Exam 2: Research Methods in Psychology

To save time, you assign the first fifty people who sign up to participate in your study to the experimental condition and the next fifty to the control condition. The interpretations you could draw from the study will be severely limited because

In Robert Rosenthal's study of the effects of expectations, some students were led to believe that the rats they were training were maze-bright and other students were told their rats were maze-dull, although the rats were actually all the same. What did Rosenthal find in the study?

There is a joke among scientists about a researcher who tells others that he belongs to a secret scientific society, where no one but the researcher will ever know about the studies members are doing. This joke is humorous because it violates the principle of

Which of the following is NOT included as one of the criteria of the American Psychological Association for allowing deception in research?

Imagine that your instructor asks you to determine whether there is a relationship between musical ability and mathematical ability. The type of design best suited to this task would be a(n)

In the research study described by your authors where married couples were asked how sure they were about the future of their relationship, what was demonstrated?

A naturalistic observational approach is especially useful in the earlier stages of scientific investigation for all of the following reasons EXCEPT that it

A clinical psychologist is working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to develop an understanding of serial killers. She decides to focus her attention and measurements on a particularly brutal murderer who is serving a life sentence. Her approach is referred to as a

A researcher who is trying to develop a test of musical aptitude is overheard to say, "I want to make sure that the test that I am developing gives similar results time after time." In the language of psychological measurement, this researcher is determined to develop a test that has high

A classmate has missed class again and is copying your notes. Unfortunately, she can't figure out which research design uses each participant as his or her own control. Which should you tell her?

Given the following correlation coefficients, select the weakest correlation.

A researcher believes that boys are more aggressive than girls. He goes to a playground to watch children play and finds support for his viewpoint. This researcher's data collection may be subject to

One of the most important functions of correlational methods is that their use allows researchers to

A researcher is using the observational technique to study the relationship between student classroom behavior and academic performance. In this context, a good measure of a behavioral process would be ________ and a good measure of a behavioral product would be ________.

Psychological theories should

Having good numerical skills is

Imagine that you have agreed to participate in psychological research. Prior to the study, you will be given information about what you can expect and other details of the research, and asked to sign a form indicating your willingness to participate. This process is known as

A psychologist is doing research for a pharmaceutical company. The drugs he is testing are numbered so that he does not know what they are, nor does he know which participants are receiving which drugs. Participants are also unaware of differences in treatments. The control that is being used in this study is called a

Imagine that you are being taught how to conduct an interview. You are reminded that a good interviewer must try to create a positive social relationship with the respondent in order to facilitate trust and open communication. In other words, you are being trained to establish

Imagine that you have volunteered to participate in an experiment. First, you are asked to rate how angry a person appears in a photograph. Then you are asked to think of angry thoughts and to rate the same photograph again. Because you are serving as your own control, psychologists would refer to this as a ________ design.