PSYC MOD 2 CH. 2: 🧪Research - Read Along Q&A

An upper-level psychology class is conducting an experiment on racial prejudice that involves having participants rate the likeability of faces in a set of photos. However, they tell participants that the study is about the effects of aging on likeability. When participants are finished, they are thanked for their time and leave the experiment. In this example, the class forgot to ________ in order to resolve the ________ in the study.

debrief participants; deception

In order to assess whether viewpoints on decriminalization of marijuana for medical purposes change with age, four groups of participants, ages 20, 30, 40, and 50, are asked whether they support this issue. What is one flaw of this design?

Social or cultural factors may influence the results, not age.

A(n) ________ variable is a factor that affects both variables of interest in research and may falsely give the impression of a cause-and-effect relationship.

confounding

Sandra strongly believes that attending daycare is detrimental to children’s development so she decides to write her psychology term paper on this topic. She does a literature search and finds several sources supporting her opinion, but she finds that the majority of research indicates that children attending daycare experience healthy development. She writes a paper using the sources that find negative associations with daycare attendance. This is an example of ________.

confirmation bias

A(n) ________ is a description of how the researchers will measure the variables of interest.

operational definition

________ is an anthropologist who contributed to our understanding of chimpanzee behavior in the wild, using naturalistic observation.

Jane Goodall

Research shows that people who smoke cigarettes are more likely to get lung cancer than those who do not smoke. This research alone demonstrates that ________.

there is a relationship between smoking and lung cancer

Stan and Jenny are in a psychology course that requires them to repeat an experiment that researchers have conducted in the past, in order to determine whether they produce the same results. This is called ________.

replication

Which correlation coefficient best represents a moderate relationship showing fewer anxiety symptoms in people who report higher life satisfaction?

–0.53

Studies that cannot ethically be conducted as experiments with typical human participants ________.

can sometimes be tested with animal studies

Nate places participants into his control group by flipping a coin. He is using ______to choose groups.

random assignment

A researcher waited at the library and counted how many people held the door for someone behind them. What type of design is this study?

naturalistic observation

Some experiments involve a cover story and a ______, or an actor secretly working for the experimenter.

confederate

DeMarcus responded to faces of people from various ethnic groups and the computer measure his reaction time. This measures his ______bias.

nonconsicous

After developing a research question, researchers create a(n) ______, or testable prediction of how the question will be answered.

hypothesis

What is a valid critique of the Facebook study on emotional contagion?

Facebook users did not give approval to participate

Martha measured the amount of food people ate while sitting alone or while sitting in a group. What is the dependent variable in her study?

amount of food consumed

Before a study participants are told what to expect so that they can decide whether to participate. This is called ______.

informed consent

What is the first step of the scientific method?

make observations

In an experiment using ______, participants are reminded of death and then asked to do something.

terror management theory