Midterm Flashcards
The basic goal of behavioral research is to:
study the behavior of humans and animals.
Scientific research is empirical. This means that it is based on:
systematic collection and analysis of data.
The question “How many people in a given age group are divorced?”would be answered using ____ research, whereas the question “Do people with more money divorce more often?” would be answered using ____research.
Descriptive & Correlational
Which of the following four sections are found in a research report?
Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion.
In which of the sections of the research report are the values of the scientists most likely to be expressed?
Introduction & Discussion
Quantitative research relies on:
the formal measurement of behavior followed by statistical analysis.
Qualitative research relies on:
the complete description of behavior in its original raw form.
A researcher might use previous research to develop an experiment that:
explained conflicting findings, found limiting conditions, and added to existing research.
Wanda has a theory that her cat can recognize her name. She calls the cat. If the cat looks up Wanda concludes that the cat knows her name. If the cat does not look up, Wanda concludes that the cat knows her name but is just ignoring her. The problem with Wanda’s test of her theory is that it is:
not falsifiable.
Which of the following describes a correlational research design?
Anita investigates the relationship between the amount of time children spend watching television at home and their helping behaviors at school.
Which of the following is the best example of a research hypothesis?
Smoking cigarettes increases the incidence of heart disease.
A study using the experimental design has found that in conditions in which there are more people in a room, the average reaction time to respond to a request for help is less. In the experiment the IV is ____ and the DV is ____.
the number of people in the room
&
the reaction time to help.
Why are ethics a concern in behavioral research?
Because the participants are human and researchers are obligated to protect them from harm.
A literature is usually conducted…
to avoid duplication of effort and to expand and modify the original research hypothesis.
Which of the following best represents the inductive method?
Developing a theory from observing the behaviors of children.
In a correlational study of the influence of violent tv programs on the aggressive play behavior, the tv violence is the ____ and the aggressive behavior is the ____.
Predictor Variable
&
Outcome Variable
Characteristics of an ethical research project include what?
After the experiment is over, any deception that has been used is made public, and the necessity for it is explained.
Which of the following is a right of the experimental participant?
The right to withdraw from participation without any penalty at any time.
The purpose of informed consent is to:
provide participants with information about the experiment so that they can make a free choice of whether they want to participate.
A participant who chooses not to complete an experiment after it has begun…
must not incur any loss of benefits.
The major goal of the Institutional Review Board is to:
determine the cost-benefit ratio of proposed research.
Which of the following best represents the goals of ethical research?
The welfare of research participants is taken into consideration and the research is reported honestly and fairly.
When information identifying the participant is collected by the researcher, but is not shared with anyone else, the collected data is said to be:
Confidential.
Which of the following organizations provides ethical guidelines for research?
American Psychological Association
Which of the following best describes why the power and status differential between the experimenter and the participant must always be taken into consideration?
The researcher has a great deal of power over the behavior of the participants while they are in the experimental session.
Which of the following is true regarding the use of animals in behavioral research?
Animals may sometimes be harmed during the research, but in general they are treated as humanely as possible.
Operational (definition):
Explains how a conceptual variable is to be measured.
Which of the following would be the best operational definition of the conceptual variable “aggression”?
Asking participants to indicate on a Likert Scale how aggressive they are feeling at the moment.
A valid answer of “French” could be given for which type of variable?
Nominal
One of the disadvantages of free format questions if that..
they can be difficult and time-consuming to code.
A form of reliability that is used to assess the consistency of judgement when more than one person has observed a set of events is known as:
Interrater Reliability
Consider the following item that might appear on a Likert Scale: “I normally do not get along well with other people.” such an item has high ___ validity, but may not have ___ validity because respondents may not answer it honestly.
Face
&
Construct
A researcher has developed a new test of “interpersonal skills.” It consists of measuring a person’s shoe size. The test shows test-retest reliability of .85. It appears that this test has ____ and ____.
High Reliability
&
Low Face Validity
In order to better understand how individuals react to a questionnaire before using it in a research project, the researcher may wish to:
Pilot Test
Which of the following is a primary goal of descriptive research?
Providing a snapshot of the current state of affairs.
A face-to-face unstructured interview in which a number of people are interviewed at the same time is known as a:
Focus Group
When the response rate on a questionnaire is low…
the conclusions drawn about the population may be incorrect.
In scientific research, sampling refers to which of the following?
Selecting which people to study.
Which of the following best describes “snowball sampling”?
A technique in which some participants are found in the population and they then lead the researcher to other participants in the population.
The raw data refer to…
the original unanalyzed data.
Which of the following is a graphic display of the frequency distribution of a nominal variable?
A Bar Chart.
Which of the following descriptive statistics is most influenced by outliers?
The Mean.
Which descriptive statistic would best portray the central tendency of the following distribution (1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4,5,5,1000)?
The Median
Which of the following is an advantage of using an “unstructured interview”?
The respondent is able to express his or her true feelings.
The entire group of people is interested in learning about is known as the ____, whereas the group of people that actually participate in the research is known as the ____.
Population
&
Sample
Which of the following are most likely to be used in naturalistic research?
Observations
Case studies are frequently based on a descriptive record of..
one or two individuals who have abnormal experiences.
Coding large amounts of information into systematic categories is known as:
Content Analysis
Tim wants to study aggression in children on a school playground. He decides to look for hitting, kicking, and biting. In the design, hitting, kicking, and biting can be considered as:
Behavioral Categories
On what data is archival research based?
Any type of existing records of public behavior.
Jamal decides to compare the lyrics of rock and roll songs in the 1950s and the 1990s. He selects from the top 10 lists for each time period, and compares the lyrics. Jamal’s research method is based upon:
Archival Data
The sampling distribution is essentially as picture of…
the null hypothesis
Results are said to be significant if…
p<alpha
Which of the following is true about the p-value?
It indicates whether the result is likely to have occurred by chance.
Which of the following is true about hypothesis testing?
Hypothesis testing involves comparing the observed data to what would have been expected if the null hypothesis were true.
A Type 1 error occurs when…
we reject the null hypothesis when it is true.
A scientist has concluded that two variables are significantly correlated when in fact they are not. The scientist has…
made a Type 1 error.
Which of the following is normally true in behavioral research?
Making a Type 1 error is seen as more dangerous than making a Type 2 error.
A researcher has found a relationship that has an effect size of .60. How should the researcher consider this effect size?
It is a large effect size.
The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient is used to assess the association between…
two quantitative variables.
Which of the following statistics would be used to assess the relationship between two nominal variables?
the chi-square
The technique of predicting a single outcome variable using a number of predictor variables in known as….
Multiple Regression
A researcher found a positive correlation between income and job satisfaction in a sample of 100 adults. The researcher should conclude…
that any of the above may be correct, but he cannot tell which.
Which of the following is true about correlational research designs?
They provide no evidence about the causal relationships among the measured variables.
Jarrod hypthesizes that getting plenty of sleep leads to lower BP, and that lower BP reduces stress. In this hypothesis, which of the following is the mediating variable?
Blood Pressure (BP)
Which of the following variables causes only the outcome variable, but not the predictor variable?
an extraneous variable
A research design in which the same individuals are measured more than once over a time period long enough that changes in the variable could occur is known as…
a longitudinal design
In a correlational research design, Jonas finds that r=.82.. Jonas’s data demonstrates which of the following?
a positive linear relationship
Which of the following statements is true?
Only the dependent variable is measured in experimental research.
The term “experiment” refers to which of the following?
A research design in which the independent variable is manipulated.
An experimenter studies the influence of ingesting sugar on memory. Children are randomly assigned either to eat a low calorie ice cream cone (low sugar) or a Ben and Jerry’s cone (high sugar). They are then asked to learn ten new vocabulary words, and the number of trials it takes to learn them is measured. The independent variable in this experiment is…
the type of ice cream cone
Which of the following is used to be certain that the participants in the different conditions of a research design are, on average, equivalent before the experiment begins?
Random Assignment to Conditions
In an experimental design that has three levels of the independent variable, a significant “F” value indicates that…
the three means are not the same, but we cannot tel which means are different from each other.
Which of the following is an advantage of experiments?
The experimenters ability to draw conclusions about the causal relationship between variables is maximized.
An experiment is testing the effect of violent radio broadcasts on aggressive behavior. Each participant listens to a violent broadcast and then complete a survey. The participant then listens to a non-violent radio broadcast and completes a second survey. This is an example of a…
Within-participants design.
Eisenberger, Lieberman and Williams (2003) studied the extent to which being excluded by others created brain responses similar to those created by physical pain. The participants, who were all studied while they were in an fMRI scanner, first experienced a baseline session, then a session in which they were included in a game, and then a session in which they were excluded in a game. Which of the following designs was used?
Within Participants
