Exam 2: Studying Behaviour Scientifically

The social desirability bias was discussed as a limitation of which of the major ways of measuring behaviour?

In a memory experiment, participants are asked to learn a list of words and then are tested on the list and the number of words they recall is recorded. In total, participants will be learning three word lists. Each of the word lists is of equivalent difficulty, the first list contains proper nouns, the second list contains breeds of dogs, and the third is a list of kitchen appliances. After working with 20 participants, the researchers notice that these participants are better at recalling the proper nouns, the first list of the three that they learn. How can the researchers be certain that proper nouns are actually easier to recall and that they are not recalled better because they are the first words the participants learn?

Why do researchers manipulate two independent variables in the same experiment?

Which of the following statements regarding the differences between experimental and correlational research is true?

Which of the following statements about deception is true?

Random assignment is used to ensure that a sample is representative of the population from which it is drawn.

If a researcher wants to use some form of deception in an experiment, what are the ethical limitations?

When each experiment group is made of a different set of participants then this type of design is

Which of the following is not a characteristic of scientific theories?

Hypotheses typically specify lawful relations between certain behaviours and their causes, and tend to be broader than theories.

Dr. Jung argues that increases in temperature cause increases in aggression. To support his claim, he recorded the temperature each day and noted the number of reported assaults. More assaults were recorded on hotter days. His claim is inaccurate because

Coding systems are used

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

The experiment on driving and cell phone use conducted by Strayer (2003) described in the text had two independent variables. Each independent variable had two levels. How many conditions were there?

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 __________.

If a measure of behavior is reliable, then it is considered to be

In a study of aggression, Dr. Berkowitz had participants watch either violent or non-violent media after they had been frustrated by a colleague. They were then able to deliver electric shocks to the colleague as feedback for mistakes made on a memory test (this never really happened, they just thought they were giving shocks). Berkowitz recorded the intensity of shocks delivered. Results indicated that more intense shocks were given when participants watched the violent media. This is an example of a study involving

An important limitation of the case study research method is that it

Katie just saw a report on CBS about one man that had taken a smart pill, modafinil, on the recommendation of friends. "It really helped me stay on top of things," he said. "I was able to manage everything pretty well, better than if I hadn't taken it." A scientist would be most likely to recommend that Katie should

A researcher decides to collect some data to test the hypothesis that playing violent video games is related to violent behaviour. They ask a group of parents from a local elementary school to estimate two things over the last six months: how many hours per week of violent video games their children played, as well as the number of violent incidents they can recall their children being involved in. If playing violent video games contributes to violent tendencies, we would expect to see: