Exam 2: Research Methods in Psychology

Theories permit researchers to move from

Donovan is filling out the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and as he reads each question he thinks about the way most other people would probably respond. When he answers, he selects the alternative that he thinks will present the most favorable impression. Donovan's answers reflect

A(n) ____________________ is a tentative statement about the relationship between two or more variables.

The ____________________ is a measure of the amount of variability in a set of data.

The primary reason for the ethical dilemmas psychologists encounter regarding the use of deception in research reflects concerns

Dr Alberts designs a research study in which neither the subjects nor the individuals who interact directly with the subjects know which is the control group and which is the experimental group in the study. Dr Alberts probably chose this type of research design in order to

Researchers who were studying plant growth raised plants in two separate rooms. One room had taped conversations playing 24 hours a day; the other room was silent. The researchers found that the plants grew better in the room which had the conversations playing. In this study, the type of room (conversation or silence) would be

The FDA found that people who used a particular diet drug combination had more heart valve defects than people who had not taken the diet drug combination. This suggests that the use of the diet drug combination and heart valve defects are

Subjects' self-reports often indicate that they are healthier, happier, and less prejudiced than other types of evidence would suggest. The most likely explanation for this pattern is

Dr Botha is studying aggression in children and plans to define aggression as the number of times one child pushes or strikes another child. Defining aggression in this way would

Basetsana earned 78 points on her statistics exam. Ten of the students in her class earned higher scores than she did, and ten students earned lower scores than she did. Based on this information, you can conclude that Basetsana's score of 78 points is

A correlational research study was conducted that found that adults who ate oatmeal as children were four times more likely to develop cancer than those who did not. Can the authors of this correlational study conclude that oatmeal causes cancer? Why or why not?

David and Val both take part in a research study that is investigating the effects of sleep deprivation on reaction time. David is kept awake for 24 hours straight, while Val follows her normal sleep routine. In this study, David is part of the

Suppose a researcher discovered a strong negative correlation between the length of people's hair and the amount of money they paid for their automobile. In general, people who paid the least amount of money for their automobile also had

One advantage of naturalistic observation is that it

A researcher is investigating the effects of caffeine consumption on student writing performance. Because the researcher will evaluate both the speed of assignment completion and the number of grammatical errors, she will need to include more than one ____________ variable in her study

A sample is representative if

The FINAL step in a scientific investigation is to

A correlation coefficient will always have a value between

Dr Ahmed predicts that people will act more aggressively during the heat waves of summer than they will during the cold spells of winter. This suggests that Dr Ahmed believes that temperature and level of aggression are