Deck 2: The Methods of Social Psychology

Question 1

What is one of the most important differences between correlational and experimental research designs?

A) Experiments measure the degree of the relationship between two variables.
B) Correlations only examine one variable.
C) Experiments use random assignment.
D) It is impossible to determine cause by doing an experiment.

Answer 1

Experiments use random assignment.

Question 2

Which of the following research methods is the best way to identify a causal relationship between two variables?

A) observational
B) archival
C) correlational
D) experimental

Answer 2

experimental

Question 3

Interviews and written questionnaires are forms of which type of research method?

A) observation
B) archival
C) applied
D) survey

Answer 3

survey

Question 4

A social psychologist finds a relationship between socioeconomic status and relationship satisfaction in married couples. This study most likely describes which type of research method?

A) observational
B) archival
C) experimental
D) correlational

Question 5

When random sampling is used, it means that

A) participants are equally likely to be assigned to one condition or another.
B) every member of a population has an equal chance of being selected.
C) some members of a population are more likely than others to be selected.
D) participants are assigned to different conditions based on a particular trait or variable.

Question 6

Which of the following correlations indicates the weakest relationship between two variables?

A) 1.0
B) 0.8
C) - 0.6
D) 0.2

Question 7

The primary difference between natural experiments and standard experiments is that natural experiments

A) do not involve independent variables.
B) do not involve dependent variables.
C) typically involve random assignment of individuals.
D) typically do not involve random assignment of individuals.

Question 8

Which of the following best describes a research study that randomly assigns people to different conditions and carefully controls all of the other circumstances so that they will be the same across the two conditions?

A) experiment
B) correlation
C) survey
D) observation

Question 9

A researcher measures the galvanic skin response (GSR), or degree of sweating, of people holding a clear plastic jar containing a spider. She compares the GSRs of people with spider phobias with the GSRs of people without spider phobias. In this experiment, the galvanic skin response functions as the

A) independent variable.
B) dependent variable.
C) control condition.
D) experimental condition.

Question 10

Which of the following scatterplot graphs displays the strongest relationship between two variables?

A)
B)
C)
D)

Question 11

Dr. Samanta is interested in how personality changes over adolescence. She enrolls a sample of ten-year-olds and follows them through age seventeen. This kind of study is known as a(n) ________ study.

A) observational
B) longitudinal
C) cross-sectional
D) mixed design

Question 12

In her social psychology course, Maria learns that the more one is exposed to something, such as a song on the radio, the more one tends to like it. Maria thinks this so obvious and questions why she signed up for the class. What might Maria be displaying?

A) random sampling
B) biased sampling
C) the hindsight bias
D) the learning bias

Question 13

Dr. Goldstein hopes to reveal that although some of the findings presented in her class may seem obvious, students would not have predicted them accurately. To do so, she asked her students to take a guess about the results of a study before describing the outcome. Many of the students' predictions were wrong. Dr. Goldstein is demonstrating what to her students?

A) the prediction bias
B) the hindsight bias
C) external validity
D) internal validity

Question 14

Experiments are different from other research methods in that they encompass which of the following components?

A) self-selection
B) two variables
C) random sampling
D) random assignment

Question 15

An experiment by Darley and Batson (1973) looked at seminary students' willingness to help. In one condition, participants were made to hurry from one building to another by being told they were late to give a speech, which was part of the study requirements. In the other condition, participants were only told to go over to another building in order to give the speech. Both groups encountered a person lying on the ground on their way to the other building. The experimenter observed the participants from both groups and counted the number of people who stopped to check on the person lying on the ground. It was found that the participants who were in a hurry stopped much less frequently than the participants who were not in a hurry. In this experiment, what was the independent variable?

A) being made to hurry from one building to another or not
B) the person lying on the ground
C) the number of people stopping to check on the person lying on the ground
D) going from one building to another

Question 16

Which of the following is the best example of observational research?

A) living with a group of people and observing their behavior
B) reviewing historical records to find trends in behavior patterns
C) examining the relationship between two variables
D) recording participants' responses on questionnaires

Question 17

All of the following are examples of resources used in archival research EXCEPT

A) police records.
B) newspaper articles.
C) firsthand observations of behavior.
D) databases.

Question 18

Which of the following would be an example of random sampling in a survey study designed to learn more about the student body at a particular college?

A) asking students to fill out a survey in a campus magazine and then mailing it to the investigators
B) tossing a coin to determine who will be surveyed from a list of all students enrolled
C) surveying all customers who visit a particular coffee shop on campus
D) surveying fraternity and sorority members on campus

Question 19

In an experiment, the control condition

A) does not include an independent variable.
B) is run before the experimental condition.
C) is compared with the experimental condition.
D) does not include a dependent variable.

Question 20

The independent variable in an experiment is

A) manipulated and is the hypothesized cause of a particular outcome.
B) measured and is the hypothesized effect.
C) based on self-selection.
D) an indication of the degree of the relationship between two variables.

Question 21

Which of the following indicates the strongest relationship between variables?

A) - 0.9
B) + 0.8
C) - 0.6
D) - 0.2

Question 22

You read the results of a survey that reports that two-thirds of Cosmopolitan readers lost weight by "going vegan." You should not give the report of this survey much credence because

A) Cosmopolitan readers are disinterested in participating in surveys.
B) readers were not properly assigned to control and experimental conditions.
C) readers who responded to the survey are not likely the same as those who did not.
D) Cosmopolitan readers are overly eager to participate in surveys.

Question 23

Which of the following is the best example of a correlational research study?

A) Researchers assigned participants to do either a stressful task or an easy task and then measured their blood pressure.
B) Researchers compared the blood pressure of participants that were trained to reduce stress by meditating and participants that were trained to reduce stress by drawing.
C) Researchers measured the stress levels in participants that were given a blood pressure drug and participants that were given a placebo drug.
D) Researchers measured the association between participants' blood pressures and their degrees of chronic stress.

Question 24

If a research group plans to conduct a survey poll about an upcoming presidential election in the United States, what is a best guess regarding the minimum percentage of all likely voters that will be needed to obtain a reasonably accurate estimation of voter opinion, assuming that a random sample is obtained?

A) 2 percent
B) 20 percent
C) 50 percent
D) 80 percent

Question 25

Experiments are the best research method for finding causal relationships between variables because they incorporate ________ and ________ into their design.

A) control conditions; self-selection
B) control conditions; random assignment
C) external validity; dependent variables
D) independent variables; informed consent

Question 26

A biased sample would most likely result in which of the following?

A) invalid conclusions based on the survey results
B) a violation of ethical principles in research
C) valid interpretation of the survey results
D) too small a sample size to make a valid conclusion

Question 27

A study shows that people who watch the local evening news believe the world is more dangerous than people who do not watch the evening news. On the basis of this study, a newspaper reporter concludes that watching the evening news causes people to believe the world is more dangerous than it actually is. This is a flawed conclusion because

A) the reporter has a bias because he works for the newspaper.
B) it confuses a correlational relationship with a causal relationship.
C) it fails to compare evening news viewers with newspaper readers.
D) one study does not provide enough evidence to make this type of conclusion.

Question 28

Which of the following is a limitation of correlational research?

A) We can never be sure about causality.
B) The strength of the relationship cannot be inferred.
C) Independent variables can be manipulated.
D) Self-selection of participants is not a problem.

Question 29

If a social psychology experiment is conducted that has very little relation to real-life experiences or situations, this experiment would be low in

A) external validity.
B) internal validity.
C) reliability.
D) statistical significance.

Question 30

Random assignment is an important aspect of experiments because it

A) allows for more statistically significant results.
B) is consistent with institutional review board policies.
C) ensures fairness because everyone has an equal chance for selection in the study.
D) cancels out individual differences and reduces selection biases between conditions.

Question 31

A hypothesis ________ , while a theory ________.

A) is tested by a specific study; encompasses a body of related research
B) encompasses a body of related research; is tested by a specific study
C) is tested scientifically; is not tested scientifically
D) is not tested scientifically; is tested scientifically

Question 32

As they walked down the street, participants (unaware they were part of a study) were approached by a confederate posing as a panhandler (i.e., a person begging for money). The confederate asked the participant for either seventy-five cents or for whatever change he or she had handy. The researchers compared how much money participants gave across these two conditions. This is best characterized as which type of research design?

A) a field experiment
B) a natural experiment
C) a correlational study
D) a longitudinal study

Question 33

Dr. Lee runs a study to test whether people with low self-esteem prefer to spend time with someone who evaluates them more negatively rather than someone that evaluates them more positively. Dr. Lee hopes that this study will contribute to the broader research on self-verification, which argues that people have a strong desire for others to see them in ways consistent with how they see themselves. Dr. Lee's study tests ________ , whereas the total research on self-verification tests ________.

A) internal validity; reliability
B) reliability; internal validity
C) a theory; a hypothesis
D) a hypothesis; a theory

Question 34

It is very common for magazines to conduct surveys in which readers voluntarily fill out survey cards and mail the cards to the publisher. The main problem with conducting a survey in this manner is that

A) some of these surveys will be lost by the postal service.
B) people are not truthful when filling out anonymous surveys.
C) mail-in surveys are generally not as effective as surveys conducted over the Internet.
D) people who respond to the survey are likely to be different from those who do not respond.

Question 35

One of the primary reasons field experiments are conducted is that they

A) are logistically very easy to carry out.
B) are very high in external validity.
C) incorporate a high degree of consistency across conditions.
D) usually result in statistically significant results.

Question 36

If an experiment produces reliable results, what does this mean?

A) There is a low probability of obtaining these results by chance alone.
B) The independent variable had a strong effect on the dependent variable.
C) It is likely to yield the same results on repeated occasions.
D) There is a strong correlation between some measurement and what that measurement is supposed to predict.

Question 37

When an experiment has poor internal validity, which of the following might be of concern?

A) The results of the experiment may not relate to real-world situations.
B) It might be difficult to determine if the independent variable was what produced the result.
C) The observed results may not be statistically significant.
D) The results may not be practically significant.

Question 38

An experiment that is set in the real world, and in which the participants themselves are usually unaware that they are participating in a research study, is usually described as a

A) longitudinal study.
B) laboratory experiment.
C) field experiment.
D) correlational study.

Question 39

When there is a high correlation between a measurement instrument and the outcomes that the instrument is supposed to predict, this instrument is said to be high in

A) measurement validity.
B) internal validity.
C) reliability.
D) statistical significance.

Question 40

The problem with self-selection in research is that

A) people often choose the experimental condition in which they want to participate.
B) people often overestimate their own contributions to the research.
C) it makes causal interpretations difficult.
D) it violates ethical guidelines.

Question 41

Research in basic science aims to

A) solve real-world problems, without concern about understanding the phenomena in its own right.
B) understand simple questions in science.
C) solve difficult questions in science.
D) understand a phenomenon in its own right without concern with real-world issues.

Question 42

Random assignment is a crucial component of experiment design. Failing to use random assignment when placing participants into groups would have the strongest effect on the ________ of an experiment.

A) external validity
B) internal validity
C) measurement validity
D) statistical significance

Question 43

Jamal is taking a course in social psychology and learns about the Milgram Experiment, in which the majority of participants administered potentially fatal shocks to another person when an experimenter told them to do so. After class, he thinks to himself that the results are really not that surprising. He most certainly would have guessed that people are willing to hurt others if someone tells them to. Describe what bias to which Jamal is potentially falling prey.

Question 44

Describe the difference between a natural experiment and a true experiment conducted in the laboratory.

Question 45

The function of an IRB is to review

A) university research spending.
B) grant proposals, to ensure that they are financially feasible.
C) research proposals and judge the ethical appropriateness of the research.
D) the reliability of research findings at the institution.

Question 46

A social psychologist conducts an experiment and finds a statistically significant result. This means that the

A) probability of obtaining this finding by chance alone is less than some quantity.
B) probability of obtaining this finding by chance alone is greater than some quantity.
C) experiment is very high in external validity.
D) experiment is very low in external validity.

Question 47

Pooja conducts a study as part of her honors thesis in psychology and finds a surprising result. Before publishing the finding in a psychology journal, Pooja wants to be more confident that it did not happen by chance. What should Pooja consider doing?

A) debriefing her participants
B) rerunning the study to see if the result replicates
C) contacting the IRB
D) rerunning the study, this time using deception

Question 48

Describe the following research methods in social psychology: observational, archival, and survey. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each method?

Question 49

An institutional review board (IRB) has reviewed a study and determined that participating in the study will likely make the participants feel uncomfortable and embarrassed. Could the IRB allow the researchers to begin this study?

A) No; making participants uncomfortable is never acceptable.
B) Yes; the IRB examines only whether participants will be in physical pain.
C) Yes; as long as participants are not overly harmed and the research has significant value.
D) No; if any aspects of research studies are harmful in any way, IRBs cannot allow them.

Question 50

What are the advantages and disadvantages of experimental research compared with other types of research methods (observational, archival, survey, and correlational)?

Question 51

Debriefing participants after an experiment is completed is always an important step in the experimental procedure. However, debriefing is particularly important when

A) deception is used.
B) an institutional review board has not reviewed the study.
C) a monetary reward is given.
D) informed consent has not been obtained.

Question 52

A group of social psychologists are working on a research project with the aim of promoting condom use as a way to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. This type of research project is probably best described as ________ science.

A) basic
B) applied
C) pseudo-
D) hard

Question 53

Social psychologists will often run pilot studies that are very similar to actual experiments that they intend to run later but that differ in that participants are used as consultants to check that the experiment instructions are understandable, that the scenarios are believable, and so forth. Running a pilot study such as this particularly helps to increase the ________ of an experiment.

A) external validity
B) internal validity
C) measurement validity
D) statistical significance

Question 54

What is the goal of correlational research? What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of this type of research?

Question 55

When a researcher runs the same study a second time to see if he or she gets the same results, he or she is attempting to

A) evaluate the internal validity of the study.
B) evaluate the external validity of the study.
C) replicate the results.
D) improve the results.

Question 56

A person volunteered to participate in an experiment but was not told anything about what the experiment involved until after it was finished. The failure to inform this person about the experiment violates which ethical principle in research?

A) institutional review board
B) informed consent
C) deception research
D) debriefing

Question 57

High school seniors were given a test that is supposed to predict scholastic performance during the first year of college. When the results were analyzed, however, there was no correlation between the test scores and first-year performance. This is an example of poor

A) statistical significance.
B) reliability.
C) measurement validity.
D) internal validity.

Question 58

In an experiment, a statistically significant result depends the most on which two factors?

A) the size of the difference between groups and the validity of the experiment
B) the size of the difference between groups and the number of cases on which it is based
C) the validity of the experiment and the number of cases on which it is based
D) the validity of the experiment and the number of dependent variables the study used

Question 59

The social psychologist Carol Dweck found that people who believe that intelligence is a matter of hard work actually study harder in school and get better grades. She used this finding to design an academic success program targeted for minority junior high school students. What does this illustrate about the connection between basic and applied research?

A) Basic research always has to come before applied research.
B) Applied research is not useful without also engaging in basic research.
C) Basic and applied research should not be conducted by the same person.
D) Basic research can lead to theories used to design applied interventions.

Question 60

An intervention is a(n)

A) debriefing conducted at the conclusion of an experiment.
B) punishment delivered to a person.
C) effort to change a person's behavior.
D) measure taken by psychologists to minimize bias in study results.

Question 61

Dr. Gupta reads a colleague's research report and is very surprised by the results. She decides to run the study herself, using the exact same procedures. Dr. Gupta does not get the same results and confronts her colleague about this issue. Describe the process in which Dr. Gupta is engaging and consider its importance for social psychology and science more generally.

Question 62

Explain the difference between hypotheses and theories.

Question 63

Describe the necessary components of a true experiment.

Question 64

Describe the difference between basic science and applied science.

Question 65

Compare and contrast external validity and internal validity.

Question 66

What does it mean when there is a statistically significant relationship between two variables?

Question 67

What are the benefits of conducting a debriefing after the conclusion of a study, for both the investigator and the participant?

Question 68

What is the purpose of an IRB? What must the board consider?

Question 69

Why is random sampling so important to conducting research in social psychology? What are some of the potential pitfalls of not having a random sample?

Question 70

Describe the types of concerns that an investigator might have about conducting a study with poor external validity.