Question 1

Thea agrees to sleep in an artificial setting for three nights so that researchers can obtain information about her brain and muscle activity during sleep. She is taking part in a research method called _______________.

Accepted Answer

A)  a single-blind study 
B)  a double-blind study 
C)  naturalistic observation 
D)  laboratory observation

Question 2

People who are willing to take part in surveys usually have opinions and views that are different from those who decline to take part. This phenomenon is called:

Accepted Answer

A)  volunteer bias. 
B)  experimenter's bias. 
C)  confirmation bias. 
D)  systematic bias.

Question 3

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

Accepted Answer

A)  the principle of falsifiability. 
B)  confirmation bias. 
C)  denialism. 
D)  cognitive inertia.

Question 4

A group of individuals that matches the population on important characteristics such as age and sex is called a(n):

Accepted Answer

A)  volunteer group. 
B)  representative sample. 
C)  unrepresentative sample. 
D)  general sample.

Question 5

Two sets of observations assessing age and the amount of hair on an adult man's head are compared. Which of the following is the most likely outcome?

Accepted Answer

A)  The two variables will be both positively and negatively correlated. 
B)  The two variables will be uncorrelated. 
C)  The two variables will be negatively correlated. 
D)  The two variables will be positively correlated.

Question 6

In a(n) _______________ study, a researcher carefully and systematically watches and records behaviour, taking care to avoid affecting the subjects being studied.

Accepted Answer

A)  observational 
B)  exploratory 
C)  experimental 
D)  double-blind

Question 7

Which of the following is true regarding the use of non-human animals in psychological research?

Accepted Answer

A)  They must give informed consent before being used. 
B)  They are no longer used in psychological research. 
C)  Federal regulations governing their housing and care have been strengthened. 
D)  The CPA objects to their use.

Question 8

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

Accepted Answer

A)  they help reduce unintended changes in subjects' behaviour due to cues given by the experimenter. 
B)  they allow for the careful study of behaviour in schools, workplaces, and other natural contexts. 
C)  they provide a range of values within which the mean of a population is likely to lie. 
D)  rarely does one study alone prove anything, and this technique analyzes data from many studies.

Question 9

Benito is trying to define happiness in a way that can be empirically tested. He is attempting to find an appropriate _________.

Accepted Answer

A)  operational definition 
B)  theory 
C)  hypothesis 
D)  correlation

Question 10

When Jean-Luc entered college he agreed to participate in a research study that would investigate how college success was related to career success. Every year Jean-Luc had to complete a questionnaire related to his schooling or career. It is evident that Jean-Luc was:

Accepted Answer

A)  a participant in a longitudinal study. 
B)  a participant in a single blind study. 
C)  a participant in a double-blind study. 
D)  a participant in a cross-sectional study.

Question 11

Dr. Littman-Smith is conducting research in Kenya to learn about the ways that mothers and their toddlers interact as they go about their day. It is most likely that she is engaged in:

Accepted Answer

A)  naturalistic observation. 
B)  laboratory observation. 
C)  exploratory research. 
D)  experimental research.

Question 12

The president of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is concerned after reading that during puberty children have increased needs for sleep. She wants to find out if other parents of middle-school children would support a later starting time for school. At one of the Tuesday night meetings, she conducts a survey of the PTA members in order to address this question. When she asks those parents in support of the change to raise their hands, she discovers that 85 percent of the parents support a later starting time. What information has she gained by conducting this survey? What shortcomings exist in her survey?

Accepted Answer

The answer of The president of the Parent Teacher Association...

Question 13

Which of the following pairs of variables are likely to be positively correlated?

Accepted Answer

A)  outdoor temperature and hot chocolate sales 
B)  damage to a car and speed at the time of accident 
C)  the price of a car and the age of a car 
D)  hours spent watching TV and grade point average

Question 14

Why is it important to go beyond averages when summarizing data? What other descriptive statistics are used to help interpret data?

Accepted Answer

The answer of Why is it important to go beyond...

Question 15

The _______________ tells us how clustered or spread out individual scores are around an arithmetic mean.

Accepted Answer

A)  arithmetic mean 
B)  p value 
C)  confidence interval 
D)  standard deviation

Question 16

Which of the following pairs of variables would illustrate a negative correlation?

Accepted Answer

A)  ocean temperature and the number of people at the beach 
B)  adult shoe size and IQ scores 
C)  the price of a car and the mileage on the odometer 
D)  height and weight

Question 17

____________ is an objective, standardized way of describing the strength of the independent variable's influence on the dependent variable.

Accepted Answer

A)  Effect size 
B)  Significance level 
C)  Meta-analysis 
D)  Bayesian statistics

Question 18

An operational definition states:

Accepted Answer

A)  how something is to be observed and measured. 
B)  how the purpose of a study will be explained to the participants. 
C)  the meaning of a term in commonly used, non-scientific language. 
D)  which research methods will be used in a study.

Question 19

The main advantage of a ______________ study is that the results cannot be influenced by the expectations of either the participants or the experimenters.

Accepted Answer

A)  correlational 
B)  single-blind 
C)  double-blind 
D)  observational

Question 20

Which of the following pairs of variables illustrates a negative correlation?

Accepted Answer