Exam 1: The Mission and the Method

When attempting to explain a person's behavior, what do social psychologists tend to assess first?

Which of the following fields is LEAST focused on what happens in the brain, nervous system, and other bodily processes?

Replication is an important part of ____.

Explain the difference between reliability and validity.

Political science is BEST described as the study of ____.

Suppose that you participate in an experiment that is designed to examine the effects of sadness on creativity. Even though the sadness manipulation used by the experimenters is very artificial, you nonetheless experience deep sadness during the study. Thus, the study was apparently high in ____________________.

Most research in social psychology is based on Western European and Northern American samples, though some research has also been conducted in other areas of the world. Based on what is known to date, it appears to be reasonably safe to generalize social psychological research findings to the vast majority of ____.

Most contemporary research in social psychology is based on college student samples.

Suppose that there is a perfect negative correlation between the amount of money that Jane spends and the amount of money that she has in her bank account: for every dollar that she spends, she has exactly one less dollar in her bank account (assuming no interest, fees, or credits). Thus the correlation between Jane's spending and savings can be represented as ____.

Social scientists who focus on concrete problems-such as how to boost literacy rates in schools or how to increase energy conservation-are known as ____.

You notice a headline that proclaims that over 68% of convicted male rapists viewed pornography before the age of 17. What can you conclude from this?

Within psychology, ____ typically focus on "abnormal" behavior (e.g., mental disorders and behavioral disorders).

Dr. Taylor is conducting a study to test the effect of a new drug on people's ability to concentrate at work. His research sample consists of 100 US adults. During a 14-week period, half of the sample is administered the drug and the other half is administered a placebo, and participants' concentration abilities are continually tracked. In the context of this study, if Dr. Taylor uses random assignment, it means that ____.

Mirena wants is interested in the effects of gender on aggression. She collects all the studies she can find that have been conducted on this topic, and averages their results to generate a big picture of what the findings in that area reveal. Mirena has conducted a ____.

Researchers tend to use quasi-experimental research designs when they are able to manipulate an independent variable but NOT able to ____.

According to the textbook, psychology can be thought of as a kind of "experimental philosophy" because psychology ____ while relying on the experimental method.

According to the textbook, human intuition is typically an excellent guide to understanding human behavior.

If an experiment does NOT get participants psychologically involved and engaged, even though the setting of the experiment closely resembles the real world physically, then the experiment would be said to be ____.

What is a hypothesis?

How has the textbook described the historical relationship between clinical psychology and social psychology?