Exam 1: The Mission and the Method

A study is said to have internal validity if the researcher can be relatively confident that ____.

The textbook discusses the "self-correcting nature of science" as it applies to social psychology. The idea here is that, over time, erroneous conclusions are revised appropriately, because ____.

Which topic has been of the MOST interest to social psychologists during the last 30 years?

The first social psychological experiments and the publication of the first book to bear the title Social Psychology both occurred around ____.

Which of the following would constitute the BEST random sample of a university population?

Anthropologists would posit that social psychologists cannot understand human behavior fully unless they understand the ____.

Polls that use large random samples yield very accurate predictions. Since 1936, Gallup poll results taken just before U.S. National election days have diverged from actual election results by an average of only about _____.

Which of the following is an example of an "emotion"?

If you conduct a study and predict that A causes B, then B is the ____.

Social psychologists routinely test research hypotheses using the .05 level of significance. This means that so-called "significant" findings are actually "flukes" about ____ of the time.

Dr. Kay researches the effectiveness of different therapies for treating severe anxiety disorders. He is MOST likely a ____.

In social psychology, the notation "p <.05" signifies ____________________.

Compare and contrast the experimental method with the correlational method. How do these two approaches differ, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each?

Social psychologists are generally similar to Freudian psychoanalysts in that they both ____.

Can correlational studies or experiments ever be conducted outside of the laboratory?

Social psychologists typically derive ____ based on ____.

In the 1950s and 1960s, mainstream psychology was divided between two main theoretical camps: ____.

Explain the difference between applied and basic research.

Social psychology has been LEAST influenced by the branch of psychology known as ____________________ psychology until recently.

Suppose that a cereal manufacturer tried out a new cereal box design for a few months, and-during the same time period-notices that its sales have tripled. One of the cereal executives, Mr. Correl, boasts that the new cereal box must have sparked the increase in sales. But another executive, Mr. Scien, points out that the increase could be due to the new advertising campaign that the company is using, or to new distribution practices that have taken hold, or to the fact that more and more people are eating cereal these days. That is, Mr. Scien suggests that the company's "test" of the new cereal box design is low in ____.