Exam 2: Exstintion: How Psychologists Do Research

In order to be useful,a test must be reliable,that is,it must:

Confirmation bias is the tendency to look for information that supports one's beliefs.

In order to maintain scientific objectivity,psychologists and other scientists cannot work on research that is sponsored by private,for-profit businesses.

When a radio talk show host asked listeners to call in their opinions regarding legislation increasing social security benefits,the overwhelming response was support for the increase.All of the following are likely shortcomings of this survey EXCEPT:

Two sets of observations,assessing shoe size and IQ,are compared.Which of the following is the most likely outcome?

A team of psychologists is studying changes in attitudes toward nuclear disarmament after a TV movie about nuclear holocaust.It is most likely that they are conducting a/an:

When the authors refer to psychologists as scientists,they do not mean that psychologists work with complicated gadgets and machines or wear white lab coats (although some do).The scientific enterprise has more to do with attitudes and procedures than it does with apparatus and apparel.Describe,in detail,the five key characteristics of the ideal scientist.

One of the variables in a research study is chocolate.Chocolate:

Replication occurs when scientists repeat a study in order to verify or challenge its findings.

__________________ is/are critical in testing new drugs because of the optimism that a potential "miracle cure" often brings with it.

List five characteristics of an ideal scientist.

Techniques such as meta-analysis are useful in psychology because:

An advantage of the naturalistic observation is that it allows the use of sophisticated equipment.

Naturalistic observation would be an appropriate research method to study aggressive acts early in childhood.

The case of Genie illustrated that:

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

Compare the advantages and the disadvantages of conducting a laboratory observation.What are the advantages and disadvantages of conducting an experiment? Describe a topic that you believe would be most effectively studied by laboratory observation rather than by an experiment.

Janie has found that the number of hours she sleeps each night is related to the scores she receives on quizzes the next day.As her sleep approaches 8 hours,her quiz scores improve; as her sleep drops to 5 hours,her quiz scores show a similar decline.Janie realizes that:

Think of a topic in psychology (from Chapter One,from your own experience,or from the media)that interests you.Write a hypothesis regarding this topic and explain what research method you would use in order to investigate the topic.

Experiments have long been the method of choice in psychology,but they do have their limitations.Describe the strengths and the weaknesses of experiments.