Exam 2: Studying Behaviour Scientifically

Dr. Lahore is a psychologist who is investigating the relation between stress and illness. In her research, she has observed that as stress increases, the occurrence of physical Illness also tends to increase. The association between these two variables is an example of a:

If you are a participant in an experimental study, the procedure that insures that you have an equal chance of being in any group or condition within the experiment is called:

One of the main differences between theories and hypotheses, is that

Dr. Treadwell is designing a study to test the effectiveness of a new memory enhancement technique. He has two research assistants who will be carrying out the research for him and because he is curious, he tells one of the research assistants to Expect the technique to significantly improve memory while he tells the other assistant to expect only a moderate improvement. Neither research assistant mentions their Expectations to the participants. After the study has been completed, Dr. Treadwell Notices that each research assistant obtained results consistent with what they had been led to expect. Participants who were studied by the first research assistant actually Showed a significant improvement in memory while participants who were studied by The second research assistant only showed a moderate improvement. This result is most likely an example of:

A researcher is interested in the effects of a vegetarian diet on memory. One group eats a strict vegetarian diet for three months, a second group eats a strict vegan diet for three months, while a third group eats anything they want for three months. After three Months, all participants are given a memory test. The first 20 people who participated Were assigned to the vegetarian group, the next 20 to the vegan group, and the final 20 to the eat anything group. What's wrong with this experiment?

Random assignment is important in experiments because:

Case studies enable us to make better generalizations than do naturalistic observations.

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 order to assess the effectiveness of a new province-wide seatbelt law, researchers collect data from the department of transportation regarding the number of traffic fatalities in the last year. This type of measurement of behaviour is called a(n):

A researcher is concerned that his expectations about the effectiveness of a new drug are influencing the reports of participants in his studies. Specifically, he believes that this new drug is effective and has shared this information with participants in his research. In order to better control the effect of his own expectations on participants, this researcher should:

A placebo effect makes it difficult to draw cause and effect conclusions because we cannot tell whether

In experimental research, one variable is manipulated by the experimenter. This is called the variable.

A stress researcher wants to look at the effect of meditation on anxiety. To do this, she creates two groups of subjects: one group receives instruction in meditation, while the other receives no training at all. One month later, she has subjects complete a questionnaire designed to measure anxiety and she looks to see whether there are any differences in anxiety between the two groups. In this experiment, the meditation Condition (meditation vs. no meditation) is the independent variable and anxiety is the ________ variable.

A hypothesis is best considered as:

Many people doubted Sigmund Freud and his psychodynamic theory. They wanted to know what evidence Freud was basing his conclusions on and wondered if there might be a better explanation for the causes of human behaviour. These people's doubts are most similar to which key scientific attitude?

Experimenter expectancy effects are:

Dr. Sussman conducts a study on the effect of various motivational factors on job performance. In her study, she does an excellent job of controlling extraneous factors and as a result, there is high confidence in the causal conclusions she draws. However, the Participants in her study were from a select group of the population and, therefore, Dr. Sussman will be rather limited in terms of her ability to apply her results to other people and situations. Taken as a whole, this study would be said to have poor _.

Which of the following statements regarding survey research is true?

Typically, when psychologists conduct an experiment, they are willing to a ________ percent chance that the results are random and are due to chance.

The Canadian Psychological Association's "Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists" does NOT require psychologists to: