psych 101: practice quiz

A statement describing the exact procedures for measuring an anticipated experimental outcome is known as an...
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Terms in this set (45)
A statement describing the exact procedures for measuring an anticipated experimental outcome is known as an...
operational definition
You come home one night to find a burglar in your house. Your heart starts racing and you begin to perspire. These physical reactions are triggered by the
sympathetic nervous system
Researchers studied language development in the same group of children every year over a five year period. This research design is called:
longitudinal
A statistically significant difference between two sample groups is NOT likely to be
due to chance variation within and between the sample groups
Which research method provides the best way of assessing whether cigarette smoking boosts mental alertness?
the experiment
Dr. Peralta conducts a study on the aggressiveness of children by watching children on the playground and recording the number of times each child hits another. Which method is he using?
naturalistic observation
Betty decided to conduct an experiment on the effectiveness of a new anti-anxiety pill. She decided that participants who had been diagnosed with anxiety would be in the treatment group and participants who had never been treated for anxiety would be the control group. Which aspect of proper research design did Betty ignore?
random assignment
Researchers at MSU wanted to know whether laptop use in class led to better or worse grades. They conduct an experiment in which half of the participants are assigned to classes where laptops are allowed and the other half to classes where laptops are prohibited. They then compare grades for the two groups. In this study, the dependent variable is:
Grades
A _______ coefficient provides information about the strength and direction of the association between two variables.
correlation
The term demarcation problem, as used in this class, refers to:
how to distinguish from science and non science
Dr. Bob Barefoot believes that sunscreen causes skin cancer. To test this possibility, he surveys 10,000 people, asking respondents whether they currently have skin cancer or have ever had it in the past and whether they typically use sunscreen. When he finds a significant positive correlation between sunscreen use and cancer, he concludes that people should stop using sunscreen. What error did Dr. Barefoot make?He used correlational evidence to draw conclusions about causalityWhich method offers the best way of assessing whether athletic performance is negatively affected by lack of sleep?ExperimentIn class, you heard about a study called the Replication Project: Psychology in which approximately 100 studies were selected for replication by independent groups of researchers. After all the replication studies were attempted, approximately what percentage of the replications got the same results as the original?40%If psychologists discovered that more intelligent parents have smarter children than less intelligent parents, this would demonstrate thatthe intelligence of parents and children is positively correlated.In the Reproducibility Project: Psychology, a large group of researchers attempted to replicate approximately 100 studies from prominent psychology journals. The results of this effort were:Less than half of the replication studies got the same result as the originalFormulating testable hypotheses before conducting research is most directly useful for restraining a thinking error known ashindsight bias.Which research method would be most appropriate for investigating the relationship between the religious beliefs of Americans and their attitudes toward abortion?the surveyDuring lecture, we described a study on the generation effect that tested the factors that lead to greater recall. In this study, some participants were asked to generate one associate each time a new word was presented and other participants were asked to generate three associates each time a new word was presented. At the end of the study, the number of words that participants could recall was recorded. In this study, the independent variable is:c. The number of associates generatedThe parasympathetic nervous systemstimulates digestion and slows heartbeatThe degree to which a study ensures that potential findings apply to settings and samples other than the ones being studied refers to:external validityTo assess the impact of test difficulty on persistence of effort, researchers plan to give one group of children relatively easy tests and another group more difficult tests. To reduce the chance that the children in one group are more intelligent than those in the other group, the researchers should make use ofrandom assignment.The biggest limitation of correlational research isc. Causality cannot be establishedA researcher would like to determine the effect of caffeine on memory. Participants are randomly assigned to receive a caffeine pill, a sugar pill, or no pill at all. All three groups complete a recall task that assesses their memory. However, both those who received the caffeine and those who received the sugar pill had a small increase in memory over the group that received no pill at all. This is likely due to:the placebo effectWhich research method would be most appropriate for investigating the relationship between political orientation (e.g., liberal versus conservative) and attitudes towards marijuana?d. SurveyResearch participants are randomly assigned to different groups in an experiment in order tominimize any differences between groups of participants.The speed at which a neural impulse travels is increased when the axon is encased by a(n)myelin sheath.The "demarcation problem" concerns:What counts as scienceThe fact that the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems have opposing functions demonstrates which major theme that we discussed in class?antagonistic systems push against each other to reach a shifting balance pointThe explanatory power of a scientific theory is most closely linked to its capacity to generate testablea. predictionsStudents who study for 7 hours over the course of a week will perform better than students who cram for 7 hours the night before the exam. If you were to design a study testing this idea, the independent variable in this study would be:method of studying (spaced over multiple days or cramming)To demonstrate that brain stimulation can make a rat violently aggressive, a neuroscientist should electrically stimulate the rat'samygdala.Let's say you want to test whether a coin that you found on the street is "fair" (i.e., it lands heads as frequently as it lands tails). To test this hypothesis you flip the coin 100 times to see whether it is biased towards heads or tails. In this example, the null hypothesis would be:That the coin is fair and should, on average, land on heads about half the timeThe localization of a function such as speech production to the right or left side of the brain is calledlateralization.The explanatory power of a scientific theory is most closely linked to its capacity to generate testablePredictionsAccording to the lecture, a hypothesis is:A testable prediction that can be derived from a specific theorySix of the children in Mr. Myer's class were born on exactly the same day. This strikes him as astonishing and improbable. In this instance, he should be reminded thatrandom sequences of events often don't look random.Being randomly assigned to the experimental group in a research project involves being assignedto that group by chance.In class, we read about a study on what is called the "generation effect." In that study, students were asked to generate either one associate for each word on a list or three associates for each word. Students who generated more associates later remembered more words. In this experiment, the independent variable wasThe number of words the students were asked to generateWhich brain structure plays a key role in regulating endocrine hormones in conjunction with the pituitary gland?the hypothalamusIn class, we saw a video testing whether "dowsing"—the ability to find underground objects or substances using a dowsing rod—is real. In this study, the dowsers often dismissed their failures to find water or metal and to only remember the times when their dowsing procedures worked. This behavior is an example of:Confirmation biasYou come home one night to find a burglar in your house. Your heart starts racing and you begin to perspire. These physical reactions are triggered by thesympathetic nervous system.Dr. Anagonye runs a study testing whether a new cancer drug is effective. Half of the participants (selected through random assignment) receive the new drug, and the other half get a placebo. If Dr. Anagonye finds that the p-value for the difference in survival between the two groups is .01 (or 1%), this means that:If the null hypothesis (that there was no difference between groups) was true, there would only be a 1% chance of getting a difference at least this bigThe function of dendrites is toreceive incoming signals from other neurons.Professor Carter observes and records the behavior of grocery shoppers as they select items to purchase. Which type of research is Professor Carter using?naturalistic observationThe perception that psychological research findings merely verify our commonsense understanding is most clearly facilitated byhindsight bias