Research Methods I Final Exam

Question 1
Research that is done specifically to solve a practical problem, like increasing memory ability or
decreasing symptoms of depression, is known as: applied research

Question 2
RESEARCH STUDY 1.1
Deci and Ryan (1985, 2001) have proposed that there are three fundamental needs that are
required for human growth and fulfillment: relatedness, autonomy, and competence. Susan predicts
that students who have these needs met in their psychology class feel happier and more satisfied
with the class. She collects data and finds that students who feel more related and competent do
feel happier but that feeling more autonomous does not seem to matter. Susan thinks that maybe
autonomy is only necessary when people are in situations in which they are not being evaluated.
Susan's prediction that students who have all three needs met will experience greater satisfaction
with their psychology class is an example of which of the following? A hypothesis

Question 3
Salma conducts a study and finds that her data do not completely support her theory. Which of the
following statements should she avoid saying? My data disproves my theory

Question 4
Matthew is reading an empirical journal article and wants to know whether the authors used the Big
Five Inventory (BFI-44) or the NEO-PI to measure extraversion. In which section would he find this
information? Method

Question 5
Which of the following is NOT a reason to be skeptical of an authority? They have conducted
scientific research on the topic

Question 6
Compared with doing a generic Internet search, why is PsycINFO a superior way to find scientific
sources? It searches only sources in psychology and related fields

Question 7
The two biases of intuition discussed in the text are: Being swayed by a good story and being
persuaded by what comes easily to mind

Question 8
RESEARCH STUDY 3.1
Anderson is reading his morning paper and sees the following headline: "Female Engineering
Majors' Effort on Math Problems Depends on Sex of Role Model." (This headline is based on a study
conducted by Stout, Dasgupta, Hunsinger, and McManus, 2011.) In the study, female students were
asked by either a male math major or a female math major to complete a math test. Female students
tried to solve more of the math problems when asked by a female math major than they did when
asked by a male math major.
How many variables are mentioned in this study/headline? two

Question 9
A dependent variable is one that: is measured

Question 10
RESEARCH STUDY 3.2
Dr. Ramon makes the following claim: "Watching television leads people to spend less time
communicating with their spouses, study says." Dr. LaSalle makes the claim: "Research shows that
making more money correlates with spending less time talking with your spouse."
Which type of claim is Dr. LaSalle making? Association claim

Question 11
Dr. Hoda measures job satisfaction and number of years of education. In examining her scatterplot,
she sees that the cloud of points has no slope. This indicates which type of relationship? Zero
association

Question 12
Which of the following is NOT a reason that psychologists might fabricate or falsify their data? A
journal might require it

Question 13
Why is plagiarism a violation of ethics? It violates an APA standard

Question 14
The use of debriefing in a study such as Milgram's obedience study appeals to which principle of the
Belmont Report? Principle of beneficence

Question 15
When determining whether a study should be conducted, we have to balance which two issues? The
potential risks to participants vs. the value of knowledge we can gain

Question 16
RESEARCH STUDY 5.2
Dr. Sheffield is a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating pathological gambling. Pathological
gambling is defined as being unable to resist impulses to gamble. Bothered by not having a good
measure that he can give to clients to determine whether they are suffering from this condition, he
creates a new measure of pathological gambling. The measure has 15 questions, and it takes 20
minutes to complete.
Dr. Sheffield wants to establish the discriminant validity of his pathological gambling measure. He
gives his measure and three others to a group of 100 people. Which of the following provides the
best evidence for discriminant validity? That his measure is not strongly correlated with a measure of
impulsivity

Question 17
Asking many similar questions when trying to measure a concept is done to: cancel out
measurement error

Question 18
Which of the following is NOT true of scatterplots? They should not be used for examining reliability

Question 19
Naomi is studying the effect of popularity on academic success for her research methods project. To
do this, she has elementary school students rate how popular each member of their class is. She
then uses this information to rank the students on popularity (e.g., John is the most popular,
Vanessa is the second-most popular). Which of the following best describes this variable? An ordinal
scale of measurement

Question 20
Which of the following is the most direct way to control for question order effects? Prepare different
versions of the survey, varying the order of the questions

Question 21
RESEARCH STUDY 6.2
Dr. Ewell, a developmental psychologist, is planning on conducting a study that involves watching
children play together to determine how sharing behavior occurs in same-sex friend pairs compared
to opposite-sex friend pairs.
Why would most psychologists have no problem with the ethics of Dr. Ewell's study? People in a
public park do not expect their behaviour to be private

Question 22
Which of the following is true of interrater reliability? It is measured with an ICC

Question 23
All of the following are true of observational data EXCEPT: Observational measures cannot be used
in making causal claims

Question 24
Which of the following is true of a nonrepresentative sample in a research claim? You should ask
whether it is relevant to what the researchers are measuring

Question 25
RESEARCH STUDY 7.1
Professor Kramer has decided to measure how happy his students are with his teaching this
semester. He is teaching two classes this semester-Psychology and Law and Introduction to
Neuroscience. He gives his students a survey.
In the above scenario, Dr. Kramer could reasonably use his sample to say something about which of
the following populations of interest EXCEPT? All students who are political science majors

Question 26
A sample is always ________ a population. Smaller than
 Question 27
External validity is most important for which of the following claims? Frequency claims

Question 28
RESEARCH STUDY 8.1
Dr. Oswald conducts a study examining the relationship between the number of friends one has and
the experience of daily stress and life satisfaction. She randomly samples 1,500 elderly men and
women in the Memphis, Tennessee, area in the southern United States. Below are her findings.
Life satisfaction and experience of daily stress: r .57 (p .01)
Number of friends one has and experience of daily stress: r .09, not sig.
Number of friends one has and life satisfaction: r .36 (p .04)
In determining whether the relationship between two of her variables was statistically significant,
which of the following must be considered? Sample size and effect size

Question 29
Which of the following tells you that an association claim is being made? The fact that the two
variables are measured

Question 30
Which of the following is true of statistical significance testing? It can lead to an incorrect conclusion
about the population

Question 31
RESEARCH STUDY 9.1
Dr. Farah is an educational psychologist who is interested in studying the potential causal
relationship between doing homework and academic achievement. In January, Dr. Farah has her
students report their fall GPA (a measure of academic achievement) and estimate how many hours
they spent doing homework during a typical week in the fall semester. In May, Dr. Farah measures
the same variables again (the estimated number of hours spent doing homework during a typical
week in the spring semester and their spring GPA). She finds the following correlations.

Correlati
Variable A Variable B
Coefficie
Fall number of hours of
lation 1 Fall semester GPA .83*
homework
Fall number of hours of
lation 2 Spring number of hours of homework .36*
homework
Fall number of hours of
lation 3 Spring semester GPA .69*
homework
lation 4 Fall semester GPA Spring number of hours of homework .18
lation 5 Fall semester GPA Spring semester GPA .45*
Spring number of hours of
lation 6 Spring semester GPA .80*
homework
cates a statistically significant relationship.
Correlation 1 is an example of which of the following types of correlations? Cross-sectional
correlation

Question 32
When determining mediation, how many steps are necessary? four

Question 33
RESEARCH STUDY 9.1
Dr. Farah is an educational psychologist who is interested in studying the potential causal
relationship between doing homework and academic achievement. In January, Dr. Farah has her
students report their fall GPA (a measure of academic achievement) and estimate how many hours
they spent doing homework during a typical week in the fall semester. In May, Dr. Farah measures
the same variables again (the estimated number of hours spent doing homework during a typical
week in the spring semester and their spring GPA).
A colleague of Dr. Farah's questions the internal validity of her causal claim. He is curious as to
whether the relationship between homework and academic achievement could be explained by
interest in one's classes. Specifically, he thinks that students who are interested in their classes will
both do more homework and have higher GPAs. Which of the following is a solution to this possible
threat to internal validity? Dr. Farah should also measure students interest in their class

Question 34
RESEARCH STUDY 10.1
Dr. Lonsbary is a cognitive psychologist who is curious about how mood affects memory. She
recruited 60 high school students and divided them into three groups. Group A listened to a five-
minute piece of music intended to make them feel happy (a song titled "Don't Worry, Be Happy").
Group B listened to a five-minute piece of music intended to make them feel sad (a song titled
"Alone Again"). Group C listened to no music and instead was asked to sit quietly for five minutes
(thought to make them feel neutral).
When a participant would come to her laboratory, Dr. Lonsbary would greet the participant and then
ask him or her to draw a card. Participants who drew a 1, 2, or 3 were assigned to Group A.
 Participants who drew a 4, 5, or 6, were assigned to Group B. Participants who drew a 7, 8, or 9,
were assigned to Group C. The participants were then given an unlabeled CD to listen to based on
their group assignment. The CD contained either the song selection or five minutes of silence. They
were then escorted into a different room, where they were greeted by a research assistant who
conducted the experiment. The research assistant sat the participants in front of a computer screen
and told them that a list of 25 words would be displayed on the screen. They were instructed to listen
to the CD with headphones while trying to memorize the list of words. All participants were given the
same list of 25 words to remember.
When five minutes had passed, the screen displayed a question asking them whether they felt
happy, sad, or neutral. After the participant responded, a new screen was displayed asking them to
type in all the words they could remember from the list of 25 words. All participants were given three
minutes to type the words they remembered. Afterward, the participant was thanked and dismissed.
In response to the mood question, a majority of Group A participants said they were happy, a
majority of Group B participants said they were sad, and a majority of Group C participants said they
were neutral in their mood. Dr. Lonsbary found the following results in response to the number of
words remembered.

Group A (Happy) Group B (Sad) Group C (Neutral)

f Words Remembered 16 14 9

and B vs. Group C Statistically significant difference d=

vs. Group C Statistically significant difference d=
vs. Group C Statistically significant difference d=
vs. Group B No statistically significant difference d=

Prior to conducting the current study, Dr. Lonsbary asked her research assistant to use the same
mood manipulation with a sample of 30 college students to determine if people's moods really did
change after listening to the music. This preliminary study is known as a: pilot study

Question 35
All of the following are advantages of within-groups designs EXCEPT: it is less time-consuming for
the participants

Question 36
Which of the following is a threat to internal validity found in within-groups designs but not in
independent-groups designs? Practice effects

Question 37
A more general term for practice effects and carryover effects is: order effects

Question 38
 The addition of a comparison group can address all of the following threats to internal validity
EXCEPT: attrition

Question 39
RESEARCH STUDY 11.2
Dr. Bloedorn is a health psychologist who researches nutrition. She is curious as to whether a new
drink additive will help people consume fewer calories during a meal. The drink additive is a white,
odorless, tasteless powder that a person can add to any drink. She collects a random sample of 63
overweight students on campus and measures the calories they eat during lunch, using a bomb
calorimeter. She then gives this additive to the same 63 participants to use at dinner and measures
how many calories they eat (again, using the bomb calorimeter).
The addition of a group that does not use the drink additive but adds a similar-looking substance that
they think is the additive would help Dr. Bloedorn address which of the following threats to internal
validity? Placebo effects

Question 40
Which of the following is NOT a reason that a study might yield a null result? Use of a within-
subjects design

Question 41
A "difference in the difference between the differences" would indicate which of the following? A
three way interaction

Question 42
RESEARCH STUDY 12.1
Dr. Elder was interested in the way people recognize objects as members of categories. For
example, what makes us recognize a dog as being a dog and not a cat? More specifically, he was
curious as to whether people think about categories in a more complex way if they contemplate an
"opposite" category first. For example, does a person think differently about the category of
"southern" if they first think about the category of "northern"? He is also curious as to whether people
categorize differently if they are exposed to category members compared with generating category
members. Dr. Elder has four groups of participants (with 30 people in each group). In Group A,
participants were told to cut out pictures of dogs and cats from magazines. In Group B, participants
were told to cut out pictures of just dogs from magazines. In Group C, participants were told to draw
pictures of cats and dogs. In Group D, participants were told to draw pictures of just dogs. After
doing this for 30 minutes, participants in all groups were asked to list the attributes that define the
"dog" category. Having a higher number of attributes listed was considered to be an indication of
thinking about the category in a more complex way. The results of his study are below.

Type of Activity
Cutting out Pictures Drawing Pictures
Dogs and cats 15 9
Focus of the activity
Dogs only 7 6
Which of the following reasons is the most likely reason Dr. Elder conducted a factorial design? To
test whether task type interacts with the effect of activity focus

Question 43
Which of the following phrases might a person encounter in a popular press article that indicates an
interaction? it depends

Question 44
RESEARCH STUDY 13.3
Dr. Anderson is a nutritionist who helps clients lose weight prior to surgery. She is working with W.
J., a male client who is planning on undergoing a heart transplant. He currently eats more than 3,500
calories a day and has been asked by his doctor to cut the number of calories to about 1,800 (400
for breakfast, 600 for lunch, and 800 for dinner). She is curious as to whether a food journal will help
W. J. reduce the number of calories he eats. A food journal is used to record everything a person
eats. Dr. Anderson decides to phase in the food journal gradually, initially only recording what is
eaten at breakfast during the first three days after baseline (days 4-6). During days 7-9, the journal is
used at lunch, too, and during days 10-12, it also is used during dinner. Each day, Dr. Anderson's
client sends her entries from the food journal and the number of calories he ate at each meal (as
calculated by his wife, whose help she enlisted). The data for Dr. Anderson's study are below.

In interrogating the statistical validity of Dr. Anderson's study, which of the following might be asked?
By what margin did W.J.s calorie intake improve?

Question 45
RESEARCH STUDY 13.1
Dr. Fletcher is interested in whether joining a fraternity/sorority causes people to become more
concerned about their attractiveness and appearance. He recruits a group of 55 freshmen
(25 males, 30 females) who are planning to go through fraternity/sorority recruitment on his campus.
After they join, he gives them a measure of attractiveness concern/appearance concern (the Body
Concern Scale).
In addition to measuring the group of participants who joined a fraternity/sorority, Dr. Fletcher
decides to give the same measure to another group of 55 participants who decided to not join a
fraternity/sorority. This type of design is known as a/an: nonequivalent control groups design

Question 46
Which of the following is a difference between true experiments and quasi-experiments? Quasi-
experiments do not use random assignment

Question 47
RESEARCH STUDY 13.3
Dr. Anderson is a nutritionist who helps clients lose weight prior to surgery. She is working with W.
J., a male client who is planning on undergoing a heart transplant. He currently eats more than 3,500
calories a day and has been asked by his doctor to cut the number of calories to about 1,800 (400
for breakfast, 600 for lunch, and 800 for dinner). She is curious as to whether a food journal will help
W. J. reduce the number of calories he eats. A food journal is used to record everything a person
eats. Dr. Anderson decides to phase in the food journal gradually, initially only recording what is
eaten at breakfast during the first three days after baseline (days 4-6). During days 7-9, the journal is
used at lunch, too, and during days 10-12, it also is used during dinner. Each day, Dr. Anderson's
client sends her entries from the food journal and the number of calories he ate at each meal (as
calculated by his wife, whose help she enlisted). The data for Dr. Anderson's study are below.

In examining the external validity of her study, Dr. Anderson is probably most concerned about
making sure her study generalizes to: she is probably not very concerned about external validity

Question 48
Another word for replicable is: reproducible

Question 49

Which of the following is another term for ecological validity? Mundane realism

Question 50
A researcher in theory-testing mode focuses on ________, while a researcher in generalization

mode focuses on ________. Internal validity; external validity