Exam 2: Reading and Evaluating Scientific Research

When you watch dogs play in the park or watch how your professors conduct their classes, you are engaging in a form of __________. a. case study research b. survey research c. naturalistic observation d. psychometric study

A psychologist wanted to see if people are more prone to seek the company of others when anxious than when calm. He randomly assigned half of his subjects to an anxiety group and then told them that, as part of the study, they would receive electric shocks. He did not frighten the other group of subjects. Finally, he recorded how many subjects in each group chose to be "tested" in a group setting and how many chose to be "tested" alone. What was the independent variable in this study? a. tendency to desire the company of others b. level of shock c. level of anxiety d. the anxious group

A researcher, based on her review of relevant scientific studies, believes that there is a relationship between the frequency of a baby's crying and whether it was nursed at set intervals or on a demand schedule. If this belief were tested by experimentally manipulating feeding schedules, frequency of crying would be called the: a. latent factor. b. dependent variable. c. independent variable. d. control factor.

When a distribution is skewed, the median is a better measure of the "average" than the mean.

Surveys and questionnaires are used to collect self-report data.

Eila is participating in a psychological experiment for one of the graduate students at her university. She is pretty confident that she knows the true intent of the study and is trying to answer the questions accordingly. A common pitfall in experiments, Eila is falling prey to ______________.

Under which of the following circumstances would the mean be the best measure of central tendency to use?

The term statistical significance implies that the results are ________________.

Ada's professor tells her class that the average score on the last test was 72 points. Ada wants to know if most students actually scored near 72, or if the grades were more spread out, with many students doing much better or worse than a 72. What statistic could Ada ask her professor to calculate to help answer her question?

A researcher sets up an experiment to test a new antidepressant medication. One group receives the treatment, and the other receives a placebo. The researcher then measures depression using a standardized self-report measure. What is the independent variable in this case?

In an experiment, a researcher wants to avoid the presence of _______________.

A correlation of .00 means: a. you made a mistake in calculation. b. you did not find out anything about the relationship between the two variables. c. the two variables are unrelated. d. everyone who scored low on one variable scored high on the other variable, and vice versa.

Although sometimes controversial, animal research plays an important role in psychology research. Explain four reasons psychologists use animal subjects. Module: 2.3

A correlation of -.80 is a stronger relationship than a correlation of +.50.

In a controlled experiment, the group subjected to a change in the independent variable is called the __________ group. a. independent b. experimental c. dependent d. control

Which of the following is an advantage of using non-human subjects in psychology research?

______________ is a method where researchers typically use interviews, phone surveys, and questionnaires to directly collect responses from the people being studied.

Which of the following is one of the five characteristics of quality research listed in the textbook?

An experiment was run in which group A was given 3 minutes to study a word list, while group B was given 10 minutes to study the same list. Later, both groups were asked to recall words from the list. In this study, the number of words recalled is the _______. a. independent variable b. dependent variable c. placebo d. control group

If someone takes an intelligence test several times and receives the same score, the test has high validity.