M2: Introduction to Social Psychology (additional)

Question 1

the age of passionate measurement of social phenomena

Answer 1

19th century

Question 2

_______ agreed that scientific experimentation with human beings is not feasible

Answer 2

19th-century experts

Question 3

It was not before the _____ that the present-day definition of a scientific experiment as a comparative measurement of experimental and control groups.

Answer 3

1910s

Question 4

It was not until the ______ that the ________ (RCT) became the ideal experiment in the social sciences (and medicine)

Answer 4

1950s ; randomized controlled trial

Question 5

The term ________ has always referred to widely varying research procedures.

Answer 5

experiment

Question 6

In _________ and ________ (as well as in medical research), a particular definition of the scientific experiment, a truly scientific
experiment entails comparing experimental groups that received a treatment with control groups that did not receive the treatment and, if a difference is found, calculating its statistical significance.

Answer 6

contemporary social science and psychology

Question 7

The groups must be composed on the basis of chance. To eliminate the possible influence of expectations concerning the outcomes, preferably both the participants and the conductors of an experiment are kept unaware of the group to which each participant has been assigned.

Answer 7

Statistical soundness and comparability

Question 8

A truly scientific experiment is a ________ and ideally it is a _______ RCT.

Answer 8

randomized controlled trial ; double-blind

Question 9

RCT in medicine

Answer 9

randomized clinical trial

Question 10

Since the _____, social science handbooks and publication manuals have presented the RCT as the methodological standard for investigating causal relations.

Answer 10

1950s

Question 11

Much of the foundation of the modern approach to social experimentation can be traced back to the work of the famous statistician ________ in the ______.

Answer 11

Ronald Fisher ; 1920s

Question 12

Fisher refined the notion of __________ and pointed out that no two groups could ever be identical.

Answer 12

random assignment

Question 13

Fisher noted that allocation of subjects to treatment and control groups by _______ (by the flip of a coin or from a table of random numbers, for example) ensures that differences in the average behavior of the two groups can be safely attributed to the treatment.

Answer 13

pure chance

Question 14

As a result, the direction of causality can be determined using ___________.

Answer 14

basic statistical calculations

Question 15

Fisher also recognized that _________ provides a means of determining the statistical properties of differences in outcomes between the groups.

Answer 15

randomization

Question 16

The random assignment of human subjects to two groups to examine the effects of social policies.

Answer 16

social experiment

Question 17

One group, called the “__________” is offered or required to participate in a new program,

Answer 17

treatment group

Question 18

A second group, the “_________” receives the existing program.

Answer 18

control group

Question 19

The two groups are monitored over time to measure differences in their _______.

Answer 19

behavior

Question 20

The behavioral differences are sometimes called the “________” of the program.

Answer 20

impacts

Question 21

Commonly measured behavioral outcomes in social experiments include:

Answer 21

EERHEC
1. earnings
2. employment
3. receipt of transfer payments
4. health
5. educational attainment
6. child development

Question 22

Sample sizes in social experiments have ranged from under _____ to well over _____.

Answer 22

under 100 – over 10,000

Question 23

Limitations of SE

social experiments require that a control group be denied the policy change given to the treatment group.

Answer 23

Considered disadvantaged

Question 24

Limitations of SE

Denial of program services may be viewed as constituting an ethical breach, thus limiting social experiments to places where resources prevent all eligible individuals from being served.

Answer 24

Unethical

Question 25

Limitations of SE

Although well-designed experiments have a high degree of internal validity (inferences are valid for the tested sample), they may not have ________ (they are not generalizable to other settings).

Answer 25

external validity

Question 26

Limitations of SE

One common criticism of experiments is that because of their _________, they do not generate the macroeconomic, “community,” effects that a fully operational program would generate

Answer 26

limited size

Question 27

Limitations of SE

social experiments take time to _______ and ______, usually several years.

Answer 27

design and evaluate

Question 28

Limitations of SE

________ may not want to wait the __________ to find out if a particular program works.

Answer 28

Policymakers ; required time

Question 29

Limitations of SE

in practice, it has often proven difficult to implement ________.

Answer 29

random assignment

Question 30

Limitations of SE

Individuals may not be willing to ________ in a research study, and in cases where collaboration between researchers and government agencies is required,

Answer 30

participate

Question 31

Limitations of SE

The treatment and control groups that are tested may turn out to be _________ of the target population.

Answer 31

unrepresentative

Question 32

TRUE or FALSE
Because of the various limitations of social experiments, other means of evaluating the effects of social policies have been developed.

Answer 32

TRUE

Question 33

Other means of evaluating the effects of social policies. These are generally termed “_________” or “_________ methods.

Answer 33

non-experimental or quasi-experimental”

Question 34

_________ methods monitor the behavior of persons subjected to a new policy (the treatment group) and select a “comparison group” to serve the role of a control group.

Answer 34

Non-experimental

Question 35

In a non-experimental method, _________ is not used to select the two groups, it is never known for sure whether the comparison group is identical to the treatment group in ways other than receipt of the treatment.

Answer 35

randomization

Question 36

Many researchers match treatment group members to persons in the _______ population to make the groups as similar as possible.

Answer 36

nonparticipating

Question 37

The matches are usually done using ________ and ________ characteristics such as age, education, race, place of residence, employment and earnings history, and so on.

Answer 37

demographic and economic characteristics

Question 38

One popular matching technique is ___________, which uses a weighted average of the observed economic and demographic characteristics of the nonparticipating population to create a comparison group.

Answer 38

propensity score matching

Question 39

A particularly attractive nonexperimental method is the “________________.”

Answer 39

natural experiment

Question 40

________ experiments often are used to test the effects of social policies already in place.

Answer 40

Natural experiments

Question 41

The natural experiment takes advantage of the way a new policy has been implemented so that the comparison group is almost a ___________.

Answer 41

true control group

Question 42

This example is what type of experiment?

During the Vietnam War, military conscription was a national lottery process that selected individuals based on their birth date. Researchers can test the effects of conscription on future behavior by comparing outcomes like educational attainment or earnings between conscripted and non-conscripted individuals. They can attribute the “impacts” to conscription by adjusting the impacts of conscription for differences in military service in the treatment and comparison groups. However, the validity of this procedure depends on the comparability of military service veterans in the two samples. The study’s validity relies on the comparability of military service veterans.

Answer 42

Natural experiment

Question 43

Robbers Cave Experiment is a famous ______________.

Answer 43

social psychology experiment