Exam 2: Methodology: How Social Psychologists Do Research

The problem with a survey that is not representative is that __________.

When Jakim, a social psychologist, observes that a woman is more likely to open a door for a man than a woman, he may use this information to __________.

Carlos, the president of a fraternity on campus, randomly sampled 500 students, asked them if they belonged to a fraternity or sorority, and asked them about their current GPA. He discovered that the GPAs of those people in fraternities and sororities were higher than those of people who were not involved in the Greek system. Gleefully, he presented his findings to the dean, saying that being involved in a fraternity or sorority leads to higher grades. What rule of research methods is Carlos breaking?

In order to examine the importance of loving relationships in several different generations of Americans, a researcher decides to collect the lyrics from the fifty most popular songs of each decade from 1940 through 2010, and to code those lyrics for how often love-related themes are present. Which of the following methods is this researcher using?

Why are random assignment and experimental control two essential ingredients of an experiment?

In social psychology, the technique of meta-analysis is most like __________ research.

__________ allows researchers to rule out differences among participants as the cause of differences in the dependent variable.

Why didn't Latané and Darley (1968), in their study of bystander intervention in emergencies, use a manipulation more like events in the Kitty Genovese murder?

The authors of your text discuss the idea that social psychology progresses through the process of theory refinement. Which of the following is the best summary of theory refinement?

Assume that instead of conducting experiments, Latané and Darley had used a correlational method to study the relationship between the number of bystanders who witness an emergency and how quickly a victim receives help. Assume that the correlational data were compatible with results from experiments: the more bystanders, the more time it took bystanders to help. What type of correlation is this between time and number of bystanders?

Which of the following is used in experiments but not in the correlational method?

Surveys are instruments most often used by social psychologists who conduct __________ research.

When an experiment has shown that an independent variable is a cause of a phenomenon, what is the most reasonable conclusion one should draw?

In describing the intricacies of cross-cultural research, the authors of your text assert that it is not as simple as translating one's materials into an appropriate language, traveling to another culture, and conducting the experiment there. Which of the following statements describes one of the challenges of cross-cultural research?

The primary goal of cross-cultural research is to __________.

The more people who witness an emergency, the less likely it is that witnesses will help. This is a phenomenon known as __________.

Professor Rothman is interested in tracking changes in racial stereotypes in the U.S. If he decides to conduct an archival analysis, he should __________.

A researcher conducted a study and found a positive correlation between age and income level. In other words, this researcher found that as age __________, income level tends to __________.

The biggest problem with using random assignment and controlling extraneous variables in an experiment is that __________.

Which of the following is the best example of the observational method?