Exam 4: Fundamental Research Issues

Using the nonexperimental method,a researcher collects data on exercise and anxiety from a number of people and finds that exercise is negatively related to anxiety-that is,the people who exercise more tend to have lower levels of anxiety.What does this scenario demonstrate?

_____ validity refers to one's ability to accurately draw conclusions about causal relationships.

When a nonexperimental method is used for a study,there is a danger that no causal relationship exists between the two variables being studied.This phenomenon is known as a(n)_____ relationship.

Which of the following is a disadvantage of using field experiments?

A researcher investigated the relationship between alcohol intake and reaction time using a driving simulation task.Participants drank either one ounce or three ounces of alcohol.Their reaction time was measured in terms of the speed with which they braked on seeing a red light during the simulated driving task.In this case,the dependent variable in the experiment is the _____.

A researcher desires to understand the effect of child abuse on an individual's personality and attitude.He forms two groups of participants for the study.The first group contains people who were abused during their childhood and the second group contains people who had normal childhood.This type of division of people based on actual differences rather than through random assignment is called _____ design.

What is the difference between internal validity and external validity?

Which of the following is a problem with making causal statements when the nonexperimental method of study is used in research?

In the context of research,_____ refers to "truth" and the accurate representation of information.

A researcher investigated the relationship between length of test and grades in a western civilization course.After randomly assigning students to groups,she found that students who took longer exams received better grades than students who took shorter exams.In this scenario,the independent variable is:

Margaret,a researcher,desires to conduct a field experiment to determine the effects of a shopping mall's ambience on consumer purchase behavior.However,she has to deal with other influencing factors such as noise,crowd,and space distribution.She desires to avoid them by using randomization.In this context,noise,crowd,and space are _____ variables.

In the context of relationship between variables,identify a difference between negative and curvilinear relationships.

Dr.Sears,a psychologist,observes that the more time individuals spend in a department store,the more purchases they tend to make.The research method used in this study is the _____ method.

In the context of psychological research,the variable that is considered to be the cause is called the _____ variable.

Roger,a researcher,conducted a study to analyze the impact of alcohol exposure during childhood.He found that the more a person was exposed to alcohol during childhood,the more likely he or she will experience alcoholism as an adult.In this case,there is _____ relationship between alcohol exposure during childhood and alcoholism.

_____ validity is the extent to which results of a study can be generalized to other populations and settings.

In a curvilinear relationship,increases in the values of one variable are accompanied by systematic increases and decreases in the values of the other variable.Due of this type of correlation between variables,curvilinear relationship is also called a(n)_____ function.

In the context of psychological research,the variable that is considered to be the effect is called the _____ variable.

The term _____ implies that there is randomness in events.

A psychologist develops a measure of self-esteem in order to study the variable of self-esteem.He then conducts a number of studies investigating the differences between candidates who score low and candidates who score high on self-esteem.He does so to devise an accurate method of studying self-esteem.In this case,the psychologist is trying to establish _____.