Exam 2: Studying Behaviour Scientifically

When the experimenter's subtle or unintentional behaviours influence the behaviour of participants in his/her experiment, the placebo effect occurs.

If an experiment allows for clear causal conclusions to be drawn, it is said to have strong:

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?

Dr. Sandeep wants to study the spending habits in London residents. To study this, he hands out questionnaires about spending habits to all of the students in his introductory psychology class. Dr. Sandeep's data will be ______ because _.

A psychologist is interested in studying stress. Since stress can mean different things to different people, she decides that she would like to assess stress by measuring people's blood pressure. This psychologist has just created a(n):

A statistical procedure for combining the results of different studies examining the same topic to calculate the overall significance of the findings is known as _.

According to the results of the study done by John Darley and Bibb Latané, if you are robbed at gunpoint while walking home from the grocery store, your best chance of receiving help from witnesses would be when:

Which of the following was mentioned in the text as a characteristic of a good theory?

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. Results indicated that memory was better for both the vegetarian and vegan groups. In this study, the dependent variable is

One of the significant advantages of correlational research is that:

The main difference between internal validity and external validity is that:

As part of a class on animal behaviour, students are sent to a local park and are asked to watch and record the feeding behaviour of the crows there. These students are engaged in which method of research?

Dr. Little has heard that people tend to become more politically conservative as they get older. She decides to conduct a study to see if this is true. She conducts a telephone survey where she asks participants their age and political affiliation. She then uses Statistics to see whether there is a relationship between these two variables. Which of the following research designs best describes Dr. Little's research?

In research, any characteristic that can vary is called a(n) _ .

A researcher, who is always willing to consider criticisms of his theory and to make theoretical revisions and adjustments when the evidence supports it, is demonstrating behaviour most consistent with which key scientific attitude?

You have recently submitted a study for publication and one of the reviewers mentions that your study suffers from a third-variable problem. What do we know for sure about your study?

An unobtrusive measure assesses behaviour without participants being aware that they are being observed.

One of the problems of after-the-fact or "hindsight" explanations is that:

A case study is considered to be which type of research method?

A psychologist during the time of Freud creates a new and different theory designed to explain human behaviour. Using this new theory, it is relatively easy to design studies and experiments to evaluate its validity. This is in contrast to the concepts of Freud's theory, which were very difficult to measure. This new theory best illustrates which characteristic of a good theory?