Exam 2: Studying Behaviour Scientifically

Imagine a research area in psychology where there are several seemingly conflicting findings and theories.You develop a new theory that resolves these conflicts and explains the findings of this area within a single broad framework.Your theory best demonstrates which characteristic of a good theory?

The research method that allows for examining cause and effect relations is:

The essential function of an operational definition is that it translates something:

The internal validity of an experiment is lowered by experimenter expectancy effects because:

A researcher is interested in studying the frequency of aggression in school-aged children.Which would be the best method to use to measure aggression?

In a positive correlation,high scores on one variable are associated with ____________ scores on the second variable.

Despite having excellent vision,Kris was unable to grasp or pick up objects properly.It is likely that he has damaged his:

The notion that if two theories can equally explain and predict the same phenomenon,then the simpler one is the preferred theory is the law of __________.

In correlational research,the experimenter measures all of the variables and statistically determines whether there is an association between them.

In a meta-analysis,the 'participants' are different ________________.

An ethical guideline that refers to how participants should be given full descriptions about the procedures involved in a study and told that they are free to withdraw from the study at any time is called __________________.

The primary reason for using deception in psychological research is that sometimes it is the only way to obtain:

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

A statistic that indicates the strength and direction of a relation between two variables is called the _____________.

Which of the following statements regarding animal research is true?

On the first day of school,Ted's fifth grade teacher asks her students to introduce themselves and tell the class what they did on their summer vacation.Ted notes that all of the smart kids had gone on great trips;so travel,he reasons,must make you smart.Ted gathers information from the students in his school and analyzes it.Ted is testing this ________.

In experiments,researchers often use random assignment to place participants in various groups or conditions in their experiments.An alternative to random assignment is to design the study in such a way that each participant:

A major disadvantage of correlational research is that the correlation coefficient tells you the direction of a correlation (i.e. ,whether X and Y are negatively or positively correlated)but not how strongly the two variables are related.

A limitation of physiological measures of behaviour is that:

When two variables are ______________ it means that they have been combined in such a way that we can't determine which one had an effect on the dependent variable.