Research Methods

Question 1

The goals of psychology are to describe, explain, predict and control behavior and mental processes. To attain these goals psychologists engage in two types of research:

Answer 1

Basic research and applied research

Question 2

What is basic research?

Answer 2

Basic research is concerned with gathering knowledge for the sake of gaining knowledge

Question 3

What is applied research?

Answer 3

Applied research is conducted for a specific purpose such as problem solving and improvement of quality of life. It uses basic research and APPLIES it to specific problems.

Question 4

What are the most frequently used research methods psychologists use to collect data?

Answer 4

-naturalistic observation
-the case study
-the survey
-correlational study
-experimental study

Question 5

What is a naturalistic observation?

Answer 5

Observing people in their natural environment, without interacting with them

Question 6

What is a case study?

Answer 6

Studying one person or situation in depth

Question 7

What is a survey?

Answer 7

Asking the same question of each member of a sample group of people

Question 8

What is an experimental study?

Answer 8

A controlled study where the researcher directly changed factors to intersect whether there’s a change

Question 9

What are the 4 essential components in all experiments?

Answer 9

Independent variable
Dependent variable
Experimental groups
Control group

Question 10

What changes in an experiment and what doesn’t change?

Answer 10

Changes: Dependent Variable
Doesn’t Change: Independent Variable

Question 11

What is known as the treatment in the experiment?

Answer 11

The independent variable. In an experiment, the researcher manipulates the independent variable in order to determine if it caused any change.

Question 12

The experimental group is given the __________, which is the change in the ____________ variable.

Answer 12

treatment; independent

Question 13

What is random sampling? What does “random” mean?

Answer 13

Random sampling helps obtain a representative sample from a list of all the members of the population you’re interested in. “Random” means that every member of the population has an equal chance of being included in the sample.

Question 14

__________ _____ occurs when participant are assigned to groups in such a way rust certain characteristics are more likely to be selected.

Answer 14

Selection bias

Question 15

A census undercounts certain people. Name them.

Answer 15

The poor
Undocumented immigrants
People without permanent addresses

Question 16

What is a census?

Answer 16

A census tries to contact EVERY individual

Question 17

What is under-coverage?

Answer 17

Some parts of the population is left out when you chose the sample.

Question 18

What is a response bias? Give examples.

Answer 18

A general term used to describe a number of different conditions or factors that cue respondents to provide inaccurate or false answers during surveys or interviews.

-question wording
-interviewer characteristics
-questionnaire distribution
-untruthful answers
-interviewer induced bias (an interviewer influences response)
-non-response bias

Question 19

What is non-response bias?

Answer 19

A form of under-covering. Your bias is because of the missing people in your sample.

Question 20

How can double negatives lead to inaccurate results?

Answer 20

Double negatives can lead to wording bias misunderstanding. “Dos is seem possible or impossible…”
Poorly worded question can lead to inaccurate results.

Question 21

______ __________ indicate the expected answer or the respondent.

Answer 21

Leading questions

Question 22

What is social desirability?

Answer 22

Social desirability is a type of interviewer-induced response bias. People tend to give answers they think the interviewer wants to hear, or that they think will make them look better in the eyes of the interviewer.

Question 23

What is false consensus bias? What can expose this bias? Give an example of consensus bias.

Answer 23

People often have a tendency to overestimate how much other agree with us. This is called false consensus bias, and one reason why observational studies are important is that they can expose this bias.

Ex: “If I feel this way and I’m a sane person, then other sane people much feel the same way.”

Question 24

Social Desirability vs False Consensus

-you want to ask the interviewer for a date
-John tells the priest-interviewer that he goes to church

Answer 24

Social desirability

Question 25

Social Desirability vs False Consensus -Who wouldn’t love a bulldog? -Of course most people will vote for my candidate

Answer 25

False Consensus

Question 26

What is an experiment?

Answer 26

A method of collecting data in which the researcher exerts control over the subject or units in the study. Some treatment is applied to a group and their responses are measured.

Question 27

What is an experimental design?

Answer 27

Involves choosing treatments and describing how subjects or units are to be assigned to treatments.

Question 28

Describe an observational study.

Answer 28

-observe without trying to influence -observes some variable of interest -doesn’t try to influence the variable

Question 29

Describe an experiment.

Answer 29

-impose some treatment on a group -observe the response -applies some treatment to a group to determine its effect -to establish cause and effect between 2 variables

Question 30

What do observational studies and experiments have in common?

Answer 30

It’s important that the group observed or experimented on is representive of the population.

Question 31

What are experimental units?

Answer 31

The thing a treatment is applied to in an experiment. These can be human or no human.

Question 32

If experimental units are human, they’re called ________.

Answer 32

Subjects

Question 33

What is an explanatory variable?

Answer 33

The explanatory variable tris to explain or bring about change in the response variable.

Question 34

Explanatory variables are also called ________.

Answer 34

Factors

Question 35

How many factors are there? In an experiment they tested 2 medicines.

Answer 35

2 factors

Question 36

Suppose a study wanted to determine the most effective dose of aspirin. These various doses of the explanatory variable, aspirin, are referred to as ______ of the factor.

Answer 36

Levels

Question 37

Repeating experiments on different subjects or under different conditions is called _______. What does this help with?

Answer 37

replication This helps with the accuracy of an experiment.

Question 38

What is generality?

Answer 38

To apply finding to the larger population our treatment groups represent.

Question 39

What is the Hawthorne effect?

Answer 39

People change their behaviors simply because they know they are being watched.

Question 40

Why do people try to decrease the Hawthorne effect?

Answer 40

It is necessary to make sure that two groups (treatment and control) are alike.

Question 41

What are lurking variables?

Answer 41

Variables you aren’t aware of or taking into account, but might be causing a response.

Question 42

When we can’t tell which variable might be unwind an effect we say the variable is __________.

Answer 42

confounded

Question 43

True or false. Lurking variables can be confounding variables.

Answer 43

True

Question 44

What is a way to limit confusion due to lurking/confounding variables?

Answer 44

Have two groups: Control group Treatment group

Question 45

What conditions are ideal when you have a control group and a treatment group?

Answer 45

We want: -the groups to be alike -the double-blind administration of a treatment and a placebo

Question 46

What is control in an experiment?

Answer 46

To account for lurking variables

Question 47

What is the basic idea behind control in an experiment?

Answer 47

Possible confounding variables should operate equally on both groups. Then we can be confident that any difference between the two groups’ responses is die to the treatment, and not some lurking variable we haven’t thought of.

Question 48

How do you control bias?

Answer 48

By randomizing subjects.

Question 49

What are the three principles of experimental design?

Answer 49

1. Replication 2. Control 3. Randomization

Question 50

What is a quasi-experiment?

Answer 50

You are following all experimental procedures, except your sample isn’t random.

Question 51

In what cases can quasi-experiments be performed and convenient?

Answer 51

They are useful for preliminary studies because they’re often much cheaper and easier to do experiments on random sample. They can also be useful if you’re only interested in getting results for your sample and you don’t need to generalize results to the whole population.

Question 52

True or False. You can use a quasi-experiment to prove something conclusively.

Answer 52

False. You can conduct a quasi-experiment, however to prove anything conclusively you’ll need a follow-up study with a random sample.

Question 53

Hypotheses come in pairs: a _____ hypothesis and an ___________ hypothesis.

Answer 53

null; alternative

Question 54

What is an alternative hypothesis?

Answer 54

The alternative hypothesis says there’s IS a difference, change, or new finding.

Question 55

Alternative vs Null Hypothesis -Vitamins make animals move faster -Homework causes liver cancer -Apple eaters have a higher IQ

Answer 55

Alternative Hypothesis

Question 56

Alternative vs Null Hypothesis -Vitamins don’t affect speed of snails -Homework does not cause liver cancer -Apple eaters have same IQ

Answer 56

Null Hypothesis

Question 57

__________ _______ is the term Fo the whole process of creating hypotheses and then testing them.

Answer 57

Hypothesis testing

Question 58

____________ _______ is a part of hypothesis testing—it’s the part where you use laws of probability to decide if your null is likely enough that can’t reject it.

Answer 58

Significance testing

Question 59

What is a significance level expressed as?

Answer 59

A significance level is expressed as a probability. This is the probability that your results came from random chance alone.

Question 60

.05 (5%) level of significance vs .01 (1%) level of significance -not due to chance 95 out of 100 -due to chance 5 out 100

Answer 60

.05 (5%) level of significance

Question 61

.05 (5%) level of significance vs .01 (1%) level of significance -The most strict of the two levels -Not due to chance 99 out of 100

Answer 61

.01 (1%) level of significance

Question 62

True or false. If there is a 5% chance, or less that your result came form random chance, reject the null.

Answer 62

True :)

Question 63

People often have a tendency to fall into the "I knew it all along" syndrome when looking at past events. Sometimes when a person is correct it's really the result of a lucky guess, not because they had an ability to know all the factors and predict the outcome. This common effect is called _________ _____.

Answer 63

Hindsight bias

Question 64

Why is hypothesis testing so good at revealing hindsight bias?

Answer 64

Hypothesis testing is especially good at exposing hindsight bias because it looks directly at the likelihood that the person could have gotten the correct answer due to random chance.

Question 65

In a ________ ___________, both are going the same direction. In a ________ ___________, they are going opposite directions.

Answer 65

positive correlation; negative correlation

Question 66

_________ correlation has nothing to do with how weak or strong the correlation is, it has to do with an _______ relationship; when one does up, the other goes down, or, when on does down, the other goes up.

Answer 66

Negative; inverse

Question 67

What is the correlation coefficient?

Answer 67

The measure of the strength and direction of a correlation is the correlation coefficient. (Check it up for examples)

Question 68

What is the range of the correlation coefficient? Give an example.

Answer 68

The number ranges from +1 (very strong positive correlation) to -1 (very strong negative correlation). In the middle is 0, which is no correlation at all. The absolute value in a coefficient indicated relative strength. Ex: the correlation of -0.45 is stronger than that a correlation of +0.30. The plus or minus sign in the correlation coefficient indicated whether the correlation is positive or negative.

Question 69

True or False. Correlation studies prove cause and effect (aka causation)

Answer 69

FALSE. Correlation studies are useful in making predictions. They are also useful for showing that one variable may be a factor in affecting another variable. However, correlation studies DO NOT prove cause and effect.

Question 70

What is the only way to determine causation?

Answer 70

An experiment

Question 71

The APA code of ethics states that all research participants must be given a full explanation of the nature and purpose of any study after its conclusion. This process is called __________.

Answer 71

debriefing

Question 72

A scatter plot in which all the points fall in a straight line with a slope greater than zero would be characteristic of two sets of variables which are strong correlated. would show equal amounts of variability. have a correlation coefficient of 0.5. none of the above

Answer 72

are strong correlated

Question 73

Which of the following represents a negative correlation? There is no relationship between school discipline and student behavior. Schools that employ strict discipline produce students with poor behavior. Schools that employ strict discipline produce students with good behavior. Schools that employ strict discipline produce some students with good and some students with bad behavior.

Answer 73

Schools that employ strict discipline produce students with poor behavior.

Question 74

A major requirement for a sample to be used in psychological research is that it be statistically supportive. practical. statistically significant. done representative.

Answer 74

representative

Question 75

The coefficient of correlation is a range of numbers that can be between 0.00 to 1.00 -3 SD to +3 SD +1.00 to -1.00 -1.00 to 0.00

Answer 75

+1.00 to -1.00

Question 76

Which of the following statements is true? none of the above An experiment is the only way to determine causation. If you have a correlation, then you know causation. You can conclude causation based on a correlation.

Answer 76

An experiment is the only way to determine causation.

Question 77

A response variable….. is not affected by changes in the explanatory variable is measured after the treatment is irrelevant to the experimental results causes systematic changes in other variables is manipulated by the researcher

Answer 77

is measured after the treatment