Chapter 5

Question 1

Self-report measures

Answer 1

recording people’s answers to questions about themselves in a questionnaire or interview

Question 2

Observational measures

Answer 2

recording observable behaviors

Question 3

Physiological measures

Answer 3

operationalize a variable by recording biological data (e.g., brain activity, hormonal levels, heart rate

Question 4

Categorical variables

Answer 4

their levels are qualitatively distinct categories; for example, species (rhesus macaque, bonobo, chimpanzee)

Question 5

Quantitative variables

Answer 5

variables coded with meaningful numbers; for example, height, weight, or scale of subjective well-being.

Question 6

Ordinal scale

Answer 6

Ranked order (first, second, third places in a race—first place isn’t twice as fast as second place).

Question 7

Interval scale

Answer 7

Numerals represent equal distances between levels and there is no true zero (zero does not mean “nothing”); for example, IQ score (a score of 160 is twice as large as a score of 80).

Question 8

Ratio scale

Answer 8

Numerals represent equal intervals and there is a true zero, for example, height or exam scores.

Question 9

Reliability

Answer 9

how consistent the results of a measure are

Question 10

Test-retest reliability

Answer 10

: Consistent scores every time the measure is used; for example, give an IQ test at Time 1 (T1), at the beginning of the semester, and again at Time 2 (T2), at the end of the semester. The scores should be relatively consistent across the two times.

Question 11

Interrater reliability

Answer 11

Consistent scores no matter who does the measuring; for example, two observers measure how often a child smiles during one hour at a daycare playground, and their counts are consistent with one another.

Question 12

Internal reliability (aka internal consistency

Answer 12

A participant provides a consistent pattern of responses, regardless of how the researcher has phrased the question; for example, a researcher asks in several different ways about how lonely you feel, and your responses are consistent with one another.

Question 13

Correlation coefficient

Answer 13

a single number that describes how close the dots on a scatterplot are to the line drawn through them

Question 14

Strength

Answer 14

When dots are close to the line, you have a strong relationship. When dots are spread out, you have a weak relationship

Question 15

Validity

Answer 15

Whether the operationalization is measuring what it’s supposed to measure.

Question 16

Deception

Answer 16

two types of deception—omission (withholding details of the study from participants) and commission (lying to participants).

Question 17

Debriefing

Answer 17

When researchers use deception, they need to debrief participants following their participation. Debriefing sessions are typically conducted verbally, and the researcher explains why deception was used and the nature of the deception.

Question 18

Data fabrication

Answer 18

researchers invent data that fit their hypotheses

Question 19

Data falsification

Answer 19

researchers selectively delete observations or influence participants to act in a particular way

Question 20

criterion validity

Answer 20

whether the measure is related to a concrete outcome that it should be related to

Question 21

Convergent validity

Answer 21

A measure should correlate strongly with other measures of the same construction

Question 22

Discriminant validity aka divergent validity

Answer 22

A measure should correlate less strongly with measures of different constructs; in other words, there must be differences