Exam 2: How Psychologists Do Research

Experimenter effects, such as those found by Rosenthal (1966), are likely to occur as a result of:

The editors of Scientific American are able to obtain a representative sample of their readers in order to assess their attitudes toward preservation of the rain forests in Costa Rica. When interpreting the results of their survey, the editors will be able to apply the results to :

How wise is popular wisdom? In Chapter 1 we pondered how many old sayings have other old sayings that contradict them. For example, a common saying is "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." But we also hear, "You are never too old to learn." Now that you have read Chapter 2, design a research study in order to test these sayings. Provide your reasoning in selecting a particular research method and subjects, and other key details.

Two types of validity are:

A researcher wants to know whether feeling nervous makes people eat chocolate. The amount of chocolate eaten:

Tess agrees to sleep in a laboratory for three nights so that researchers can obtain information about her brain and muscle activity during sleep. She is taking part in a ________ study.

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

Which descriptive method would be most appropriate for studying attitudes toward stem-cell research?

Rosenthal's research revealed that experimenter effects could influence a person's behaviour but had no influence on the behaviour of animals.

Why is it important to go beyond averages when summarizing data? What other descriptive statistics are used to help interpret data?

The text describes an example of experimental design to test the hypothesis that cellphone use impairs driving skills. Explain why a control condition would be important to include in testing this hypothesis. How should subjects be assigned to conditions? How can the researchers design the experiment so that the only difference between both conditions is the use of a cellphone?

Which of the following is an area of controversy concerning the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL)?

When Patrick and Mary Anne first got married they agreed to participate in a research project that investigates the happiness of married couples over time. Every five years they complete a survey that indicates their marital satisfaction. It is evident that Patrick and Mary Anne are:

Descriptive statistics are statistical procedures that organize and summarize research data.

Two sets of observations, assessing age and the number of hairs on a man's head, are compared. Which of the following is the most likely outcome?

Problems with surveys may include all of the following EXCEPT:

A hypothesis is defined as:

The strongest relationship, as indicted by these correlation coefficients, is:

People who participate in research studies must participate voluntarily and must know enough about the study to make an intelligent decision about participating, a concept known as:

The tendency to look for information that supports one's own belief is called the: