Exam 2: Psychology As a Science

You take a job selling magazine subscriptions from home because the recruitment video says the average earnings per employee are $90,000 a year. You work 60 hours a week for a year and earn $30,000. An Internet search reveals that hundreds of people have had the same experience with this and other work-at-home schemes. How can companies legitimately claim that the average salary is $90,000 if most employees make less than $30,000?

The principle of Occam's razor is used to compare scientific hypotheses primarily on the basis of

A psychological test designed to measure creativity is considered a reliable tool based on whether

There is some evidence that children and adults who watch violent television shows tend to be more aggressive in their behavior. This does not prove that violent shows increase aggressive behavior because _______ does not prove _______.

Which of the following is true about the strength of a correlation?

A research team was investigating the impact of stereotypes on performance. In one group, women read a magazine article about why the structure of men's brains makes them better at math. In the second group, women read a magazine article saying there are no biological differences in the mathematical abilities of men and women. All women in the study then took a challenging math test. Researchers scored the number of items women answered correctly. In this study, which of the following was the dependent variable?

A good scientific hypothesis is

A psychologist at a university has designed an experiment in which subjects will interact one-on-one with Thomas. Thomas will identify himself as a fellow subject but he is actually a member of the psychologist's research team. The psychologist has told the university's Institutional Review Board (IRB) that the experiment cannot be run successfully without this deception. The IRB is likely to decide that the experiment may proceed only if

An unethical experimenter wants to test the relationship between discomfort and aggression. On a hot day, she turns off the air conditioning in one dorm and leaves it on in another, then has her research assistants count occurrences of verbal aggression in common areas of the buildings. Students in the air-conditioned dorm would be the _______, and students in the overheated dorm would be the _______.

Which of the following numbers represents a statistically significant p-value?

In case study research,

The claim "cigarette smoking does not increase risk for lung cancer" _______ a scientific hypothesis because it is _______.

On an intelligence test, Group 1 has a mean score of 96 with a standard deviation of 13. Group 2 has a mean score of 105 with a standard deviation of 8. On this test, _______ scores were higher on average and _______ spread out than _______ scores.

A researcher hoping to identify autism's early warning signs collects home videos of autistic teens. She uses these videos of their formative years to identify atypical movements as they learned to crawl and walk. This is an example of

A meta-analysis most typically focuses on a multitude of

As the number of pirates in the world has decreased, the mean global temperature has increased. This is an example of a

Refer to the graph below. The mode of these data is _______.

A depressed teenager treated with medication begins feeling better immediately, even though the medication typically takes weeks to work. This is an example of a _______ effect.

Reliability refers to whether your measurement tool _______ and validity to whether it _______.

Refer to the figure below. This scatterplot shows a(n) _______ correlation.