Deck 6: Choosing and Using Research Subjects

Question 1

One advantage of using animal subjects in research is that:

A) you need not worry about the ethics of your research.
B) you can expose animals to conditions to which you would not be able to expose humans.
C) the results from research using animals are more valid than the results obtained from research using humans.
D) All of the answers are correct.

Answer 1

you can expose animals to conditions to which you would not be able to expose humans.

Question 2

Dr. Harris conducts an experiment on psychophysics using participants above age 65. These participants would constitute the _____ of the study.

A) sample
B) world
C) population
D) subsample

Answer 2

sample

Question 3

Dr. Harris conducts an experiment on psychophysics using participants above age 65. Because he cannot include all persons above age 65 in his experiment, he selects a _____ of participants for his experiment.

A) sample
B) population
C) subgroup
D) target group

Answer 3

sample

Question 4

A major goal of research is to _____ from the small group of subjects included in your experiment to the larger group from which the subjects were drawn.

A) specialize
B) regress
C) deduce
D) generalize

Question 5

If every person in a large group has an equal chance of being included in your experiment, then you are using _____ sampling.

A) generalized
B) random
C) equivalent
D) unsystematic

Question 6

McNemar (1946) characterized psychology as the science of:

A) college sophomores.
B) infrahuman subjects.
C) males.
D) rats.

Question 7

College students are often used in psychological research because they:

A) represent the general population very well.
B) are of above average intelligence and can understand what research is all about.
C) are easily accessible.
D) All of the answers are correct.

Question 8

Which of the following statements is true of psychological studies?

A) Psychological studies should only be conducted on humans.
B) Deception without consent is an ethical practice while conducting psychological studies.
C) Random samples offer the lowest level of generality in psychological studies.
D) In practice, most psychological studies use a nonrandom sample.

Question 9

Which of the following statements is true of Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT), a crowdsourcing website?

A) It draws participants from a diverse range of backgrounds.
B) Its workers are representative of the general population.
C) It prevents workers from participating in similar types of studies.
D) Its workers are not highly educated, old, and politically conservative.

Question 10

One of the drawbacks of Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT), a crowdsourcing website, is that:

A) its workers are deprived of compensation for their participation.
B) its workers are allowed to participate in a number of similar experiments.
C) its workers are less educated than the general population.
D) it forces researchers to rely on college students as participants.

Question 11

Psychological research uses college students as participants because:

A) it enhances the external validity of the research.
B) it improves the generalization of the results obtained.
C) most college students are less educated than the general population.
D) most psychological research is conducted by college professors.

Question 12

Using a nonrandom sample in a research:

A) increases the financial cost of the research.
B) may prolong the time taken to conduct the research.
C) may reduce the external validity of the results.
D) limits the ability to apply the results within the sample.

Question 13

Research comparing college students with noncollege participants leads us to the conclusion that:

A) college students should never be used in psychological research.
B) using college students may, under certain conditions, affect the generality of research findings.
C) noncollege participants are actually more intelligent than college participants.
D) the choice of college versus noncollege participants makes little difference.

Question 14

Studies being conducted on the Internet, where participants are self-selected volunteers, provide examples of _____ samples.

A) random
B) nonrandom
C) accurate
D) unbiased

Question 15

Which of the following statements is true of nonrandom sampling and Internet research?

A) Proper recruitment for Internet studies leads to a narrower sample of participants.
B) The problems of Internet-based research are starkly different from the problems of traditional research.
C) Proper participant recruitment techniques are analogous to recruiting participants.
D) The participants of Internet-based research are nonvolunteers who are obliged to fill out questionnaires.

Question 16

A group of people that is readily available for participation in research (example, college students) is called a:

A) subject pool.
B) subject sample.
C) sample pool.
D) participant pool.

Question 17

Krantz and Dalal (2000) concluded that, for the most part, research conducted via the Internet has produced:

A) totally invalid results.
B) results that agree perfectly with those obtained using more conventional methods.
C) results that are highly similar to the results from research done with more conventional methods.
D) useless information.

Question 18

Researchers using animal subjects obtain their subjects from a given supplier and usually order animals of a given strain, sex, and age. Their experimental results can be counted upon to generalize well to:

A) all animals of the same species.
B) animals of the same species and strain as those obtained from the supplier.
C) animals of the same species, strain, sex, and age as those obtained from the supplier.
D) all animals, including human beings.

Question 19

Random sampling is not as important when you wish to:

A) apply your findings directly to a specific population.
B) predict from the general level (e.g., a theory) to the specific (e.g., a specific behavior).
C) make general predictions (e.g., what percentage of the population will vote for a certain candidate in an election) based on a sample from a population.
D) use your sample to infer the characteristics of the population.

Question 20

According to the text, which of the following would be a method of acquiring participants for laboratory research?

A) Recruiting volunteers from a university library or cafeteria
B) Using a subject pool
C) Using one of the many sampling techniques
D) Both recruiting volunteers from a university library or cafeteria and using a subject pool

Question 21

In a field research, participants must be:

A) selected while they are in their natural environment.
B) persuaded to work in a laboratory setting.
C) solicited from whatever participant population is available.
D) selected from a subject pool and deceived into participating.

Question 22

You would most likely screen potential subjects for your research if:

A) you were conducting a field experiment.
B) you were conducting a laboratory experiment.
C) your research had special needs.
D) None of the answers is correct.

Question 23

You need children between the ages of 2 and 6 for your study of language development. Of the 100 parents you contact, 45 agree to allow their children to participate. According to your text, this situation may affect the _____ of your study.

A) content validity
B) external validity
C) internal validity
D) reliability

Question 24

Volunteer bias refers to:

A) the differences between volunteers and the general population that affect external validity.
B) the bias on the part of volunteers toward serving as participants.
C) the bias experimenters have against using volunteer participants.
D) a greater willingness to use volunteer as opposed to nonvolunteer participants.

Question 25

Research indicates that, compared with nonvolunteers, volunteers on average:

A) are more highly educated.
B) have a higher need for approval.
C) are more "arousal seeking" (especially when the research involves stress).
D) All of the answers are correct.

Question 26

A situational factor that might affect an individual's decision to volunteer as a research participant is:

A) an important topic being investigated.
B) the incentives for participation being offered.
C) the amount of stress involved in a study.
D) All of the answers are correct.

Question 27

From Rosenthal and Rosnow's (1975) research on the factors that affect the decision to volunteer for research, we can conclude that:

A) situational variables are more important than subject variables.
B) subject variables are more important than situational variables.
C) situational and subject variables have no influence on the decision to participate.
D) both subject and situational variables affect a potential participant's decision to participate.

Question 28

Which of the following statements is true of the characteristics of people who volunteer for research?

A) Volunteers are more conforming than nonvolunteers.
B) Volunteers are less authoritarian than nonvolunteers.
C) Volunteers are of a lower social class than nonvolunteers.
D) Volunteers are higher in neuroticism than nonvolunteers.

Question 29

According to Rosenthal and Rosnow (1975), which of the following statements is true of situational factors affecting the decision of a volunteer to participate in a research?

A) The incentives offered to a participant are irrelevant to the participant's decisions.
B) The nature of stimuli used in a study affects the likelihood of volunteering.
C) The personal characteristics of a potential participant are independent of the participant's decision to volunteer.
D) Short-duration research incites less people to participate in it.

Question 30

According to Rosenthal and Rosnow (1975), volunteer bias can be reduced by:

A) making your appeal for participants as interesting as possible.
B) making your appeal for participants as nonthreatening as possible.
C) explicitly stating the theoretical and practical importance of your research.
D) All of the answers are correct.

Question 31

Which of the following was listed by Rosenthal and Rosnow (1975) as a method of reducing volunteer bias?

A) Having an individual of high status, preferably a woman, make the request for participants
B) Making the request for participants highly assertive and threatening to show them who is boss
C) Avoiding boring participants with the theoretical and practical importance of your research
D) All of the answers are correct.

Question 32

For what legitimate reason would a researcher choose to use deception in a study?

A) To create interesting situations that are not likely to occur naturally and then study the reactions of individuals who experience them
B) To study the aspects of behavior that can only be observed if a person is caught off guard
C) To trick a person into participating in a study that he or she would not participate in if the truth about it were known
D) Both to create interesting situations that are not likely to occur naturally and then study the reactions of individuals who experience them and to study the aspects of behavior that can only be observed if a person is caught off guard

Question 33

According to the text, misrepresenting the purposes of your research, making false statements to the participants, and including pseudo subjects are all examples of:

A) passive deception.
B) active deception.
C) premeditated deception.
D) unethical research practice.

Question 34

Which of the following would not be an example of passive research deception?

A) Unrecognized conditioning
B) Concealed observation
C) Misrepresenting the purposes of your research
D) Unrecognized participant observation

Question 35

Frequent use of deception:

A) may reduce the willingness to participate in research.
B) results in negative attitudes toward research and toward psychology as a whole.
C) helps to make psychological research more interesting to potential participants.
D) both may reduce the willingness to participate in research and results in negative attitudes toward research and toward psychology as a whole.

Question 36

Researchers who use deception have the responsibility to _____ and _____ participants after participation.

A) desensitize; dehoax
B) defuse; desensitize
C) debrief; desensitize
D) defuse; dehoax

Question 37

According to the APA ethical principles (2002), deception may be used:

A) so long as the participants are not harmed in a study.
B) only if an experimenter can justify the use of deception based on the study's scientific, educational, or applied value.
C) under no circumstances.
D) if the use of deception makes a study more convenient for the researcher.

Question 38

Which of the following is not a suggested solution to the problem of deception in research?

A) Using role playing as an alternative to deception
B) Obtaining prior consent from the participants to be deceived
C) Banning the use of deception entirely
D) Debriefing the participants to explain why deception was necessary

Question 39

Research on role playing as an alternative to deception has found that:

A) role-playing participants and deceived participants behave the same in experiments.
B) role-playing participants behave differently from deceived participants.
C) although role playing appears to affect the results of research, the effect is so small that it should not concern researchers.
D) None of the answers is correct.

Question 40

Research suggests that the use of debriefing has _____ over the past few years.

A) increased
B) decreased
C) increased and then decreased sharply
D) remained constant

Question 41

Holmes suggests _____ as a way of increasing the participants' belief in debriefing.

A) using demonstrations for participants
B) allowing participants to observe a subsequent experimental session
C) giving participants active roles in the research
D) All of the answers are correct.

Question 42

The decision about which animal to use in your research may depend on:

A) your research question.
B) the cost of animals.
C) both your research question and the cost of animals.
D) None of the answers is correct.

Question 43

Which of the following is an advantage of using animals in research?

A) You have greater control over the environmental conditions surrounding the research.
B) You do not have to worry about having your research screened and approved for ethical treatment of animals.
C) You can do just about anything to animals.
D) There are no firm ethical guidelines restricting your use of animals in research.

Question 44

An advantage of using animals from an established breeding farm over those from a breeding colony is that:

A) obtaining animals from a breeding farm is more convenient.
B) you can be more certain about the history of the animals from a breeding farm.
C) animals from a breeding farm cost less.
D) None of the answers is correct.

Question 45

According to the text, research using animal subjects:

A) must generalize to humans to be of use.
B) must not generalize to humans to be of use.
C) need not generalize to humans to be of use.
D) is rarely valid and should not be conducted.

Question 46

When animal rights activists point out that some of the research using animals as subjects is trivial and the results were already obvious, they may be falling prey to the:

A) I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon.
B) generalization decrement phenomenon.
C) fundamental attribution error.
D) None of the answers is correct.

Question 47

An alternative to using live animals in research that involves the use of isolated tissue cultures is called _____ research.

A) simulation
B) in vivo
C) external
D) in vitro

Question 48

Research that substitutes isolated tissue cultures for living animals is most appropriate for:

A) the early phases of research testing the effects of drugs.
B) testing the effects of a drug on behavior.
C) testing the effects of environmental changes on behavior.
D) All of the answers are correct.

Question 49

A problem with using computer simulations in place of research with living animals is that:

A) computer simulations are rarely valid.
B) you need enough information to construct the simulation, but this information must often be derived from research using animals.
C) there is no way to control the critical parameters of a simulation.
D) All of the answers are correct.

Question 50

In most research, it is feasible to include all subjects in a population.

Question 51

Sometimes, it is necessary to subdivide a sample into smaller units.

Question 52

Nonrandom sampling procedures increase the generalization of research results by testing participants with similar backgrounds.

Question 53

Most psychological research uses a random sample from a population.

Question 54

In a laboratory study, it is difficult to control the choice of participants and the conditions under which the research is conducted.

Question 55

Subject pools have been all but eliminated by the APA ethical principles.

Question 56

It is unethical to require students enrolled in psychology courses to participate in research.

Question 57

Important elements of ethical research practice are voluntary participation and informed consent.

Question 58

Volunteer participants do not differ from nonvolunteer participants.

Question 59

Even though volunteer and nonvolunteer participants may differ, those differences do not affect the outcome of research.

Question 60

Deception is allowed by current ethical guidelines under certain conditions.

Question 61

The effects of being deceived in one experiment may affect how an individual behaves in a subsequent experiment.

Question 62

Role playing has been found to be an adequate alternative to deceptive research practices.

Question 63

One way of handling the problem of deception is to obtain a participant's prior consent to be deceived.

Question 64

When you use animals in research, you need not worry about ethics.

Question 65

Some animal rights activists advocate eliminating research that uses animals as subjects.

Question 66

Computer simulations or techniques that substitute tissue cultures for live animals are adequate substitutes for live animals in behavioral research.

Question 67

Discuss the problems of volunteerism in research using human participants. How do volunteers and nonvolunteers differ? How might these differences affect the outcome of research, and how can the problem of volunteerism be reduced?

Question 68

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using animals as research subjects.

Question 69

You are a member of the IACUC and asked to screen a research proposal that includes animals as subjects. What specific points would you look for to ensure that the subjects are being treated and handled ethically? Refer to the specific points in the text concerning the ethical treatment of animal subjects.

Question 70

Evaluate the argument made by animal rights activists that research using animals should be curtailed. Do you agree or disagree with this view? Why?

Question 71

Evaluate the proposed alternatives to using live animals in research. What advantages and disadvantages does each have? Discuss the role of these techniques in behavioral research.