Deck 2: How Psychologists Study Prejudice and Discrimination

Question 1

Which of the following is not a goal of research on stereotyping and prejudice?

A) To provide descriptive data, such as the content of people's stereotypes
B) To use theory testing to understand the causes of prejudice
C) To eliminate all inaccuracy and bias in research on stereotyping and prejudice
D) To develop measures of individual differences in prejudicial reactions

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Questions for research on prejudice and discrimination can come from

A) researchers' observations of everyday life.
B) theories of prejudice and discrimination.
C) the effectiveness of interventions designed to reduce prejudice and discrimination.
D) all of the above.

Answer 2

D

Question 3

A(n)-------------------is a characteristic on which people differ and so takes on more than one value when it is measured in a group of people.

A) variable
B) postulate
C) prediction
D) operational definition

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Which of the following statements about theoretical postulates is/are true?

A) They propose links between variables.
B) They can be neither supported nor refuted.
C) They are generally poor descriptors of the relationship between variables.
D) All of the above are true.

Question 5

Theorist X has proposed that people are more likely to stereotype when they are dis- tracted. This type of proposition is known as a(n)

A) variable.
B) operational definition.
C) postulate.
D) hypothetical construct.

Question 6

----------------are derivations of theoretical postulates that can be tested in research.

A) Hypotheses
B) Ideas
C) Operational definitions
D) Hypothetical constructs

Question 7

In general, tests of------------------- hypotheses provide data that are more useful than tests of-------------------hypotheses.

A) psychodynamic; cognitive
B) cognitive; psychodynamic
C) specific; general
D) general; specific

Question 8

The abstract concepts that are used in theories and studied in research are called

A) operational definitions.
B) hypotheses.
C) predictions.
D) hypothetical constructs.

Question 9

Which of the following is an example of a hypothetical construct?

A) Authoritarianism
B) The number of traits a person associates with businesswomen
C) Scores on the Modern Racism Scale
D) The number of times people make eye contact during a conversation

Question 10

----------------are directly observable, concrete representations of hypothetical constructs.

A) Postulates
B) Operational definitions
C) Variables
D) Research strategies

Question 11

Which of the following is an example of an operational definition?

A) Empathy
B) Prejudice
C) Scores on a stereotyping scale
D) Ethnocentric bias

Question 12

When we use a particular measure to assess a psychological characteristic such as prejudice, that measure becomes

A) the independent variable in our research.
B) the operational definition of the characteristic.
C) the hypothetical construct being studied in the research.
D) the study's research hypothesis.

Question 13

Which of the following statements about operational definitions is true?

A) They are only used in experimental research.
B) There is only one good operational definition for most constructs.
C) They are directly observable and concrete.
D) They can be manipulated, but not measured.

Question 14

Hypotheses become predictions when

A) they are stated in terms of relationships between hypothetical constructs.
B) they are stated in terms of relationships between operational definitions.
C) they accurately represent a researcher's theory.
D) the researcher has chosen a research strategy.

Question 15

----------------restate hypotheses in terms of operational definitions.

A) Postulates
B) Variables
C) Research strategies
D) Predictions

Question 16

The-------------------of a measure is its consistency in providing essentially the same result every time it is used.

A) reliability
B) validity
C) generalizability
D) desirability

Question 17

A measure that assesses what it is designed to assess is said to be high in

A) consistency.
B) validity.
C) generalizability.
D) usability.

Question 18

The validity of a measure

A) can be represented by a single number.
B) depends on the number of items it contains.
C) must be determined through the use of probability samples.
D) is based on a variety of research evidence.

Question 19

The tendency for a person to give responses that are consistent with social norms rather than responses that reflect their true attitude is called

A) normative convergence.
B) internal consistency.
C) social desirability response bias.
D) normative validity.

Question 20

Responses are most likely to be affected by a social desirability response bias when

A) unobtrusive measures are used.
B) respondents are trying to create a positive impression of themselves.
C) experiments, rather than surveys, are conducted.
D) multiple questions are asked about a topic.

Question 21

Which of the following is not an example of a self-report measure?

A) Responses to a multiple-choice type of questionnaire
B) Physiological responses to pictures of people belonging to different ethnic groups
C) Answers to questions asked in a face-to-face interview
D) Essays written in response to a researcher's questions

Question 22

Stereotypes can be assessed by having people

A) list what they see as the most important characteristics of a group.
B) select adjectives from a list that they think best describe a group.
C) rate how likely it is that members of a group have certain characteristics.
D) do any of the above.

Question 23

An advantage of using free response measures to assess stereotypes is that

A) they are unaffected by social desirability.
B) individuals provide their own beliefs about a group's characteristics.
C) they do not rely on self-report.
D) they are unobtrusive.

Question 24

The most common way to assess prejudice is by

A) attitude questionnaires.
B) behavioral measures.
C) free response measures.
D) probability ratings.

Question 25

Discriminatory behavior can be measured by

A) self-report.
B) asking people how they would respond in hypothetical situations.
C) observing how people respond to a member of another group.
D) any of the above methods.

Question 26

One advantage of self-report measures compared to other types of measures is that

A) responses can be affected by social desirability.
B) they are easy to administer.
C) researchers do not need to consider their validity.
D) they can be used with young children as well as adults.

Question 27

Which of the following is not an ethical way to reduce socially desirable responding to self-report measures?

A) Ask respondents to put their name on their questionnaire.
B) Use implicit cognition measures.
C) Assess responses that are difficult for people to control.
D) Increase respondents' motivation to give accurate responses.

Question 28

Unobtrusive measures usually focus on people's

A) physiological responses.
B) self-reports.
C) behavior.
D) explicit cognitions.

Question 29

Which of the following is an example of an unobtrusive measure of anti-gay prejudice?

A) Length of a conversation between a participant and a person wearing a "Gay and Proud" button
B) Scores on an attitudes toward homosexuality scale
C) People's responses to a request to list characteristics they associate with lesbians
D) None of the above is an example of unobtrusive measures

Question 30

Physiological measures can be used to assess

A) whether people are having emotional responses to a stimulus.
B) the specific types of emotional responses people have to stimuli.
C) the stereotypes evoked by stimuli.
D) all of the above.

Question 31

Responses to which of the following types of measures are least likely to be under the voluntary control of the respondent?

A) Self-report measures
B) Physiological measures
C) Judgmental measures
D) Social distance measures

Question 32

Which of the following statements about physiological measures is false?

A) Research participants cannot generally control their physiological responses.
B) Physiological measures can indicate only the intensity of an emotion, not whether it is positive or negative.
C) Research using physiological measures can be expensive to conduct.
D) The results of research using physiological measures are unambiguous and not open to more than one interpretation.

Question 33

----------------measures assess the degree to which concepts are associated with one another in memory.

A) Social distance
B) Implicit cognition
C) Explicit cognition
D) Brain imaging

Question 34

Implicit cognition measures

A) assess responses people make without stopping to think or that are involuntary.
B) are more likely to be affected by social desirability response bias than other measures.
C) can assess only emotional responses.
D) assess factors such as seating distance from a member of a stigmatized group.

Question 35

The Implicit Association Test is based on

A) priming.
B) activation of the amygdala.
C) the principle of response competition.
D) the ease of suppressing a habitual response.

Question 36

A shortcoming of response competition measures of implicit cognition is that they

A) only provide evidence that one concept is evaluated more positively than another.
B) are especially vulnerable to social desirability response bias.
C) can only be used to assess racial prejudice.
D) are not widely accepted by researchers as valid.

Question 37

Self-report ratings have relatively low correlations with scores on implicit cognition measures because

A) only implicit cognition measures reliably assess prejudice.
B) they are assessing different kinds of attitude expression.
C) they are never used in the same experiment.
D) people are especially motivated to control their responses to implicit cognition measures.

Question 38

Self-reports assess------------------- expressions of prejudice whereas implicit cognition measures assess-------------------expressions of prejudice.

A) controllable; automatic
B) automatic; controllable
C) desirable; undesirable
D) undesirable; desirable

Question 39

In the United States, self-reports of prejudice against African Americans would least
Likely be affected by social desirability response bias when made by

A) people who think of themselves as politically liberal.
B) individuals being interviewed by people who know them.
C) people who think of themselves as politically conservative.
D) members of a White supremacy group.

Question 40

This type of measure is easy to use and can assess emotions, beliefs, and behaviors. However, it produces responses that are susceptible to social desirability response bias.

A) Unobtrusive
B) Implicit cognition
C) Brain imaging
D) Self-report

Question 41

Which type of measure can assess responses that are not under conscious control but requires a lab setting?

A) Unobtrusive
B) Physiological
C) Judgmental
D) Self-report

Question 42

It is desirable to use multiple measures to assess prejudice in a research study because

A) the advantages of one measure can compensate for the limitations of another.
B) different types of measures assess different aspects of prejudice.
C) when the results found with different types of measures all point to the same conclusion, we can have more confidence in the validity of those results.
D) all of the above.

Question 43

A(n)-------------------is a general approach to doing research, defined in terms of how data are collected.

A) experiment
B) correlational study
C) research strategy
D) content analysis

Question 44

Researcher B asks college students to report how many hours of television news they watch and assesses whether they stereotype members of minority groups as criminals. The researcher then looks at the relationship between these two variables as

A) an experiment.
B) a correlational study.
C) a content analysis.
D) an ethnographic research study.

Question 45

When researchers measure two or more variables and look for relationships among them, they are using a(n)

A) experimental research strategy.
B) correlational research strategy.
C) content analysis.
D) ethnographic research study.

Question 46

A researcher wants to know how residents of her state view Iraqi refugees. To accu- rately assess this, she should draw a probability sample of respondents from

A) the entire United States.
B) her state and two neighboring states.
C) her entire state.
D) the counties from her state with the highest population density.

Question 47

To be representative, a probability sample must

A) include at least 25 percent of the population of interest.
B) include all characteristics of the population in the same proportion they are found in the population.
C) overrepresent groups that comprise a small percentage of the total population.
D) include a comparison sample from another population of interest.

Question 48

When a researcher collects data from a sample that is easily accessible, they are using a(n)-------------------sample.

A) probability
B) random
C) inadequate
D) convenience

Question 49

Which of the following is an advantage of a convenience sample?

A) The researcher can ask a large number of questions.
B) The results readily generalize to the population as a whole.
C) The results are more reliable than those from other forms of sampling.
D) The results are more valid than those from other forms of sampling.

Question 50

Which of the following is an advantage of a probability sample?

A) The researcher can ask a large number of questions.
B) The results readily generalize to the population as a whole.
C) The results are more valid than those from other forms of sampling.
D) The researcher can ask a large number of questions.

Question 51

Online pools of research participants from crowdsourcing sites such as Mechanical Turk provide researchers with-------------------samples.

A) quota
B) probability
C) stratified
D) convenience

Question 52

The sign (+ or -) of a correlation coefficient indicates

A) the strength of a relationship.
B) the direction of a relationship.
C) both the strength and direction of a relationship.
D) whether the obtained results are theoretically meaningful.

Question 53

The more international trips people take, the lower their prejudice toward immi- grants is. This is an example of a(n)

A) non-significant correlation.
B) positive correlation.
C) negative correlation.
D) absolute correlation.

Question 54

Higher correlations

A) are common in psychological research.
B) have absolute values of around .30 and higher.
C) indicate stronger relationships between two variables.
D) indicate a perfect relationship between two variables.

Question 55

A high negative correlation means that

A) the results of the research contradict the hypothesis that the researcher was testing.
B) as scores on one variable (such as empathy) go up, scores on the other variable (such as prejudice) go down.
C) there is no relationship between the variables.
D) at least one of the measures used has low reliability.

Question 56

Correlational research meets only one of three necessary criteria for determining whether one variable causes another. That criterion is

A) covariation.
B) time precedence of the cause.
C) absence of alternative explanations.
D) creation of operational definitions.

Question 57

The criterion for causality that states the cause must come before the effect is referred to as

A) covariation.
B) time precedence of the cause.
C) proper cause-effect sequencing.
D) cross-lag sequencing.

Question 58

Which of the following statements about correlational research is true?

A) The results of correlational research are generally more accurate than the results of experimental research.
B) Correlational research can, under some conditions, indicate causality.
C) A researcher can never conclude from correlational research that one variable causes another.
D) The most important criterion for determining causality is the time precedence of the cause.

Question 59

Researcher A measured research participants'attitudes toward African Americans and preference for violent movies and found there was no relationship between these two variables. What can the researcher conclude?

A) Preference for violent movies does not cause negative attitudes toward African Americans.
B) Preference for violent movies probably causes negative attitudes toward African Americans.
C) An experiment must be conducted to show that there is no causal relationship between these two variables.
D) The variables of interest were not reliably measured.

Question 60

A researcher wanted to study whether men are offered lower prices than women dur- ing automobile sales transactions. He records the prices women and men are offered for identical cars during the year. Gender of shopper is

A) a non-manipulated, correlational variable.
B) a manipulated variable.
C) the dependent variable.
D) a meta-variable.

Question 61

A researcher wanted to study whether men are offered lower prices than women dur- ing automobile sales transactions. He records the prices women and men are offered for identical cars during the year and finds that, on average, women are asked to pay
$550 more than men. The researcher can validly conclude that

A) the buyer being male causes car salespeople to offer lower prices.
B) there is a relationship between gender of buyer and car price.
C) car salespeople discriminate against men during the sales process.
D) car prices are unaffected by the gender of the buyer.

Question 62

Researcher A manipulates whether a research participant is insulted by a person of another race or a member of her own race and then measures the level of prejudice that the research participant reports. This is an example of a(n)

A) experiment.
B) correlational study.
C) content analysis.
D) ethnographic research study.

Question 63

In experimental research, the proposed cause is called the-------------------variable and the proposed effect is called the-------------------variable.

A) dependent; independent
B) dependent; causal
C) causal; independent
D) independent; dependent

Question 64

Sets of experiences that represent different aspects of an independent variable are called

A) dependent variables.
B) conditions.
C) alternative explanations.
D) causal variables.

Question 65

In an experiment, White participants watched one of two videos of a basketball game. In one video, a Black player fouled a White player. In the other video, a White player fouled a Black player. Participants reported whether the foul was intentional. What is the independent variable in this study?

A) The races of the basketball players
B) The foul
C) Ratings of whether or not the foul was intentional
D) The participants' race

Question 66

Randomly assigning research participants to conditions assures that

A) the results of the study are generalizable to the population of interest.
B) the causal condition of time precedence has been met.
C) the dependent measure is reliably measured.
D) any personal characteristics of the participants are evenly distributed across the conditions of the independent variable.

Question 67

Which of the following statements is true?

A) Causal relationships between variables can only be determined by laboratory research.
B) Independent variables can be manipulated in field experiments.
C) Laboratory experiments have more naturalism than do field experiments.
D) All of the above are true.

Question 68

A researcher wanted to know whether a restaurant server's religion affected the size of the tips received. For one month, a server working in a local restaurant waited on tables while prominently wearing a Christian cross on the odd-numbered days and the Star of David on the even-numbered days. This study is an example of a(n)

A) correlational study.
B) laboratory experiment.
C) field experiment.
D) ethnographic research.

Question 69

Which of the following is a disadvantage of field experiments?

A) They have low naturalism.
B) They can be difficult to conduct.
C) Researchers cannot draw causal conclusions from the results.
D) Experimental control cannot be maintained.

Question 70

Which of the following is not an example of ethnographic research?

A) A researcher joins an organization and records how often women speak at meet- ings over the course of a year.
B) A graduate student interviews members of campus diversity organizations over several weeks about why they decided to join.
C) Staff from the university human resources office send a survey to staff about their experiences with discrimination.
D) White and Black undergraduates serve as "secret shoppers" and secretly vide- otape their interactions with salespeople.

Question 71

In contrast to experimental research, ethnographic research

A) emphasizes experimental control.
B) emphasizes naturalism.
C) focuses on testing specific hypotheses and theories.
D) overlooks the research participants' point of view.

Question 72

A researcher examines neighborhood association rules throughout her community to determine whether they explicitly prohibit home sales to members of minority groups. This is an example of

A) content analysis.
B) ethnographic research.
C) a survey.
D) a correlational study.

Question 73

Research that examines products people create, such as documents, photographs, and works of art, is called

A) ethnographic research.
B) survey research.
C) content analysis.
D) field experimentation.

Question 74

Researchers can have the most confidence in results that

A) are based on experimentation.
B) use probability sampling.
C) address highly relevant social issues.
D) are replicated using a variety of methodologies.

Question 75

Which type of research has a high degree of naturalism but also has low control and low generalizability?

A) Ethnography
B) Survey research
C) Correlational study
D) Laboratory experiment

Question 76

Which type of research has high control and allows the researcher to draw conclu- sions about causality but is low on naturalism?

A) Ethnography
B) Field experiment
C) Laboratory experiment
D) Correlational study

Question 77

Which of the following statements about meta-analysis is true?

A) Meta-analysis combines the results of multiple research studies to determine the average relationship between variables across studies.
B) Meta-analysis is a type of research that employs hypothetical constructs rather than operational definitions.
C) Meta-analysis involves closely analyzing the ways studies are conducted in order to identify methodological flaws.
D) Meta-analysis is an alternative term for ethnographic research.

Question 78

A researcher finds that men score higher than women on a measure of prejudice against immigrants. The researcher must now

A) decide whether these data support his hypothesis.
B) decide what the data mean, such as by postulating why men scored higher than women.
C) look for ways of verifying his results.
D) do all of the above.

Question 79

Statistical analyses of quantitative data

A) provide information about how likely it is that a certain outcome occurred by chance.
B) provide researchers with criteria for deciding whether their results represent true relationships among variables.
C) can be conducted only when the data are numerical.
D) all of the above.

Question 80

Which of the following is an example of qualitative data?

A) Salaries of women and men with equivalent job titles
B) Transcripts of interviews with Holocaust survivors
C) Scores on a measure of right-wing authoritarianism
D) The number of seconds a grocery clerk looks at customers who have a visible disability