Deck 2: Psychological Research

Question 1

Sandra strongly believes that attending daycare is detrimental to children's development so she decides to write her psychology term paper on this topic. She does a literature search and finds several sources supporting her opinion, but she finds that the majority of research indicates that children attending daycare experience healthy development. She writes a paper using the sources that find negative associations with daycare attendance. This is an example of ________.

A) confirmation bias
B) confounding variable
C) correlational research
D) observer bias

Answer 1

confirmation bias

Question 2

A negative correlation means ________.

A) a third variable eliminates a correlational relationship
B) one variable decreases as the other increases
C) there is a relationship between two variables, but it is not statistically significant
D) two variables increase together, but they are associated with an undesirable outcome

Answer 2

one variable decreases as the other increases

Question 3

Which correlation coefficient best represents a moderate relationship showing fewer anxiety symptoms in people who report higher life satisfaction?

A) -0.53
B) -0.21
C) +0.13
D) +0.78

Answer 3

-0.53

Question 4

Psychological knowledge is advanced through a process known as ________, which involves a prescribed series of steps designed to achieve the desired knowledge.

A) deductive reasoning
B) inductive reasoning
C) the experiment
D) the scientific method

Question 5

Dr. Mattar is interested in knowing more about brain injury to the occipital cortex, and he studies patients individually in order to gain in-depth knowledge about their behaviors. These studies would best be described as ________.

A) case studies
B) correlational
C) cross-sectional
D) surveys

Question 6

Dr. Guttierez is examining a research question and has posted a hypothesis, but his student points out, "Dr. G., the assumption that you have made cannot be disproven no matter what data we gather!" This research study suffers from an absence of ________.

A) operational definition
B) falsifiability
C) circularity
D) alternate explanations

Question 7

________ assesses the consistency of observations by different observers.

A) Attrition
B) Inter-rater reliability
C) A control group
D) Validity

Question 8

Simplicity of conducting the study is to ________ as ability to test large numbers of participants is to ________.

A) archival research; naturalistic observation
B) archival research; surveys
C) case studies; naturalistic observation
D) experiments; surveys

Question 9

________ is an anthropologist who contributed to our understanding of chimpanzee behavior in the wild, using naturalistic observation.

A) Jane Goodall
B) Sigmund Freud
C) Suzanne Fanger
D) Tatiana Hogan

Question 10

A(n) ________ variable is a factor that affects both variables of interest in research and may falsely give the impression of a cause-and-effect relationship.

A) confounding
B) control
C) dependent
D) independent

Question 11

A(n) ________ is a well-developed set of ideas that proposes an explanation for observed phenomena.

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

Question 12

The scientific process is ________, involving both inductive and deductive reasoning.

A) circular
B) iterative
C) iatrogenic
D) correlational

Question 13

The first woman to earn the PhD degree in psychology was ________.

A) Margaret Floy Washburn
B) Inez Prosser
C) Mary Whiton Calkins
D) Mamie Clark

Question 14

In order to assess whether viewpoints on decriminalization of marijuana for medical purposes change with age, four groups of participants, ages 20, 30, 40, and 50, are asked whether they support this issue. What is one flaw of this design?

A) Longitudinal research is time consuming.
B) Marijuana has already been decriminalized in some places.
C) Recruitment could be a challenge because people of different ages are difficult to sample.
D) Social or cultural factors may influence the results, not age.

Question 15

Research shows that people who smoke cigarettes are more likely to get lung cancer than those who do not smoke. This research alone demonstrates that ________.

A) smoking causes lung cancer
B) smoking contributes to lung cancer
C) there is a predisposition toward both smoking and lung cancer
D) there is a relationship between smoking and lung cancer

Question 16

________ is a reduction in the number of research participants as some drop out of the study over time.

A) attrition
B) experimenter bias
C) generalizability
D) single blinding

Question 17

A group of preschool-age children are enrolled in a study that plans to follow them over time in order to assess behaviors and other characteristics that may predict later development of schizophrenia. This is an example of a(n) ________ design.

A) cross sectional
B) experimental
C) longitudinal
D) survey

Question 18

Krista and Tatiana Hogan are participants in a(n) ________ of conjoined twins who are joined at the head.

A) case study
B) experiment
C) naturalistic observation
D) survey

Question 19

This organization, one of the largest professional groups of psychologists in the world, was founded in 1892.

A) The American Psychological Society
B) The National Institute of Mental Health
C) The Centers for Disease Control
D) The American Psychological Association

Question 20

________ is/are often conducted with large numbers of participants and can even be conducted by phone, email, or mail.

A) archival research
B) case studies
C) surveys
D) university experiments

Question 21

The belief that strange behavior is linked to the occurrence of a full moon is an example of a(n) ________.

A) theory
B) factual assertion
C) illusory correlation
D) internal attribution

Question 22

In order to maximize the chances that experimental groups represent the population of interest, researchers should conduct ________ and ________.

A) blind group assignment; blind sampling
B) blind group assignment; random sampling
C) blind sampling; random group assignment
D) random sampling; random group assignment

Question 23

The fact that some well-known studies have been repeated without finding results consistent with those in the initial report describes a(n) ________ that is currently affecting research in psychology and other fields.

A) repeatability emergency
B) replication crisis
C) validity conundrum
D) reliability enigma

Question 24

Studies that cannot ethically be conducted as experiments with typical human participants ________.

A) can sometimes be tested with animal studies
B) can only be examined using a descriptive or correlational approach
C) are used to form strong opinions that are logical and intuitive
D) are not possible to test with any form of empirical methods

Question 25

Which of the following research designs will allow cause-and-effect conclusions?

A) correlational studies
B) experimental
C) quasi-experimental
D) archival research

Question 26

Which word is the most appropriate synonym for the term validity?

A) consistency
B) applicability
C) accuracy
D) repetition

Question 27

A group of researchers investigated the effects of two vocabulary learning strategies on word retention two weeks later. In this example, learning strategy is the ________ variable and word retention is the ________ variable.

A) control; experimental
B) dependent; independent
C) experimental; control
D) independent; dependent

Question 28

Lesley, a sociology major, believes that money is the key to happiness. Her friend Stephen, a psychology major, believes that good health is the key to happiness. How might the two friends resolve their disagreement?

A) They could ask their friends and see which perspective has the most support.
B) They could conduct a study with students on their campus to see which perspective has the most support.
C) They could research archives of newspapers, magazines, and other media to see if there are reports on the topic.
D) They could research peer-reviewed articles to see if either perspective is supported.

Question 29

What is the role of skepticism in scientific research?

Question 30

Stan and Jenny are in a psychology course that requires them to repeat an experiment that researchers have conducted in the past, in order to determine whether they produce the same results. This is called ________.

A) inter-rater reliability
B) standardization
C) replication
D) validity

Question 31

________ are the most commonly used species for animal research.

A) primates
B) birds
C) cats and dogs
D) rodents

Question 32

A(n) ________ is conducted in order to determine whether there are meaningful differences between two groups in a study.

A) correlation coefficient
B) scatterplot
C) statistical analysis
D) validity assessment

Question 33

Professor Devine and her colleagues are interested in assessing whether active versus passive play causes a preference for sweet or salty foods in toddlers. They assign groups of children to either an active play, passive play, or no play group and record their food choices when presented with a variety of sweet and salty foods. In this study, ________ is the independent variable and ________ is the control group.

A) active play; passive play
B) food choice; no play
C) no play; type of play
D) type of play; no play

Question 34

________ (IRB) reviews research that is involves the use of human participants.

A) Institutional Research Board
B) Institutional Research Bureau
C) Institutional Review Board
D) Institutional Review Bureau

Question 35

An upper-level psychology class is conducting an experiment on racial prejudice that involves having participants rate the likeability of faces in a set of photos. However, they tell participants that the study is about the effects of aging on likeability. When participants are finished, they are thanked for their time and leave the experiment. In this example, the class forgot to ________ in order to resolve the ________ in the study.

A) debrief participants; ageist attitudes
B) debrief participants; deception
C) pay participants; deception
D) pay participants; use of personal photos

Question 36

Which of the following is not part of obtaining informed consent?

A) explaining the hypothesis to the participants
B) letting participants know that participation is voluntary
C) obtaining the participant's signature or a signature from the parent or guardian if the participant is a minor
D) reviewing that data is confidential

Question 37

The ability of a research study or psychological instrument to consistently produce a given result is called ________.

A) validity
B) reliability
C) standardization
D) operationalization

Question 38

In a ________ study, both the researchers and the participants are unaware of the group assignments.

A) control
B) double-blind
C) pilot
D) randomly assigned

Question 39

A(n) ________ is a description of how the researchers will measure the variables of interest.

A) experimental plan
B) hypothesis
C) operational definition
D) theory

Question 40

A major limitation of the case study method is the inability to ________ its findings to other, similar situations or cases.

Question 41

What are clear definitions of inductive and deductive reasoning?

Question 42

What is the difference between a positive correlation and a negative correlation?

Question 43

In an experiment, the variable that is controlled or manipulated by the researcher is called the ________ variable.

Question 44

The ________ effect occurs when a person's expectations or beliefs influence or determine their experience in a given situation.

Question 45

What is a debriefing?