Exam 5: Introduction to Experimental Research

Concerning subject (participant)pools, the APA recommends all of the following except

Decisions made about how to define the dependent variable most clearly affect the ________ validity of a study.

A "freshman year" program finds that first year students are more relaxed at the end of their first semester than they were at the beginning. The Dean is excited, but the researcher suspects the change may be due to

Experimental group is to control group as ________ is to _______.

A researcher finds that in a study of direction finding, men are less likely to acknowledge being lost than women. In this study, the independent variable is

Sometimes performance differences could be attributed to an independent variable or to some basic difference in the composition of the two groups involved. When this occurs, there is said to be a threat due to

After taking the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, those scoring in the top 25% are assigned to group A and those scoring in the bottom 25% are assigned to group B. Participants in both groups are then given a series of problems to solve in a small (8x8)windowless room. Which of the following is true about anxiety in this study?

Social psychologists might be concerned that conformity experiments using participants from individualist cultures might not be relevant for understanding behavior in collectivist cultures. This concern is about _______ validity.

Woodworth's 1938 text, Experimental Psychology,

Most researchers would agree that

With ___________ participants complete different tasks, whereas with ___________ participants are told how to do certain tasks.

In a study comparing two sets of rankings, a researcher erroneously uses a statistical analysis designed for use with interval or ratio data. This study will have questionable

In the study described in the previous item, what is the dependent variable?

A researcher is interested in whether memory is better for concrete rather than abstract nouns and designs a study to answer the question. In this study, the independent variable is

For which of these empirical questions would a control group most clearly be needed?

Studies of aggression have sometimes been criticized for developing questionable operational definitions of aggression (e.g., horn honking). This is primarily a criticism of _________ validity.

In order to determine if some experience brought about a change in an individual from one time to another, researchers often use designs that include

Some subjects try to solve a difficult maze while sitting in a 2x3 ft room. Others try to solve the same maze while sitting in a 10x12 ft room. The purpose of the study is to examine the effect of crowding on maze performance The larger room has natural light because of its two windows. The 2x3 ft room has no windows, so natural light is simulated with a special type of fluorescent light. Which of the following is true?

Research that attempts to study psychological phenomena in settings that reflect daily living (e.g., a memory study about forgetting where we put our keys)is said to have _________ validity.

When a subject variable is used as an independent variable and differences occur between groups on the dependent measure, what can be concluded?