Exam 2: Scientific Methods in Psychology

An experimenter tests the reading skills of some 10-year-old children,puts them on a low-fat diet for 6 months,retests their reading skills,and finds that most show a significant improvement in their reading.The experimenter concludes that a low-fat diet improves intellectual development.One major defect in this study is the lack of any

Participants in an experiment are often kept blind about the condition to which they have been assigned.This will help prevent ____________________. demand characteristics

An experimenter kept students in a hot,neutral,or cold room and then tested their ability to memorize poetry.What was the dependent variable in this experiment?

Jane describes a dream she had that came true the next day.This is an example of

A researcher measures people's blood type and tests whether those with different blood types have different personalities.This type of research is called a

How does an experimenter try to equate the experimental group and the control group at the start of the experiment?

A falsifiable theory is one that

An investigator finds that it is possible to use measurements of people's speed of response as a moderately accurate predictor of their grades in school.From this information we can conclude that the correlation between speed of response and grades is

The main difference between a correlational study and an experiment is that in an experiment,

Research participants viewed either violent or nonviolent films for four consecutive nights.On the fifth night,half the participants were told by the experimenter that their performance was terrible and the other half were told they had done well on some task.What group showed the most hostility on the fifth night?

One of the most common techniques for finding out about people's beliefs or attitudes is to ask a large number of people a series of questions.This technique is called

The mean,median,range,and standard deviation are all examples of

The smaller the random sample,the smaller the probability that the results will differ significantly from the whole population.

The main difference between a correlational study and an experiment is that in a correlational study

Which of the following is the BEST conclusion regarding the ethical treatment of animals in research?

An independent variable is one that

Which of the following is undesirable for psychological research and theories?

A solid theory would be one that

The word science derives from a Latin word meaning?

When we are looking at small trends in the data,researchers use a meta-analysis.