Exam 5: Introduction to Experimental Research

Some studies last long enough for a significant number of people to drop out; this problem is called _________.

In the study described in the previous item, what is the dependent variable?

When a confound exists,

For a study with a pretest and a posttest, describe five threats to internal validity and explain how a control group enables the researcher to evaluate those threats.

A researcher is interested in whether memory is better for concrete rather than abstract nouns and designs a study to answer the question. In this study, the independent variable is

When a subject variable is used as an independent variable and differences occur between groups on the dependent measure, what can be concluded?

What is the difference between the internal validity of a study and its external validity?

Studies of aggression have sometimes been criticized for developing questionable operational definitions of aggression (e.g., horn honking). This is primarily a criticism of _________ validity.

Self-esteem would be considered a manipulated independent variable if

If a study is free from confounding factors, it is said to have ________ validity.

A _________ effect will be suspected when extremely high pretest scores show a slight decline on posttest.

What do all experiments have in common?

Compared with research in which people learn lists of words and recall them, studies on such topics as eyewitness memory and the recall of high school Spanish have greater

Woodworth's 1938 text, Experimental Psychology,

Which of the following is true about subject (participant) pools?

Distinguish between external validity in general and ecological validity in particular.

A researcher finds that in a study of direction finding, males are less likely to acknowledge being lost than females. In this study, the independent variable is

In an experiment on creative problem solving in groups, some groups of participants are told to produce the best solutions, while other groups are told to produce ideas without regard to their merit (i.e., to brainstorm). The independent variable in this study is

Describe both the ethical and methodological problems with Brady's "ulcers in executive monkeys" study.

After taking a personality test that differentiates introverts from extraverts, two groups are formed. Tested individually, introverted participants are given a series of problems to solve in a small (36 square feet) room, while extroverts are given the same problems in a larger room (81 square feet). Which of the following is true?