RM Final

Question 1

The possibility that a third variable is the reason for the relationship between x and y is a problem with what type of validity?

Answer 1

Internal Validity

Question 2

What is a bi-variate correlation? What type of claim is usually made from them?

Answer 2

An association claim, between two variables

Question 3

What is the relationship between moderators and external validity?

Answer 3

When generalizability is affected by moderators, your association may not generalize to all groups of people

Question 4

Lisa finds a strong positive correlation between impulsivity and rash decision-making.
r = 0.8, p < 0.05.
It turns out there were several pathological gamblers in her sample. Pathological gamblers score unusually high on impulsivity measures. When she takes these people out, what will happen to the correlation? Increase or decrease?

Answer 4

Decreases; removing the outliers will weaken the correlation

Question 5

What are the three rules for causal claims?

Answer 5

1. Temporal Precedence (IV comes before DV)
2. Covariance (As A changes, B changes)
3. Internal Validity (there is no third variable that describes the relationship and cannot tell from associations)

Question 6

What type of research design involves measuring the same variables, from the same people, across different time points? There is no manipulation involved.

Answer 6

Longitudinal Design

Question 7

This diagram illustrates what kind of correlation?

GPA in 3rd grade__r=.45__GPA in 9th grade

Answer 7

Autocorrelation - the association of the variable with itself across time

Question 8

When a relationship between two variables depends on the level of a third variable, that kind of third variable is called___?

Answer 8

Moderator - effect is stronger in one subgroup vs. another

Question 9

This diagram illustrates what kind of correlation?

TV use in 7th grad__r=.35__Substance use in 12th grade

Answer 9

Cross-Lag Correlation - the association of an earlier measure of one variable with the later measure of another

Question 10

Dr. Bazinga conducts a study examining whether there is a link between exam scores and sleep. But, he wants to see if any other variables (time studying, age) can explain the relationship. How might you interpret the result of sleep?

Answer 10

As sleep increases, exam scores increase, even after controlling for time studying and age

Question 11

This method assigns people to groups in experiments. It ensures that features of people are equated except on the independent variable

Answer 11

Random Assignment

Question 12

_________ is a simple study that uses separate group of participants that generally completed before conducting the study of primary interest in order to confirm the effectiveness of manipulation

Answer 12

A pilot study

Question 13

Eric designs a study to examine drink preferences of university freshmen. In the study, all participants drink a cup of coffee then rate their enjoyment of the coffee, then drink a cup of tea and rate their enjoyment of the tea, and finally drink a cup of milk and rate their enjoyment of the milk. Eric tells Theresa about the plans for his study and she says she is concerned that he could have a problem of ___ effect in his study. How can Eric fix this problem?

Answer 13

Order effect or Counterbalancing (presents levels of the IV to participants in different orders)

Question 14

In a business class experiment on the endowment effect, Theo is comparing the value of a coffee mug to someone who owns it and is selling it to someone who is buying it. The endowment effect is the tendency of sellers to value something they own more than buyers do. Participants are randomly assigned to be buyers or sellers of a mug with their first name on it. Buyers select the maximum price they would pay for the mug. Sellers select the minimum price they would accept for the mug. Theo then compares the buyers’ and sellers’ prices. What kind of design is this?

Answer 14

Posttest Only

Question 15

Expert dancers in foxtrot and tango were recruited from dance studios and participated in Nick’s study. Their task was to listen to classical music while their electrical brain activity (EEG) was measured. Nick then compared foxtrot dancers’ EEG alpha activity to that of tango dancers’. He found that tango dancers had more alpha activity in the brain than foxtrot dancers. Is Nick’s method correlational or experimental? If experimental, what design?

Answer 15

Correlational (no random assignment, no manipulation of the IV)

Question 16

Which of the four validities should you focus most on, when interrogating experiments?

Answer 16

Internal Validity

Question 17

Threats to IV: Not as extreme over time

Answer 17

Regression

Question 18

Threats to IV: Participants number decreases across testing

Answer 18

Attrition

Question 19

Threats to IV: Order effect

Answer 19

Testing

Question 20

Threats to IV: Measuring device effectiveness declines

Answer 20

Instrumentation

Question 21

Threats to IV: Expectations impact interpretations

Answer 21

Observer Bias

Question 22

Threats to IV: When participants figure out the aim of the experiment

Answer 22

Demand Characterisitics

Question 23

The expectation of the treatment impacts the results

Answer 23

Placebo Effect

Question 24

Dr. Lucas is examining the effect of a talking treatment on hyperactivity in adolescent boys in a local high school. He randomly samples students from this high school and measures their hyperactivity using self-report tests. Dr. Lucas then engages this group in his talking intervention for 2 hours a week every week for 6 months and measures hyperactivity again. He finds that his group is less hyperactive than 6 months before. Is there a threat to internal validity present? If so, which threat?

Answer 24

Maturation (due to change emerging spontaneously over time)

Question 25

Regression, maturation, history, testing and placebo effects are all threats to internal validity that can be addressed by adding a ________.

Answer 25

Comparison Group

Question 26

This threat to internal validity occurs systematically and affects most members of the group due to an external factor/event?

Answer 26

History Threat

Question 27

Nicole is comparing high-impulsive and low-impulsive people on a gambling-like task. She finds that high-impulsives tended to take more risks than low-impulsive people. It turns out that most people who signed up on SONA during the last two weeks of the semester were high-impulsives; early birds were low-impulsives. What kind of threat is present?

Answer 27

Selection Threat

Question 28

How many independent variables does the following design have: 3 x 2 x 2?

Answer 28

3

Question 29

Consider a researcher comparing test scores across two different classes. If the researcher adds school year (freshman, junior, etc.) as a 2nd IV, it would be a ___x___ design?

Answer 29

2 x 4; IV1 =2 levels and IV2 = 4 levels

Question 30

Quasi experiments differ from true experiments because they lack this type of participant assignment?

Answer 30

Random Assignment

Question 31

Which deisgn restricts the study to only one animal or person?

Answer 31

A single- N Design

Question 32

design restricts the study to only one animal or one person? A single-N Design
Dr. Mike is hired to treat a patient with World of Warcraft addiction. After administering the treatment and noticing an improvement, Dr. Mike temporarily stops the treatment for a short period, and then resumes the treatment after documenting the effect. This type of research is known as a _____ design

Answer 32

Reversal

Question 33

A longitudinal study that took place during the Great Depression is particularly susceptible to this type of threat?

Answer 33

History Threat

Question 34

The _____ design is a quasi-experimental study that has at least one treatment group and one comparison group, but participants have not been randomly assigned to the two groups?

Answer 34

Nonequivalent control group – is when participants are not randomly assigned to groups and both tested pre and post intervention

Question 35

Participants in a research study are given a list of words to study for 3 minutes and then, following a delay, are asked to recall the list. The length of the delay is manipulated between participants to be either 2 minutes, 5 minutes, or 10 minutes. Since different groups need different amounts of time, the first 25 participants who arrive are assigned to the 10-minute group, the next 25 are assigned to the 5-minute group, and the final 25 are assigned to the 2-minute group. What threat to internal validity does this create?

Answer 35

Selection effect

Question 36

Maturation, history, regression, attrition, testing, and instrumentation threats are present in a ____-group, _____/_____ design while observer bias, demand characteristics, and placebo effects could occur in any experiment:

Answer 36

One group, pretest/posttest

Question 37

If a study fulfills all other validities, the lack of which type of validity does not disqualify its findings?

Answer 37

External validity

Question 38

This is a type of a variable a researcher controls in order to test a claim, usually by assigning participants to different levels of the variable of interest

Answer 38

Manipulated variable

Question 39

Defining happiness in a study as receiving a certain score on a self-report measure of positive outlook is an example of this aspect of study design

Answer 39

Operational definition

Question 40

“Eating candy may lead to hyperactivity in children” is an example of this kind of research claim

Answer 40

Casual Claim

Question 41

Asking “How large was the difference in cognitive performance across group doses of a memory drug?” is one way of questioning this kind of validity

Answer 41

Statistical validity

Question 42

Participants changing their behavior to match the observer’s expectations is an example of this type of phenomenon relevant to behavioral observations:

Answer 42

Observer Effect

Question 43

These two types of validity cannot be judged empirically, but are based on subjective judgement of the measure

Answer 43

Face Validity and Content Validity

Question 44

This type of reliability is particularly important when measuring constructs that are assumed to be relatively stable over a long period of time

Answer 44

Test-Retest Validity

Question 45

“Do you agree that it is important for students to do well in class and participate in extracurricular activities?” is a problematic survey question known as this type of question

Answer 45

Double-Barreled Question

Question 46

A study conducted in a carefully controlled lab setting using psychology undergraduates may suffer deficits in this form of validity

Answer 46

External Validity

Question 47

The goal of this process is to explain the study to participants in everyday language and give them a chance to decide whether to participate

Answer 47

Informed consent

Question 48

The stress experienced by participants in the Milgram obedience studies is a potential violation of this ethical principle (Belmont Report):

Answer 48

Beneficence

Question 49

Researchers in the Tuskegee syphilis study targeted a disadvantaged social group, violating this ethical principle

Answer 49

Justice

Question 50

When using deception, researchers must always do this at the end of the experiment:

Answer 50

Debriefing

Question 51

The APA outlines these five general principles

Answer 51

Beneficence, Respect for Persons, Justice, Fidelity and Responsibility, and Integrity

Question 52

The opposite of an experimental group, this group is necessary to determine whether or not a treatment is really having an effect

Answer 52

Comparison or control group

Question 53

Freud’s psychodynamic theory can’t be shown to be wrong, so it violates this feature of a good scientific theory

Answer 53

Falsifiability

Question 54

The process through which a journal editor sends a potential article to three or four experts on the subject for critiques. It is also the major difference between publishing in a popular press magazine and publishing in a scientific journal:

Answer 54

Peer-review process

Question 55

This is the cycle through which research questions are turned into hypotheses, tested, and revised

Answer 55

Theory-data cycle

Question 56

This heuristic is one of the most insidious biases, and influences our thinking by emphasizing memories that are vivid, recent, or memorable:

Answer 56

Availability Heuristic

Question 57

This sampling procedure uses chance to select a sample that is controlled for sampling bias:

Answer 57

Random Sampling

Question 58

This sampling method results in a less representative sample than a simple random sample

Answer 58

Convenience, purposive and snowball

Question 59

This method of biased sampling helps find rare individuals by having participants recommend their acquaintances for the study

Answer 59

Snowball sampling

Question 60

A statement, or set of statements, that describes general principles about how variables relate to one another is:

Answer 60

Theory

Question 61

After reading about Harlow’s contact comfort theory, Dr. Borden wonders if these findings would apply to premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit. He designs a study to test whether touch and cuddling could speed up weight gain in premature babies. What type of research is Dr. Borden’s study?

Answer 61

Transnational Research - research that knowledge derived from basic research to devleop and test solutions to real world problems

Question 62

Research done specifically to add to our general understanding of psychology is known as __:

Answer 62

Basic Research

Question 63

Which of the following outlines the correct order of steps in the theory-data cycle?

Answer 63

1. Theory
2. Research Questions
3. Research Design
4. Hypothesis
5. Data

Question 64

Dr. Sanders conducted a study that investigated the happiness of people listening to different kinds of music. He predicted that people would report being happier when they were listening to rock music than when they were listening to country music. Dr. Sanders threw out the data from several participants who reported being very happy while listening to country music because he thought that they weren’t being honest. Dr. Sanders has committed what kind of ethical violation?

Answer 64

Data Falsification

Question 65

Professor Kwan studies violence and designs a study of the effects of video game violence on children. She recruits low-income, Hispanic children from schools near the university to participate. Each child is assigned to play either a violent or nonviolent video game 2 hours each evening for a month. The children’s teachers are asked to assess changes in behavior. Data analysis shows no effect of game type, but Professor Kwan knows several children didn’t follow the procedure, so she makes up data for them and then shows a significant effect. Which part of American Psychological Association (APA) Ethical Standard 8 did the data violate?

Answer 65

Data Fabrication

Question 66

Professor Silva is a clinical psychologist who teaches a course in abnormal psychology at the university. He maintains a clinical practice and several of his current students are his clients. Which of the APA’s Five General Principles does this violate?

Answer 66

Fidelity and Responsibility

Question 67

To study a sample of participants from only one ethnic group, researchers must first demonstrate that the problem being studied is especially prevalent in that ethnic group. This is an application of which principle from the Belmont Report?

Answer 67

Justice

Question 68

Mendoza et al. (2009) introduced a coin-rotation task as a convenient test of motor dexterity. It involves timed completion of twenty 180° rotations of a nickel using the thumb, index, and middle fingers. Research participants’ results on the coin-rotation task are compared with their results on a test of grip strength (a measure of another construct: global upper-extremity strength). The correlation between the coin-rotation task and the grip strength task were found to be not statistically significant. This comparison provides support for which type of measurement validity?

Answer 68

Discriminant Validity

Question 69

The campus safety committee has asked Professor Ibrahim to study bicycling on his campus. He trains two observers and has them observe the number of cyclists and their safety at various points around campus. Both observers are very interested in the topic because they have been struck by bicycles. Which threat to construct validity should concern Professor Ibrahim even if the interrater reliability is high?

Answer 69

Observer bias

Question 70

A college administrator knows that 70% of the students at her college are from out of state, so she decides to make sure that she includes 70 out-of-state students and 30 in-state students in her survey about admission practices at the college. She has a list of all the out-of-state and in-state students currently enrolled at the college. She randomly selects 70 students from the out-of-state list and 30 students from the in-state list. Which sampling method is she using?

Answer 70

Stratified Random Sampling

Question 71

A political research center obtains a list of phone numbers for all registered voters in Texas and uses a random number generator to select 1,000 of the phone numbers to call. They ask each voter which candidate for governor they plan to vote for in the upcoming election. To which population of interest does the research center want to generalize?

Answer 71

All registered voters in TX

Question 72

Dr. Lawrence is the director of Counseling Services at her university. She is planning to conduct a survey of 100 students at the university to see how aware they are of the counseling services that are offered at the university. She wants the proportion of men and women in her sample to reflect the proportion in the university as a whole (55% women and 45% men). Dr. Lawrence plans to stand in the Student Union and ask people to participate until she has given the survey to 55 women and 45 men. Is Dr. Lawrence collecting a representative sample?

Answer 72

No, because the participants are selected nonrandomly

Question 73

Dr. Rhodes is interested in how differing levels of light affect how people perceive color. He finds participants for this research study by making an announcement in several psychology classes at his university. Which kind of sampling method is Dr. Rhodes using?

Answer 73

Convenience sampling

Question 74

Mr. Stratford is the president of a national organization of lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender people in the United States. He wants to survey 1,000 members of his organization about the position they want the organization to take on several political issues. He knows that transgender people make up only 5% of his organization, but he wants to make sure their views are accurately represented. He decides to randomly sample 100 transgender members and then adjust the final results so transgender people are weighted to their actual proportion in the organization. Which type of sampling is Mr. Stratford using?

Answer 74

Oversampling

Question 75

The directors of an annual community concert want to learn the musical preferences of the audience. The ushers place a survey card on every sixth seat beginning with the second seat (2 and 6 were chosen from a random number table). All the cards are returned as the audience leaves. Which type of sampling is being used?

Answer 75

Systematic sampling

Question 76

The Yerkes-Dodson law (1908) shows performance increases with arousal up to a point, but beyond that, performance decreases with increasing arousal. Which type of correlation is this?

Answer 76

Curvilinear

Question 77

Dr. Russell did a study that found praise provided by supervisors is associated with higher levels of work productivity only because more-motivated employees are praised more often, and highly motivated people are more productive. In her findings, employee motivation is a ___________ in the relationship between praise from supervisors and work productivity

Answer 77

Confounding third variable

Question 78

Professor Horvat designs a study to assess the work satisfaction and home-life satisfaction of a group of graduate students. She administers the same measures of work and home-life satisfaction on two occasions, 1 year apart. She finds job satisfaction at the first time point is correlated with job satisfaction at the second time point. Which type of correlation is this?

Answer 78

Autocorrelation

Question 79

Professor Horvat designs a study to assess the work satisfaction and home-life satisfaction of a group of graduate students. She administers the same measures of work and home-life satisfaction on two occasions, 1 year apart. She finds home-life satisfaction measured at the first time point is strongly correlated with job satisfaction measured at the second time point. Which type of correlation is this?

Answer 79

Cross-lag

Question 80

When a third variable explains the relationship between two other variables, that kind of third variable is called a _____.

Answer 80

Mediator

Question 81

Which of the following phrases in a popular media article suggests that multiple regression was used?

Answer 81

“Controlled for”

Question 82

Cara is running a study to examine the effect of music on mood. She randomly assigns participants to three conditions: rock, jazz, and country. She has the participants rate their mood with a short questionnaire, then listen to their assigned music for 20 minutes, and then fill out the mood questionnaire again. Which kind of design is she using?

Answer 82

Pretest/Posttest

Question 83

A city in California has asked Professor Rodriguez to conduct an experiment on earthquake preparedness. Professor Rodriguez will assess the preparedness of a random sample of residents in the city and the city will mail out their annual brochure on earthquake safety. Then, 2 weeks later, he will again assess the preparedness of those residents. Right after the brochures are mailed, a large earthquake is reported in Japan. Which threat to internal validity does this pose?

Answer 83

History

Question 84

An instructor hypothesizes that doing jumping jacks will improve his students’ quiz performance. On Monday, he has his class sit in their chairs for 5 minutes before completing a multiple-choice quiz on their reading assignment. On Wednesday, he has his class do 2 minutes of jumping jacks before completing the same quiz that they took on Monday. The students performed better on the quiz on Wednesday. Which is a possible threat to internal validity in this study?

Answer 84

Testing

Question 85

As part of an experiment on the effects of behavior modeling, a set of raters are evaluating prosocial behavior in a series of videotapes of a preschool class. Initially, the raters were quite strict in their ratings, but after 3 hours of rating, their criteria had changed. Which type of threat to internal validity has occurred?

Answer 85

Instrumentation

Question 86

Some internal validity threats can be addressed simply by including a comparison group, whereas other internal validity threats can occur even in studies with a comparison group. Which of the following threats to internal validity would be improved with the inclusion of a comparison group?

Answer 86

Maturation

Question 87

Which threat to internal validity occurs when there is a greater systematic loss of participants in one condition than the other condition?

Answer 87

Attrition

Question 88

A researcher wants to run a 2 × 3 mixed factorial design. The first factor is within-subjects. The second factor is between-subjects. If the researcher wants 20 observations per cell, which of the following is the correct number of participants he will need in total?

Answer 88

60

Question 89

Jane is conducting a study on the effects of meditation on stress with highly anxious and nonanxious participants. She finds that overall, highly anxious participants reported greater levels of stress and that, overall, participants in the meditation group reported lower levels of stress than the group that did not practice meditation. She also found that the impact of meditation on lowering stress was particularly strong for participants who were highly anxious. Which of the following is a correct description of the results?

Answer 89

Two main effects and an interaction

Question 90

Susan designed a study in which she had a group of younger adults (18 to 24 years old) and older adults (50 to 65 years old). She had both groups recite a poem by memory once in front of an audience of 50 people and once in a room by themselves. She counterbalanced the order of these tasks between participants. She had the participants rate their level of anxiety right before they recited the poem each time. Which type of study design is this?

Answer 90

Mixed-Factorial Design

Question 91

What phrase be clue in the study described in a popular press media article?

Answer 91

“it depends”

Question 92

A company that owned several hospitals in rural areas of the south went bankrupt and, over a couple of months, closed the hospitals it operated. Researchers became aware of this situation and used public health records to document average age at death of residents in those communities where the hospitals closed and in communities that were matched on several variables but did not lose their hospitals (2 groups of communities). The researchers collected death records for several years before and after the closure of these hospitals to look at the effect the closure had on life expectancy. Which type of research design are the researchers using?

Answer 92

No-equivalent control group interrupted time-series design