Exam 1: Introduction and Research Methods

The basic goal of the experimental method is to:

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an invasive imaging technique that provides color-coded images of brain activity by tracking the brain's use of a radioactively tagged compound, such as glucose, oxygen, or another substance.

In order to increase confidence in the findings of a particular study, it is important that the study and its results:

In the hotel experiment by Crum and Langer, half the participants were led to believe they were in "poor" physical and mental condition and the other half were led to believe they were in "excellent" physical and mental condition.

One natural experiment investigating weight-gain during the first year of college found that female students who were assigned to dormitories with on-site dining facilities gained more weight and exercised less than students who were assigned to dormitories without food services.

Psychologists assume that behavior and mental processes follow consistent patterns.

The independent variable in Crum and Langer's hotel experiment was being informed that housekeeping work was good exercise.

Of the nearly 6,000 people who participated in the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior (NSSHB), which is a survey on sexual behaviors, each was randomly selected from the entire U.S. population.

Cross-cultural psychologists have found that Chinese individuals worked harder on a task when they were alone compared to when they worked in groups.

Research on social loafing demonstrated that European participants worked harder on a task when working alone, whereas Chinese participants worked harder on a task when they were part of a group. These results illustrate the importance of the _____ perspective in psychology.

What constituted the dependent variable in Crum and Langer's hotel experiment?

An irrefutable or nonfalsifiable claim:

What conclusions can be drawn from the combined results of the ginkgo biloba experiment and Crum and Langer's hotel experiment?

Many cultures are neither completely individualistic nor completely collectivistic, but fall somewhere between the two extremes.

Despite repeated invitations from William James and others, Sigmund Freud refused to visit the United States.

The case study method is often used to help develop a profile of a psychotherapy client.

A sample is a segment of the population that is of interest to researchers.

A health psychologist is conducting an experiment to investigate the notion that short-term psychological distress influences the immune system. Participants in the first group watch a 30-minute film in which a carpenter and his assistant demonstrate how to build a deck for a house. Participants in the second group watch an almost identical film, except that during the last few minutes of the film, the carpenter slips while operating an electric hand saw and cuts off one of his assistant's fingers. Immediately after the film, the researcher draws blood samples from each subject and assesses the number of disease-fighting white blood cells. What is the independent variable in this experiment?

Variables are factors that can vary or change in ways that can be observed, measured, and verified.

_____ is to psychoanalysis as _____ is to humanistic psychology.