Exam 2: Methods in Psychology-Part A

An educational psychologist is interested in comparing two educational techniques in a sample of preschool children.In part because she believes that one technique might be more effective than the other,children are randomly assigned to the two techniques so that every child has the same opportunity to be assigned to the more effective technique.Randomly assigning students to groups satisfies which feature of ethical research?

Which statement about the role of missing evidence in decision making is TRUE?

Five extremely tall members of the college basketball team are among 30 students in an introductory psychology class.If a frequency distribution is taken of height,the distribution probably will be:

A researcher wants to assess the effects of varying amounts of alcohol on ratings of perception of friendliness.Three groups of people are given either one,two,or three beers to drink.Three more groups of people are given either one,two,or three nonalcoholic beers to drink.Then,all participants are shown a series of pictures of people's faces and are asked to rank the perceived friendliness of each face on a scale from 1 to 10.Each face was presented for 5 seconds.In this experiment,the dependent variable is:

An archaeologist discovers new evidence suggesting humans inhabited a particular area long before it was originally believed.Because these results are so novel,if the archaeologist is critically thinking,she should first:

An archaeologist discovers new evidence suggesting humans inhabited a particular area long before it was originally believed.If the archaeologist is critically thinking,she should first:

Williams and Ceci (2015)sought to determine if gender biases exist in academic hiring practices.They studied almost 1,000 professors in a mock hiring situation in which each professor read the files of several job applicants and then rank-ordered the applicants in terms of most-to-least qualified.What the professors did not know was that the gender of the job applicants was randomly assigned to the professors.That is,if one professor read that job applicant A was a woman,another professor read that the same job applicant A was a man.As a result,an average rating of each applicant could be compared when that applicant was presented as a male and as a female.In this study,what is the independent variable?

College administrators are presented with mixed evidence that a recent initiative to increase first-year success among its students is effective.Based on results from the psychological literature,the administrators probably will decide to:

_____ occurs when participants decide if they wish to be studied in the experimental or control group.

If an odd number of scores are put in order from lowest to highest,the score in the middle position is the:

When aspects of a setting cause participants to behave the way they think an observer wants them to behave,the problem of _____ is present.

Researchers wanted to see if adults were actually afraid of the dark by exposing them to different levels of light in a room while measuring their heart rates.In this experiment,what are the heart rates of the participants?

Angela wants to determine if male or female college students are more likely to pay with cash versus a credit card while at a restaurant.She is undecided if she should observe their actions at a restaurant or rather questions to participants about this topic using a survey.Angela is trying to decide on the best _____ to address her research question.

Which statement about critical thinking is TRUE?

People who drink more alcohol tend to have lower personal incomes.This is an example of:

Given two theories that are equally consistent with observations about the world,the _____ theory is preferred,illustrating the principle of _____.

Suppose that a local government is considering a construction project that will cost tax payers a large amount of money.Residents have strong views on both sides of the debate.In an attempt to educate the public,the city arranges several informational sessions in which the pros and cons of the project are discussed.Which result is consistent with the psychological literature?

Which measure lacks both reliability and validity?

Manipulation and random assignment are two key features of:

Carolina wants to determine if preschoolers are more or less likely to initiate play with same or opposite gender peers.She is trying to devise a plan in which the children will not know that they are being observed.Carolina seeks a(n):