Exam 2: Methodology: How Social Psychologists Do Research

No matter how artificial an experimental situation may at first appear, if participants think, feel, or react the way that people in a real-life situation would react, the experiment has __________.

Recall the description of the political poll taken by Literary Digest about the Landon vs. Roosevelt election. This is an example of a potential error that can be made when doing survey research involving political polls. What is the lesson that survey researchers learned from this error?

What is one of the main problems faced by researchers who want to test their theories cross-culturally?

Assume that Latané and Darley want to demonstrate the external validity of their 1968 experiment on bystander intervention. To do this, they conduct a study in which participants solve crossword puzzles alone, or in large or small groups. While the participants are working on the puzzles, they overhear a woman fall from a ladder and cry out, "Oh, my leg! I can't move it!" The researchers then observe and record the number of participants who attempt to help. The study described here represents a(n) __________ of the original "seizure" study.

__________ is defined by the authors of your text as an experiment conducted in natural settings rather than in the laboratory.

A researcher wants to see if there is a relationship between a person's birth order and his or her leadership ability. The best method for answering this question would be __________.

Given that field experiments are high in external validity, why is it that social psychologists still rely on laboratory studies?

There is a moderately strong correlation between the number of ice cream cones sold in a day and the number of criminal acts occurring in a day. It seems more likely that it is really hot temperatures that are associated with the ice cream sales and crime than that criminals treat themselves to ice cream after committing their crimes. This observation would indicate that correlations are __________.

In a study of frustration and aggression, some participants were exposed to an accomplice who insulted them, and others were exposed to no such insult. Participants were then allowed to recommend whether the accomplice should be fired. Those who were insulted were more likely to retaliate by recommending that the accomplice lose his job. In this experiment, the __________ was the dependent variable.

Dr. Linh uses an electroencephalograph (EEG) to detect patterns of brain activity as her participants argue with their romantic partners. Dr. Linh can best be described as a(n) __________.

__________ would increase the external validity of experiments, but social psychologists must weigh the practicality of doing it.

What is a primary benefit of conducting cross-cultural research for social psychologists?

Dr. Malic has conducted a number of experiments to assess whether playing violent video games makes people become more aggressive. He assigns men to play very violent games for an hour a week, and women to play very violent games for three hours a week. After a month, he assesses how aggressively they behave in a frustrating situation. He has replicated this study using the same sample of Buddhist monks and nuns twelve times. Identify the major threat to internal validity and to external validity.

Which of the following threatens the internal validity of an experiment?

Dr. Winstell is interested in studying prejudice and devises a study in which Caucasian participants are led to believe that they are chatting electronically with an African American participant. In reality, the participants are responding to another Caucasian participant, and she discloses this information to all participants at the end of the study. Dr. Winstell has used __________ in her study.

Complete the analogy: correlation is to __________ as experiment is to __________.

Dr. Nash wants to conduct research on spousal abuse. Why would Dr. Nash be unwise to use observational methods for this topic?

If height and weight have a positive correlation, what does this tell you about the relationship between these variables?

Social psychologists must often balance the goal of discovering important information about human social behavior with the ethical issue of __________.

A drawback to using experiments is __________.