Exam 2: Methods in Psychology

Aleskey's research yielded results that are consistent with a hypothesis derived from a cognitive account of language development.Which conclusion is CORRECT regarding the theory?

In a normal distribution,the peak of the distribution corresponds to which measurement(s)?

Experiments do not adequately control for third variables when:

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?

In the number sequence 3 6 2 3 12,what is the range?

Wally wants to see if room temperature affects happiness.He invites participants to the laboratory,where half are seated for 20 minutes in a booth held at a constant 19 degrees,and the other half are seated in an identical booth for 20 minutes at a constant 29 degrees.Wally then asks members of each group to rate their level of happiness.What is the dependent variable in this experiment?

Which characteristic does NOT describe a normal distribution?

Deception is not allowable in psychological research.

What does the third-variable problem indicate?

Williams and Ceci (2015)sought to determine if gender biases exist in academic hiring practices.They studied almost 1,000 professors in a mock hiring situation in which each professor read the files of several job applicants and then rank-ordered the applicants in terms of most-to-least qualified.What the professors did not know was that the gender of the job applicants was randomly assigned to the professors.That is,if one professor read that job applicant A was a woman,another professor read that the same job applicant A was a man.As a result,an average rating of each applicant could be compared when that applicant was presented as a male and as a female.The authors reported that:

In a frequency distribution,the average score for each group is plotted on the vertical axis.

People are difficult to study because they often behave differently when they know that they are being observed,a phenomenon known as:

Critical thinking involves the relentless search for evidence that confirms existing beliefs.

_____ involves holding onto previous assumptions and beliefs about the world,whereas _____ involves basing believes on objective observations of the world.

Participants in one study (Lord,Ross,& Lepper,1979)were first asked about their beliefs regarding the death penalty,and then they were provided with evidence both for and against it.After studying these materials,beliefs about the death penalty were reassessed.This study found that participants:

Reggie is curious about how many women versus men shake the handle of the gas pump after they finish fueling their automobiles.Reggie positions himself inside a minimart,where he appears to be a shopper,but all the while he is casually looking out a large window and recording the pump behaviour of women and men at the fueling stations.What type of research is Reggie conducting?

A clinical psychologist is evaluating a client recovering from a substance abuse disorder to evaluate his likelihood of relapse.Which measure is LEAST susceptible to demand characteristics?

The matched samples technique eliminates the third-variable problem associated with correlational research.

The standard deviation is a measure of central tendency.

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