Exam 2: Studying Behaviour Scientifically

The primary goal of _____________ research is to examine the associations between naturally occurring events or variables.

As part of their research on bystander apathy,John Darley and Bibb Latané created fake "emergencies" in their experimental laboratory and observed people's responses.When making these observations,what step of the scientific process were they engaged in?

Shireen thinks people learn better when they enjoy the course for which they are studying.In order to test her prediction,she must operationalize her variables.Which of the following best represents valid operational definitions of the variables contained within her prediction?

Kyle could feel himself coming down with a nasty cold.His roommate,Dave,had been bragging about a new cold remedy he had discovered,guaranteeing that the remedy cured the common cold.Kyle went to Dave's room and asked him some questions about this new cure.Kyle was demonstrating critical thinking skills by asking:

The ethical area of a participant's right to privacy is most concerned with which of the following?

A researcher is examining the relation between two variables: variable X and variable Y.If she is conducting a correlational study,the researcher measures variable X and _______________ variable Y.

Canadian researchers Thompson,Schellenberg,and Husain conducted an experiment in which they assigned university students to either a group that listened to a Mozart Sonata (happy music)or a group that listened to an Albinoni Adagio (sad music).Thompson et al.concluded that what previous researchers had called the "Mozart effect" was really an artifact of the participants' arousal and positive mood.Thompson et al.were claiming that:

A researcher is designing a study and is debating the potential use of deception.After discussing the issue with her colleagues,it is decided that there really is no alternative methodology that she could use to test her idea.Having said this,all of her colleagues agree that the cost of using deception in her study would strongly outweigh any positive benefits that would be gained from the study.Given this information,which of the following statements is true?

A limitation of physiological measures of behaviour is that:

When presented with the findings of psychological research,it is not uncommon for people to comment that the results are trivial and obvious.This tendency is an illustration of the limitations of:

If an experiment allows for clear causal conclusions to be drawn,it is said to have strong:

It is difficult to draw causal inferences in correlational research because:

Two research assistants trained to code the type of interactions observed between siblings,repeatedly disagree on how to code siblings' sarcastic comments toward one another.The resulting data may then be:

When Dr.Pressley examines the study habits of his students he finds that as the number of hours they spend studying increases,so do their grades.He finds an even stronger correlation between partying and grades in that as their grades improve the number of hours they spend partying decreases.When he runs the statistics on these data he finds which of the following correlation coefficients for hours studying with grades and hours partying with grades respectively:

While conducting a phone survey,the interviewer asks questions in such a way that it influences and affects the answers of the people she is interviewing.This example most clearly demonstrates which limitation of survey research?

Placebo effects make it difficult to draw causal conclusions because we can't tell whether:

Dr.Little has heard that people tend to become more politically conservative as they get older.She decides to conduct a study to see if this is true.She conducts a telephone survey where she asks participants their age and political affiliation.She then uses statistics to see whether there is a relationship between these two variables.Which of the following research designs best describes Dr.Little's research?

The tendency to respond in a socially appropriate manner rather than according to how a person actually thinks,feels,or behaves is called the:

Control groups are important in experiments because:

____________________ refer to the unintentional and subtle ways that experimenters can influence and affect their participants to behave in a manner consistent with the experimental hypotheses.