Exam 4: The Scientific Method in Abnormal Psychology

Which statement about clinical and statistical significance is accurate?

What type of study would yield information on whether or not persons who were abused as children develop mental disorders in adulthood?

Kira is involved in a research study consisting of four phases.First, her behavior is monitored under baseline conditions.Then her mother gives her rewards for specific behaviors.In the third stage, she goes back to baseline, and in the fourth, her mother again rewards her.What kind of research is this?

Which type of study is especially valuable for studying rare phenomena and for evaluating the course of a disorder and its treatment?

Carmen has been diagnosed with major depression.Her twin sister Consuelo does not have the disorder.When asked if their parents suffer from major depression, researchers are likely to reduce bias in reporting by ____.

In a study of the effectiveness of cognitive therapy on anxiety, fifty anxious patients are divided into two groups.One group gets cognitive therapy, the other a fake kind of therapy that should have no benefit.However, the patients can tell that the second form of treatment is a fake.The study is weak because ____.

"I never accept the results of one study as conclusive.Findings must be replicated.I look carefully at the methods used to produce conclusions.Because of my skeptical attitude, you can guess I am a ____."

Operational definitions are employed in order to ____.

Investigators using research designs involving a placebo group allows the investigator to ____.

The town of Mayberry wants to know if a new suicide prevention telephone line has reduced the number of suicides in town.What kind of research should the town do to find out?

By definition, reliable measures ____; valid measures ____.

Dr.Appel says, "Excessive alcohol consumption is when drinking interferes with social and occupational functioning." But Dr.Baker says, "Excessive alcohol consumption is when a person's frequency and quantity of drinking is in the top 10 percent of all drinkers." What the two doctors are disagreeing about is ____.

In a genetic linkage study, which of the following information would be important?

Experiments with large groups of subjects reflect the ____, whereas single-subject studies reflect the ____.

In an experiment, the ____ is as similar as possible to the experimental group except that it is not exposed to the independent variable.

Which of the following statements is accurate about correlational studies?

Dr.Gonzalez devised a new scale to measure depressive symptoms of Hispanic females.To be sure that his test is actually measuring depressive symptoms, he will have his test group respond to his new instrument and the Beck Depression Inventory, as well as completing a social desirability scale, which should be unrelated to depression.Dr.Gonzalez is ____.

Suppose the results of a correlational study examining the association between poverty and psychotic behavior show a correlation coefficient of r = 0.80.One possible interpretation of the results is that poverty causes psychotic behavior.Another possibility is that ____.

Dr.Quillen treats a chronic smoker by first recording the number of cigarettes smoked daily, then offering monetary rewards for each day that one fewer cigarette is smoked.Because the client's own behavior serves as a control, this kind of study is called a(n)____.

Suppose the only thing you know about a research study is that its statistical result is r = -0.74.What could you deduce?