Deck 3: Personality Psychology As Science: Research Methods

Question 1

According to principles described in the text, it would be relatively difficult to create a reliable measure of attitudes toward ________.

A) paper clips
B) casual sexual encounters
C) outgroup members
D) the self (like self-esteem)

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Linda is taking an intelligence test. During the test, the teachers walk through the halls and chat loudly with each other. Due to these distractions, Linda scores lower on the test than she would have if she had been able to concentrate fully. The influence of the teachers' chatting is an example of ________.

A) reliability
B) a validity bias
C) a cohort effect
D) measurement error

Answer 2

D

Question 3

The most important and generally useful way to enhance reliability is to ________.

A) use the smallest possible number of items
B) measure something that is important
C) aggregate your measurements
D) maximize error variance

Answer 3

C

Question 4

If you can get the same answer repeatedly, then your measure is ________.

A) reliable
B) valid
C) significant
D) generalizable

Question 5

According to the text, the goal of a scientific education is ________.

A) to teach what is known and how to find out what is not yet known
B) to convey what is known about a subject so it can be applied
C) to train individuals to exclusively rely on deductive reasoning to solve problems
D) all of the above

Question 6

Dr. Grant is creating a new measure of shyness, and she decides to include more than one item in her scale. She believes that using multiple items will lead to a more reliable measure. Dr. Grant is following which principle of measurement?

A) multitrait assessment
B) content validation
C) aggregation
D) construct validation

Question 7

Validity is the degree to which a measurement ________.

A) is consistent and stable
B) provides the same result if repeated
C) actually reflects or measures what you think it does
D) is reliable

Question 8

At the heart of aggregation is the idea that ________.

A) random errors cancel each other out
B) random errors never cancel each other out
C) reliable errors cancel each other out
D) a sufficiently precise measure has no reliable error

Question 9

On Friday, Terence completes the Self-Monitoring Scale and receives a score of 49. On the following Tuesday, he fills out the scale again and receives a score of 28. Terence's scores on the Self-Monitoring Scale do not appear to be ________.

A) valid
B) reliable
C) significant
D) free of unwanted biases

Question 10

The goal of the dissertation in the process of scientific education is to demonstrate that the future scientist ________.

A) has memorized all of the known facts about a given topic
B) has read all of the known articles about a given a topic
C) can contribute something new to the field
D) can apply the technical knowledge learned in graduate school

Question 11

The effects of irrelevant influences that might lessen your ability to see the trait or state you are trying to measure are called ________.

A) measurement errors
B) residual influences
C) construct errors
D) invalidity indices

Question 12

In simple language, questions about reliability concern ________, whereas questions about validity concern ________.

A) accuracy; consistency
B) consistency; dependability
C) stability; dependability
D) consistency; accuracy

Question 13

If measurement errors are truly random, then they should ________.

A) never occur
B) not affect the reliability of a measure
C) not attenuate the validity of a measure
D) sum to zero

Question 14

According to the text, a ________ would receive technical training, whereas a ________ would receive scientific education.

A) pharmacologist; pharmacist
B) physician; biologist
C) computer scientist; botanist
D) research psychologist; clinical psychologist

Question 15

Which formula in psychometrics quantifies the principle of aggregation?

A) alpha
B) Spearman-Brown
C) kappa
D) Kaiser-Guttman

Question 16

A researcher can increase the reliability of a personality test by ________.

A) refusing to aggregate items
B) measuring something important
C) using very few items to reduce the risk of mistakes
D) constructing items with complicated words and phrases

Question 17

A method or instrument that provides the same information repeatedly is ________.

A) valid
B) reliable
C) significant
D) generalizable

Question 18

Which of the following is NOT likely to undermine the reliability of a survey measure?

A) forgetting to reverse-score items
B) the immediate state of the participant
C) the state of the experimenter
D) aggregation of responses to different items

Question 19

According to Cronbach and Meehl's (1955) terminology, psychological attributes such as intelligence and sociability are examples of ________, whereas an IQ test and extraversion questionnaire are both examples of specific tests or measurements.

A) constructs
B) valid ideas
C) assessments
D) manifest factors

Question 20

The technical meaning of reliability concerns ________.

A) how much measurement error is present in your assessment instrument
B) whether an instrument accurately assesses the construct it is intended to measure
C) whether an instrument correlates with a similar measure of the same construct
D) whether a sample of participants reasonably represents the population of interest

Question 21

The fact that much of modern empirical research in psychology has been based on white, middle-class college sophomores may reduce the ________ of psychological research.

A) generalizability
B) reliability
C) validity
D) statistical significance

Question 22

Introspection is an example of the ________ method.

A) case study
B) correlational
C) experimental
D) behavioral

Question 23

Which design is best suited for addressing the third-variable problem?

A) experimental
B) correlational
C) case study
D) repeated measures

Question 24

Many researchers study the behavior of college students and then assume that what they learn applies to people in general. However, this strategy may place limits on ________.

A) the ecological reliability of their research
B) the internal validity of their studies
C) the generalizability of their findings over participants
D) the construct validity of their studies

Question 25

What is the big disadvantage of the case study method?

A) It describes isolated variables, not the whole phenomenon.
B) It is rarely the source of testable hypotheses.
C) It does not usually apply to particular individuals, only to groups.
D) It is not controlled.

Question 26

Reliability and validity are actually both aspects of a broader concept called ________.

A) factorial invariance
B) psychometric integrity
C) measurement equivalence
D) generalizability

Question 27

Dr. Low is interested in studying the relation between mood and willingness to help a stranger. She randomly assigns half of her participants to the pleasant mood condition and shows them funny film clips. The other half of her participants are assigned to the unpleasant mood condition and are forced to watch boring film clips. She then gives every participant an opportunity to donate money to a homeless stranger. Dr. Low is using a(n) ________ design.

A) experimental
B) correlational
C) case study
D) repeated measures

Question 28

The most touted advantage of the experimental method is that ________.

A) it allows the assessment of causality
B) it allows the study of naturally occurring individual differences that already exist in the participants
C) participants are always randomly sampled from the general population
D) it can take advantage of extreme levels of the independent variable

Question 29

A research strategy that involves gathering as many different measurements as you can of a particular construct and determining if those measurements correlate is called ________.

A) construct validation
B) aggregation validation
C) generalization
D) internal validation

Question 30

The best definition of validity is the degree to which ________.

A) an instrument yields consistent scores
B) measurement error affects scores on an instrument
C) an instrument actually reflects the construct of interest
D) an instrument yields dependable scores

Question 31

Random assignment allows researchers to ________.

A) ignore problems of measurement
B) assume that groups of participants are more or less equivalent on preexisting conditions
C) ignore ethical constraints on research
D) control for selective attrition

Question 32

Reliability is ________ for validity.

A) a necessary and sufficient condition
B) a necessary but not sufficient condition
C) a sufficient condition
D) not at all relevant

Question 33

According to the text, which of the following would NOT be a threat to the generalizability of personality research?

A) More women than men participate in research.
B) Participants who show up for research studies are more conventional than individuals who do not show up.
C) Personality researchers strive to study multiple cohorts.
D) Much personality research is based on samples of college students.

Question 34

If test scores go down as anxiety goes up, then ________.

A) test scores and anxiety are positively correlated
B) test scores and anxiety are negatively correlated
C) test scores and anxiety are unrelated
D) the correlation between test scores and anxiety must be 1.0

Question 35

Which of the following sampling methods affords a researcher the greatest generalizability?

A) randomly selecting a sample of introductory psychology students
B) randomly selecting a sample of both high school and college students
C) recruiting all the executives at a large company to participate
D) selecting participants using a random telephone dialing system

Question 36

According to the text, the tendency of a group of people who lived at a particular time to differ in some way from those who lived earlier or later is called a ________.

A) generational disparity
B) cohort effect
C) time of measurement effect
D) period of history effect

Question 37

Jane recently completed a new test that was designed to measure her IQ. She took the test twice and each time received the same score. The test administrator told her that her scores indicate she is extremely intelligent. However, Jane scored well below average when she completed the Stanford-Binet and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), two well-established intelligence tests. Based on this pattern of results, it appears that the new measure of IQ was a ________

A) valid measure of intelligence
B) valid but unreliable measure of intelligence
C) reliable but not valid measure of intelligence
D) more accurate measure of intelligence than the Stanford-Binet or the WAIS

Question 38

Dr. Low is interested in studying the relation between mood and willingness to help a stranger. Every participant in her study completes a mood-rating questionnaire and is then given an opportunity to donate money to a homeless stranger. Dr. Low is using a(n) ________ design.

A) experimental
B) correlational
C) case study
D) repeated measures

Question 39

To do an experimental study of the effect of smoking on physical health, we would have to ________.

A) find a group of smokers and compare their physical health to a group of nonsmokers
B) randomly assign people to a smoking condition or a control condition
C) compare the physical health of a heavy smoker to the physical health of a person who has never smoked
D) teach one group of people to adopt good health habits and see if they are more likely to begin smoking than a group of people who have not been taught good health habits

Question 40

The only difference between the experimental and correlational methods is that in the experimental method the presumed causal variable is ________, whereas in the correlational method the same variable is ________.

A) externally derived; internally derived
B) significant; important
C) manipulated; measured
D) reliable; valid

Question 41

Which of the following is an ethical issue involved in the research process?

A) how research findings are used
B) which research topics are studied
C) how truthful researchers are when describing their work
D) all of the above

Question 42

Which of the following is good practice for interpreting correlations?

A) finding a method that demonstrates the size of the correlation in a concrete manner
B) using terms such as small, medium, and large to describe the effect size
C) simply looking at the sign of the correlation and ignoring the actual value
D) squaring the value, so that you can interpret the value more easily

Question 43

The Binomial Effect Size Display is a method for illustrating ________.

A) reliability coefficients
B) validity coefficients
C) correlation coefficients
D) p-values

Question 44

Imagine that you could draw a flat horizontal line through the points on a scatter plot depicting the relation between X and Y. Which of the following is the closest value to the correlation coefficient that you would compute from these data?

A) -1.0
B) -0.5
C) 0
D) 1.0

Question 45

Imagine that a researcher conducts a study and finds a statistically significant correlation between eating pizza and aggression. However, there is no real association between eating pizza and aggression in the population. What kind of error has this researcher made?

A) Type I
B) Type II
C) Type III
D) correlational

Question 46

Assume that you are studying 200 participants, all of whom are sick. An experimental drug is given to 100 of them; the other 100 are given nothing. If the correlation between taking the drug and living is .26, then ________ percent of those who got the drug would still be alive at the end of the study.

A) 13
B) 63
C) 26
D) 52

Question 47

Which of the following is NOT one of the concerns associated with the practice of null-hypothesis significance testing?

A) A statistically significant result is not necessarily important or meaningful.
B) The smaller the sample size, the easier it is to find a significant effect.
C) The criterion for a significant result is arbitrary.
D) The p-value is easy to interpret.

Question 48

If a psychologist describes a research result as statistically significant, what does he or she typically mean?

A) The result is important.
B) The result is large and dramatic.
C) The result is unlikely to have occurred by chance.
D) The result will likely revolutionize the field.

Question 49

Dr. Jones uses a wide range of manipulations to frustrate his participants. He then measures aggression by counting the number of times a research participant hits an inflatable "Bobo doll." If this is the only way Dr. Jones measures aggression, the results of his studies may lack ________.

A) generalizability over stimuli
B) generalizability over responses
C) predictive validity
D) stimulus reliability

Question 50

Using the Binomial Effect Size Display, if there is a correlation of .30 between drinking alcohol and the likelihood of having a car accident, then out of 100 people who have been drinking, you would expect ________ of them to have an accident.

A) 100
B) 45
C) 90
D) 65

Question 51

A researcher computes a correlation coefficient between variables X and Y using a handheld calculator. Which of the following values would automatically tell the researcher that he or she made a mistake?

A) 2.50
B) 0.75
C) 0
D) -0.98

Question 52

Which of the following is the biggest concern that Funder has about the use of deception in psychological research?

A) Most experiments that involve deception cause too much harm to participants.
B) Most experiments that involve deception are too silly to warrant such an extreme method.
C) The use of deception may actually harm psychology and psychological researchers.
D) None of the above; Funder has few concerns about the use of deception in research.

Question 53

Dr. Rogers tries to motivate aggression in the laboratory by manipulating the room temperature as either hot (95°F) or normal (75°F). She then measures multiple kinds of aggression. If these were the only temperature manipulations used by Dr. Rogers, the results of her studies may lack ________.

A) generalizability over stimuli
B) generalizability over responses
C) predictive validity
D) stimulus reliability

Question 54

Imagine that you could draw a line through the points on a scatter plot depicting the relation between X and Y that slopes upward from left to right. Which of the following is a possible value for the correlation coefficient that you would compute from these data?

A) -1.0
B) -0.5
C) 0
D) 1.0

Question 55

A researcher wants to conduct a significance test for the correlation between extraversion and happiness. What is the null hypothesis in this analysis?

A) Extraversion is positively correlated with happiness.
B) Extraversion is negatively correlated with happiness.
C) Extraversion is the same construct as happiness.
D) Extraversion is uncorrelated with happiness.

Question 56

What is the correct definition of the p-value?

A) probability that the null hypothesis is TRUE
B) probability that the null hypothesis is False
C) probability that the observed result occurred by chance given that the null hypothesis is TRUE
D) probability that the observed result occurred by chance given that the null hypothesis is False

Question 57

Egon Brunswik's concept that research should be designed to sample across all of the domains (e.g., people, methods, and stimuli) to which the investigator wishes to apply the results is referred to as ________.

A) generalizability over subjects
B) representative design
C) ecological reliability
D) domain sampling

Question 58

Imagine that a researcher conducts a study and FAILS to find a statistically significant correlation between exercise and weight loss. However, there is a real association between exercise and weight loss in the population. What kind of error has this researcher made?

A) Type I
B) Type II
C) Type III
D) correlational

Question 59

Which of the following is NOT a typical argument used to justify deception in psychological research?

A) Participants have given informed consent and can withdraw their data if they are upset.
B) The use of deception actually educates participants about ethical concerns in research.
C) The deception typically does not harm participants.
D) Some topics can only be studied using deception.

Question 60

The number between -1 and +1 that indexes the linear association between any two variables is called ________.

A) the significance level
B) the probability value
C) the alpha level
D) the correlation coefficient

Question 61

Mood researchers are less concerned with validity than are trait researchers.

Question 62

A researcher constructs a scatter plot and notices that it shows a linear trend such that scores on the X-axis increase as scores on the Y-axis decrease. The correlation coefficient that describes the relationship between X and Y should therefore be negative.

Question 63

According to the text, science is the process of cataloging facts already known with certainty.

Question 64

Psychology is relatively unique among the sciences because it uses the case method.

Question 65

Researchers usually agree about the interpretation of a result.

Question 66

According to the text, it is reasonable to first assume that almost all psychological findings lack generalizability.

Question 67

Psychologists have several concerns with the concept of statistical significance.

Question 68

There are seldom difficulties involved in interpreting the results of experimental studies because researchers manipulate variables.

Question 69

A test that is reliable may not be valid.

Question 70

Applied psychologists involved in personnel selection are less concerned with error variance than are research psychologists.

Question 71

There is nothing wrong with assuming that extraversion is defined as the attribute that extraversion assessments measure.

Question 72

Psychologists expect to reach a final answer to their research questions.

Question 73

It is possible to convert the results of experiments into a correlation coefficient.

Question 74

In current psychological research, men are more likely than women to participate in studies.

Question 75

The p-value tells researchers the probability that a finding will be exactly duplicated.

Question 76

Cohort effects refer to differences in personality between people of different historical generations.

Question 77

Psychometricians assume that construct of intelligence is demonstrated through responses to an IQ test.

Question 78

Both correlational studies and experimental studies attempt to measure the associations between variables.

Question 79

Validity is much easier to judge than reliability.

Question 80

The principle of aggregation holds that random errors often become magnified when averaged together.