Deck 5: Alternatives to Experimental Research in Social Psychology

Question 1

According to Pennebaker and Harber's (1993) model of collective coping, during the adaptation phase people think about and talk about the stressor more than in the earlier two stages.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Which of the following is not a generally a problem for nonexperimental studies.

A) lack of random assignment
B) participants are not debriefed
C) no observation or measurement occurs
D) there is no manipulation of an independent variable

Answer 2

no observation or measurement occurs

Question 3

At a football game, a social psychology student keeps track of how many men and women throw recyclable plastic water bottles into either a garbage can or a recycling can. This student is conducting:

A) observational research
B) correlational research
C) quasi-experimental research
D) archival research

Answer 3

observational research

Question 4

Which of the following correlations indicates the strongest level of association?

A) + .75
B) 0.0
C) - .81
D) + .22

Question 5

When a researcher contacts and collects opinions from the same group of people at several different points in time, she is conducting:

A) a cross-sectional survey
B) a longitudinal survey
C) a haphazard survey
D) nonequivalent control group survey

Question 6

Danner and colleagues (2001) found that diaries containing emotionally ____ words were associated with lower mortality risks in a group of nuns 60 years later.

A) positive
B) negative
C) neutral
D) ambivalent

Question 7

Which of the following is not a traditional source of archival data for social psychological research?

A) diaries
B) newspapers
C) trash
D) all of the above qualify as archival data

Question 8

Conclusions based on archival research are not causal.

Question 9

Which of the following is not a problem for Internet-based research efforts and data collection?

A) participant loss or "dropout"
B) restricted sampling
C) social desirability biases
D) length of time to complete the online instrument

Question 10

The technique for assessing and summarizing the effects of independent studies of the same psychological effect is called:

A) ESM
B) VIA classification
C) Flow
D) Meta-analysis

Question 11

Briefly explain the three-stage model of collective coping that Pennebaker and Harber (1993) developed in response to the Loma Prieta Earthquake.

Question 12

What feature of Pennebaker and Harber's (1993) research on social responses following the Loma Prieta earthquake was a nonexperimental research design? Did it have any qualities usually associated with experimental research?

Question 13

Nonexperimental studies pose unique problems for social psychologists. List and discuss at least three problems associated with studies that do not qualify as "true experiments."

Question 14

What are some of the costs and benefits associated with leaving the "comfort of the research laboratory"?

Question 15

Describe an observational study you might conduct. What changes could you introduce so that it becomes a correlational study?

Question 16

Provide an example of a positive, a negative, and a zero correlational association between two descriptive variables.

Question 17

When performing quasi-experimental research, why do researchers sometimes refer to factors that behave similar to independent variables as "treatments" or "interventions"?

Question 18

Why is the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) research considered to be a variation of survey research?

Question 19

Discuss three advantages and three disadvantages of internet-based research in social psychology.

Question 20

If you are like most students, you probably email friends and family a great deal. What sort of archival study might you conduct if you were to analyze your inbox of email messages?

Question 21

Discuss some of the strengths as well as the drawbacks associated with archival research.

Question 22

Why is a meta-analysis sometimes called a "study of studies"?

Question 23

What is a nonreactive measure? Which nonexperimental research approaches are nonreactive or employ nonreactive measures?

Question 24

Why is the so-called "dropout rate" a particular problem for Internet-based research?

Question 25

In your opinion, is nonexperimental research as valuable as experimental research? Why or why not?