Deck 23: Bias: Error Variances From Investigators, Experimenters, and Participants

Question 1

An ideal participant comes to a research experiment without any preconceived notions and is willing to disclose personal information concerning their innermost secrets.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Which of the following is recommended to a researcher seeking to reduce participant bias?

A) Two experimenters should be assigned to each study variable.
B) Participants' fears about their confidentiality should be reduced.
C) Participants should be encouraged to respond in socially desirable ways.
D) Participants should be informed about the real purpose of the study.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Characteristics of experimenters (e.g., race of counselors) can influence how participants perceive the effect of counseling in research studies.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

With the passage of time, oftentimes when people are unable to utilize episodic knowledge, they turn to experiential knowledge.

Question 5

As observed by Christensen (1980), participants entering a psychological experiment are passive organisms just waiting to respond to the independent variable.

Question 6

Participants in psychological experiments in general have a desire to present themselves in a positive light.

Question 7

Bias due to _____ occurs in the design aspects due to expectations during the research design process.

A) experimental procedures
B) participant characteristics
C) experimenter attributes
D) investigator expectancies

Question 8

_____ are cues within an experiment that may influence participants to respond in a particular way apart from the independent variable.

A) Experimenter attributes
B) Demand characteristics
C) Experimenter expectancies
D) Participant characteristics

Question 9

Which of the following is a possible source of bias due to investigator and experimenter expectancies?

A) Previous contact between an experimenter and participants due to need of prior familiarity
B) Noncompliance with some experimental procedures because of the investigator's lack of awareness about their importance
C) Preconceptions and stereotypes among participants about an experimenter's racial or ethnic group
D) Differences in the levels of enthusiasm of experimenters while administering studies to the various groups in a study

Question 10

Outcome effects for a preferred treatment are diminished in studies with stronger research allegiance.

Question 11

In the real world, an investigator is able to engage in a scientific study and remains an impartial, passive observer throughout.

Question 12

Which of the following is a strategy that is used to reduce the impacts of investigator and experimenter expectancies?

A) Keeping the experimenters blind to the purpose of a study
B) Reiterating basic experimental procedures with all personnel involved
C) Carefully describing and making explicit the experimental procedures
D) Analyzing the data for differences across experimenters

Question 13

In the context of participant characteristics that can bias an experimental study, which of the following statements is true?

A) The intellectual skills of the participants are usually similar and aligned with the research topic of interest.
B) Participants from a Western culture value modesty and conformity than do participants from an Asian culture.
C) Former clients feel reticent to report negative perceptions of the counselor if they believe that their comments will be disclosed to counselors.
D) Participants exposed to violent stimuli as part of the study tend to exaggerate their responses to agree with the desired results.

Question 14

When a research study is designed with stronger methodological quality, the link between research allegiance and outcome is stronger.

Question 15

_____, one of the major types of bias, are primarily biological and interpersonal characteristics of an experimenter that may cause differential responses in research participants.

A) Demand characteristics
B) Experimenter attributes
C) Introspective abilities
D) Experimenter expectancies

Question 16

When both research participants and an experimenter are kept blind, the study is called double blind.

Question 17

In the context of participants' abilities to report their experiences during research, which of the following do people use to access knowledge about emotions by beliefs of how they would feel in general?

A) Experiential memory
B) Episodic memory
C) Situation-specific belief
D) Identity-related belief

Question 18

Johnson, with his team of researchers, is conducting a research that measures the amount of counseling intervention clients require to minimize the effects of their depression. He wishes to know the extent to which the intervention was helpful. However, a majority of the participants were reluctant to cooperate with him. This was because the clients were in denial of the fact that they were depressed in the first place. In this scenario, _____ would have been a responsible factor for confounding the outcomes of Johnson's research.

A) the motivation level of Johnson's clients
B) the demand characteristics of the research design
C) the psychological defenses of Johnson's clients
D) the ethnic backgrounds of Johnson's team members

Question 19

Which of the following is true of participants' abilities to report their experiences during a research study?

A) The usability of experiential knowledge increases with the increase in the amount of time elapsed.
B) Researchers are recommended to use only open-ended questions to extract maximum possible information from participants.
C) Use of episodic knowledge may lead to participants remembering only certain parts of an experience, forgetting the rest.
D) Individuals tend to report only a few emotions during the entire duration of the research study.

Question 20

A researcher should use two or more experimenters for each level of the independent variable in a study to reduce the possible effects of experimenter attributes.