Exam 2: Sources of Information: Why Research Is Best and How to Find It

Research studies are superior to personal experience because:

Edward believes that there are a lot of differences between men and women on a variety of different dimensions. He believes this because when he thinks about books that have been written on men and women, he can quickly recall only books that say men and women are different (e.g., Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus) and cannot recall any that say men and women are the same. His reliance on what comes to mind is an example of which of the following?

Compared with doing a generic Internet search, why is PsycINFO a superior way to find scientific sources?

Which of the following is a limitation of PsycINFO compared to Google Scholar?

You are having lunch with your friends, Oliver, Julia, and Richard, and you are discussing the link between homework and exam grades. Oliver says, "I know that doing homework improves exam grades because I always do my homework and I have a 4.0." Julia says, "I know that doing homework improves exam grades because a blog I read on an education website says so." Richard says, "I know that doing homework improves exam grades because that makes sense. Teachers would not assign it if it did not." Provide a response to each friend for why his or her reasoning is unsound.

Angela reads about a study in which cell phone use is associated with migraine headaches. She says, "Well, that study is not valid because I use a cell phone more than anyone I know and I never get migraines." Based on her comment, Angela may be forgetting which of the following?

Charlotte is studying subliminal messages and weight loss. She is curious whether people will lose more weight if they hear subliminal messages that encourage weight loss ("don't eat that food," "you want to be thin," etc.) in the music on their iPods compared to people who do not have subliminal messages in their music. She studies 40 people and finds the following results: A change to which of the following cells will result in a different interpretation of the results of subliminal messages?

Lana is writing her first empirical journal article. Although she thinks she knows why she found the results she did, she also wants to mention some alternative explanations for her findings. In which section will she mention these alternative explanations?

Tim tells you that the best way to make friends is by opening the conversation with a joke. He can easily recall all the friends he met by telling a joke and also the times he opened with chitchat and didn't befriend the person. If you were concerned that Tim was making the present/present bias, what would you ask him?

Two biases of intuition discussed in the text are:

Which of the following is a limitation of Google Scholar compared to PsycINFO?

Javier wants his lab partner to tell him if he thinks the article he found for their project is appropriate. Rather than have him read the article, which two parts of the paper could Javier have his lab partner read to get a summary of the article?

What does it mean that behavioral research is probabilistic?

Tim tells you that the best way to make friends is by opening the conversation with a joke. He can easily recall all the friends he met by telling a joke and also the times he opened with chitchat and didn't befriend the person. If you were concerned that Tim was making the blind spot bias, what would you ask him?

How does research overcome the problem of confounds?

Karla is starting her study for her research methods and needs to begin finding some research articles. She tells you that she plans on searching for her sources on Google Scholar. Provide three reasons that you would recommend that she use PsycINFO instead to search for sources.

Charlotte is studying subliminal messages and weight loss. She is curious whether people will lose more weight if they hear subliminal messages that encourage weight loss ("don't eat that food," "you want to be thin," etc.) in the music on their iPods than will people who do not have subliminal messages in their music. She studies 40 people and finds the following results: Although Charlotte is concerned with exposure to subliminal messages, she collects data from people not exposed to subliminal messages. What is this group called? Why must this group be included in her study?

Hannah just finished reading an empirical journal article for a class project. What information might she get out of reading the references section of her article?

Charlotte is studying subliminal messages and weight loss. She is curious whether people will lose more weight if they hear subliminal messages that encourage weight loss ("don't eat that food," "you want to be thin," etc.) in the music on their iPods compared to people who do not have subliminal messages in their music. She studies 40 people and finds the following results: To understand whether the subliminal messages have an effect, Charlotte needs to consider which of the following cells in the chart?

Provide at least three reasons that explain why a wiki is a less-than-ideal source for psychological research.