Exam 2: Methods in Psychology-Part A

Which statement is an example of a demand characteristic in everyday life?

A psychologist discovers an important research finding in her laboratory that is seemingly inconsistent with what other researchers have found.Her new results have profound implications to our understanding of human behavior.If the psychologist is critically thinking,she should first:

An empirical method refers to:

In the context of an experiment,the variable that is measured is termed the _____ variable.

A bathroom scale is broken and always weighs 150 pounds,no matter who steps on it.As a measure of weight,the broken scale lacks:

If an experiment is internally valid,then one can infer that:

If researchers are interested in the average time it takes to press a button when a green light flashes on a screen,and they simply measure the reaction times of volunteers who sign up for the study,what rationale would the researchers give for not using random sampling?

Throughout most of human history,people have tended to trust _____ to answer important questions.

Which question is an unfalsifiable research question?

Half the measurements in a positively skewed frequency distribution are greater than or equal to the _____,and half are less than or equal to it.

In studying the correlation between the amount of time children watch violence on television and children's levels of aggressiveness,researchers found that a lack of adult supervision could be a third variable.To control for the third variable,researchers observed children who experienced different amounts of supervision.They made sure that for every child observed who watched a lot of violence on television and was supervised X% of the time,they also observed another child who did not watch a lot of violence on television and was supervised X% of the time.This method is called:

Which statement regarding deception in psychological research is TRUE?

The belief that one can obtain accurate knowledge about the causes of human behavior by observing people behaving in different situations exemplifies:

A college dean is interested in measuring the research productivity of the seven members of the Psychology department.The dean obtains the number of publications for each faculty member.They are as follows: 5,10,15,15,20,25,and 180.If the dean wants to describe these data,which measure of central tendency would paint a misleading picture of the research productivity of the department?

Descriptive statistics include measures such as mean or standard deviation.What is another group of statistics that is used to determine what kind of conclusions can be drawn from the results of an experiment?

The MOST frequent measurement in a frequency distribution is the:

Jeff must find four sources for a term paper he is writing on corporal punishment (i.e. ,spanking).Jeff's family spanked him when he misbehaved as a child,and Jeff believes that it is a useful behavioral modification technique.If Jeff is like most people,he probably will:

An academic clinical psychologist uses Beck's Depression Inventory,a validated scale with scores ranging from 0-63 with higher scores indicating greater levels of depression,to measure depression levels in the population of 1,000 incoming freshmen students.She creates a frequency distribution of her findings.What should be displayed on the vertical axis?

An operational definition is:

A kindergarten teacher has parents keep a log of the number of books read to their children per week.There are 20 children in the class.Most (18 of 20)of the parents reported reading 3-6 books per week.However,two parents each reported reading over 30 books per week to their children.If the teacher wants to describe these data,which measure of central tendency would paint a misleading picture of at-home reading?