Exam 2: Psychology as a Science

"Opposites attract." "Birds of a feather flock together." These aphorisms most closely resemble

To maintain the validity of the study,researchers must actively avoid exposure to sources of biases that may influence their data collection.

Why do the editors of psychology journals sometimes insist that psychologists include an estimate of effect size along with the probability statistic when they report a significant result?

In using a scientific approach,what step would follow developing a hypothesis?

The four goals of society are controlling,predicting,explaining,and monitoring

How can researchers minimize sampling biases?

A researcher observed the eating patterns of laboratory rats while manipulating the amount of sleep they received during a week-long study.In this example,what type of variable is "sleep"?

Which group evaluates each research project to protect the rights of participants in the study?

To assess the strength of the relationship between variables,a(n)___ can be calculated.

When researchers re-test a hypothesis to ensure that the previous results achieved were not due to a coincidence,this is called

Magazine surveys cannot be considered valid research methods because its readers are the only ones who will respond,and the readers may be predisposed to have a special interest in the hypothesis.This is an example of a

What do psychologists do to determine whether the variables in their research are related,or whether there is a true difference between their groups?

The field of psychology certainly wrestles with questions regarding how to ethically apply the knowledge it discovers.What other field would have a similar struggle,according to your text?

The value of a perfect positive relationship is ___.

What is a hypothesis?

Which of the following examples shows how the field of psychology faces the problem of misrepresentation?

Dr.Ellis is using the scientific method to investigate the effects of sugar consumption on the attention span of 8-year old children.He predicts that children who drink a pop prior to participating in a boring task will give up sooner than children who drink a glass of milk before doing the boring task.What is the next thing that Dr.Ellis should do?

You are at the annual conference of the Association for Psychological Science,listening to researcher's present papers on social development in later adulthood.In her presentation,Dr.Dryer notes,"Social disengagement theory predicts that older adults will attend social events less often than will middle-aged adults." The next presenter,Dr.Ebrahimi,reports that in the diaries participants kept as part of his study,older adults reported attending just as many parties,dinners,or other informal gatherings as did middle-aged adults,casting doubt on social disengagement theory.Dr.Dryer's statement reflects the ___ component of hypothetico-deductive reasoning,whereas Dr.Ebrahimi's illustrates ___.

What does it mean to operationalize a variable?

As much as the field of psychology has a scientific foundation,any researcher investigating a psychological phenomenon will be faced with the additional burden of