Exam 2: How Psychologists Do Research

Why can it be difficult to interpret a correlation between two variables?

A researcher wants to know whether eating chocolate makes people nervous. Some participants are given two bars of chocolate to eat and some are given no chocolate at all, and then all of the participants are tested for nervousness an hour later. In this experiment, the amount of chocolate eaten:

If a psychological test measures what it is supposed to measure, it has which of the following properties?

Psychologists sometimes prefer to make observations in a laboratory setting rather than a naturalistic setting. The primary advantage of laboratory observation over naturalistic observation is that:

If watching TV is positively correlated with children's aggressiveness, then in what possible ways could this relationship be explained?

When Haylee takes a personality test, the researcher gives her detailed instructions and plenty of time to complete it. But Tyler takes the same test and is given only vague instructions and a limited amount of time. This procedural difference shows that the test lacks:

Dr. Benjamin Rush treated yellow fever by bloodletting. He attributed each recovery to the bloodletting and each death to the severity of the yellow fever. What rule of science did he violate?

Which of the following statements is true?

A researcher is studying the amount of sleep university students get each night. She notices that there is a lot of variability in the data, with some students typically sleeping for around eight hours a night and some sleeping around five hours a night. One way to measure how spread out the data scores are is to use:

Procedures used to measure and evaluate personality traits, emotional states, aptitudes, and values are called:

Dr. Nuria is critiquing a colleague's work for relying on WEIRDos participants. Which of the following is MOST likely the basis for Dr. Nuria's criticism?

A controlled test of a hypothesis, in which the researcher manipulates one variable in order to discover its effect on another variable, is called a(n):

As a result of controversy over the use of deception in research:

An operational definition is:

According to your textbook, which of the following is a major concern that arises in cross-cultural research?

Skepticism in scientific research means:

What are the disadvantages associated with psychological case study research?

Research methods that depict behaviour, but do not necessarily yield causal explanations, are called:

A _______________ is a measure of how strongly two variables are related to one another.

A detailed description of a particular individual based on careful observation or formal psychological testing is called a(n):