, that doesn’t receive the manipulation.

Question 9

Between-Subjects Design

Answer 9

In an experiment, researchers assign different groups to the control or experimental condition.

Question 10

Within-Subject Design

Answer 10

In an experiment, each participant acts as his or her own control.

Question 11

Independent Variable

Answer 11

The variable that an experimenter manipulates.

Question 12

Dependent Variable

Answer 12

The variable that an experimenter measures to see whether the manipulation has an effect.

Question 13

Operational Definition

Answer 13

A working definition of what a researcher is measuring.

Question 14

Demand Characteristics

Answer 14

Cues that participants pick up from a study that allow them to generate guesses regarding the researcher’s hypotheses.

Question 15

Informed Consent

Answer 15

Researchers must inform research participants of what is involved in a study before asking them to participate.

Question 16

Statistics

Answer 16

The application of mathematics to describing and analyzing data.

Question 17

Descriptive Statistics

Answer 17

Numerical characterizations that describe data.

Question 18

Heuristic

Answer 18

A mental shortcut or rule of thumb that helps us to streamline our thinking and make sense of our world.

Question 19

Naturalistic Observation

Answer 19

Watching behaviour in real-world settings without trying to manipulate the situation.

Question 20

External Validity

Answer 20

The extent to which we can generalize findings to real-world settings.

Question 21

Internal Validity

Answer 21

The extent to which we can draw cause-and-effect inferences from a study.

Question 22

Case Study

Answer 22

A research design that examines one person or a small number of people in depth, often over an extended time period.

Question 23

Existence Proof

Answer 23

A demonstration that a given psychological phenomenon can occur.

Question 24

Random Selection

Answer 24

A procedure that ensures that every person in a population has an equal chance of being chosen to participate.

Question 25

Placebo Effect

Answer 25

An improvement resulting from the mere expectation of improvement.

Question 26

Reliability

Answer 26

The consistency of measurement.

Question 27

Validity

Answer 27

The extent to which a measure assesses what it purports to measure.

Question 28

Response Set

Answer 28

A tendency of research participants to distort their responses to questionnaire items.

Question 29

Correlational Design

Answer 29

A research design that examines the extent to which two variables are associated.

Question 30

Scatterplot

Answer 30

A grouping of points on a two-dimensional graph in which each dot represents a single person’s data.

Question 31

Mode

Answer 31

The most frequent score in a data set.

Question 32

Varaibility

Answer 32

The measure of how loosely or tightly bunched scores are.

Question 33

Central Tendency

Answer 33

The measure of the “central” scores in a data set, or where the group tends to cluster.

Question 34

Mean

Answer 34

The average.

Question 35

Median

Answer 35

The middle score in a data set.

Question 36

Range

Answer 36

The difference between the highest and the lowest scores.

Question 37

Standard Deviation

Answer 37

The measure of variability that takes into account how far each data point is from the mean.

Question 38

Inferential Statistics

Answer 38

Mathematical methods that allow us to determine whether we can generalize findings from our sample to the full population.

Question 39

Parapsychologists

Answer 39

Investigators who study ESP and related psychic phenomena.