psych 15 exam 2

Experiments

examining behaviors in a control lab setting

experimental control

everything participants experience is kept the same between groups

• except for the Independent Variable (IV)

Randomization

= participant control

good experiments = high ___ validity

internal validity

- ability to know exactly what is affecting the DV

Experiments tend to have low ___ validity

External validity

- analyzing behavior that is naturalistic

• due to artificially of the lab

μ

mean of the whole population

σ

SD of whole of population

What determines this estimated rage?

the data (sample size, mean, SD)

Between group differences

Differences between two groups of people

group 1 vs group 2

With-in group differences

Differences w/in the same group over time

group 1 : Time 1 → time 2

Correlations

Correlation between variables

relationships between variable

as ___ increases, ___ increases or decrease in ___ , ____ decreases

There is a significant difference

Within group difference example

comparing the same group overtime

Correlation example

relationship between variables

- is risky driving correlated w/ drivers income

Significance

When an effect is greater is greater than could be reasonably expected from chance alone

effect is more likely to be significant if

its found in a large sample of participants

effect itself is larger

• large group difference, high correlation, etc

there is little overlap between the groups

Type 1 error

False positive

• telling an old man he’s pregnant

Type 2 error

false negative

• telling a pregnant women shes not pregnant

non- experimental observations

examining behavior as it exists in the “field”

avoids artificiality of the lab

possesses greater external validity

External validity (ecological validity)

findings are generalized to the “real world”

is behavior realistic?

Internal validity

what is causing behavior

Naturalistic observation and validity

high external validity

low internal validity

Controlled experiments and validity

low external validity

high internal validity

Naturalistic observation

collecting data in natural settings

Naturalistic observation advantages and disadvantages

advantage: measures real-world behavior

disadvantage: doesn’t explain what causes behavior

Participant observation

immersion of the researcher into the group being studied

• researcher living with gang members to record daily experience for research

Participant observation advantages

advantages: can get inside look at secretive lives/ activates

• can more fully understand group dynamics

Structured observation (controlled observation)

observation with a naturalistic setting that is designed by researchers

most often to trigger target behavior

ex: kids tick or treat: take one and then leave(controlled) see who took more than 1

Structured observation Advantages

can trigger behaviors that might be hard to observe naturally (giving ppl opportunity to steal)

can control more elements of enviornment

Field experiment

an actual experiment that is carried out, but in a natural setting

• merging observation and experimentation

  • ex) toddlers showing altruistic behavior

__________ observation - unobtrusive observing behavior

naturalistic

_____ observation- observing groups from the inside

participant

________Observation - setting up enviornment to trigger behavior

structured

_______ experiment - conducting actual experiment in a natural setting

field

Case studies

offer insight into special cases

Case studies pros and cons

pros-

in-depth understanding of individuals

can explore rare conditions

Cons:

cannot be generalized to broader populations (low external validity)

cannot tell whats causing behavior using one case (low internal validity )

Archival studies

analyzing publicly availably data

Archival studies pros and cons

pros: data is free and easily accessible

often large, nationally representative database

often usually reflects real-world behavior

• high external validity

Cons:

not collected by researchers

no control over how data was collected (can contain error/confounds)

In experiments, the group of participants that are not exposed to any experimental manipulation is known as the

Control group

In an experiment, 30 people diagnosed with social phobia are given therapy and 30 other social phobics aren’t. After 3 months, they’re tested for social phobia.  This is a

Post-test only design

____ is a control technique that ensures that each participant has an equal chance of being assigned to any group in an experiment.

Random assignment

What is required to run a true experiment?

A controlled lab setting

What does an experiment require

experimental control

random assignment (control group)

Observational studies are not considered

true experiments

Children were randomly assigned to two groups. They either played a board game that contained numbers or they played one that did not contain numbers (and instead contained colors). Whether the board game contained numbers or not is the

Independent Variable

Comparing math performance of children who play video games to children who play checkers is an example of ___

Independent groups design

Experimental design is a research methodology that uniquely allows researchers to

Test for causal relationships among variables (can only establish in a true experiment)

Alpha scores in science are most often set to

.05

Inferential statistics can test for all of the following types of effects, EXCEPT

Spurious relationships

A Type I error refers to

Finding a false effect (one that doesn’t exist in reality) significant in an experiment

ex) telling an old man he’s pregnant

Even a small effect can be found statistically significant if

It is found in a very large sample

big effect- small sample to find significant

Ben wanted to know whether psychology majors were more likely to join their academic discipline’s honor society (Psy Chi) as compared to business majors (Sigma Beta Delta). He surveyed 50 college students in both majors. According to the textbook, what statistical test would he use to analyze the results?

Chi-square

Chi-square

independent variables - two groups

Dependent variable: 2 outcomes

According to the textbook, in an independent samples t-test, the dependent variable is always

A continuous variable

Dr. Andrews lives within a community of undocumented immigrants in order to study the lives of this vulnerable group.  What is a disadvantage to studying undocumented immigrants in this way? (participant observation)

Dr. Andrews may lose his subjectivity as he befriends his research subjects

Dr. Harper conducts an experiment in a natural setting, wherein he has confederates cut in line at a DMV.  In this case, confederates are randomly assigned to be either women or men, to see if gender effects participants' reactions to the confederate cutting in line.  This would be an example of a(n)

Field study

Dr. Turner is a psychotherapist who is interested in studying severe effects of PTSD.  Within her practice, she selected one particular patient with severe PTSD and, with his consent, studies his response to eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy.  What is a problem with conducting this type of research? (case study)

Dr. Turner's findings aren't generalizable to people with PTSD

During the 1800s, a little boy was recovered from the woods in France.  Supposedly raised by wolves, this boy had an extremely difficult time adjusting to "civilized" society.  Psychologists at the time noted that the boy couldn't learn to speak more than a few words and was never able to detect social cues from other humans.  This is an example of a(n)

Case study

According to the textbook, making sure to conceal the researcher from participants during an observational study can help in minimizing ____

Reactivity

Dr. Matthews wants to create a(n) ______________ definition for the term "happiness" to be used in his current study. Doing  so will allow other researchers to know precisely how he measured his variable of interest. The way he decides to define and measure happiness is by counting the number of times that a person smiles while watching an hour-long comedy.

operational

In the board game study conducted by Ramani and Siegler (2008) in which the researchers investigated Head Start preschool students’ improvements in mathematical understanding after playing a series of games, the group of children assigned to play the numeric board game is an example of a(n) ______________ condition/group.

Experimental

Dr. Nadkarni wanted to test whether an over-the-counter medication, HeadX, was an effective treatment for migraines. She randomly assigned migraine sufferers to two conditions/groups. Dr. Nadkarni gave participants in Group A daily doses of HeadX and participants in Group B daily doses of a sugar pill containing no headache medicine. Group A is the ______________ group.

Experimental

Researchers are trying to determine whether chewing Glitter Whitening gum after every meal actually brightens the color of one’s teeth. The “Glitter” condition/group is assigned to chew two pieces of Glitter gum after breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and the “No Gum” condition/group does not chew any gum after meals. The “No Gum” condition/group is the ______________ condition/group. 

control

The control condition is important to experimental designs because researchers need to know how participants behave in the absence of the IV, or in the business-as-usual condition so this performance can be compared to the treatment condition(s).

True

Hans was interested in finding the optimal amount of meditation that adults should engage in each week to lower their stress levels. Hans randomly assigned participants to three groups. One group meditated for 5 hours a week, a second group meditated for 3 hours a week, and a third group meditated for 1 hour a week. At the end of the week, Hans asked participants to rate their stress levels to determine whether it had changed from baseline levels assessed at the beginning of the study. What is the independent variable in this experiment?

How many hours each group meditated

One way that independent variables (e.g., numeric versus color board games) differ from dependent variables (e.g., children’s accuracy at comparing the value of two numbers) is that IVs are ______________ by the experimenter, whereas DVs are ______________ by the experimenter.

manipulated; measured

Which example below describes a correlational study?

Researchers measured parents' self-reported math anxiety and compared it to children's standardized mathematics achievement scores.

Can you identify which of the following is a possible finding from a formal experiment as opposed to a correlational study?

The numeric board game caused increases in children's math understanding.

Correlation

Associated or related

Experimental

caused or impacted

If you plan to test 50 total participants in your independent groups design with one control condition/group and one experimental condition/group, how many participants should be randomly assigned to each group?

25 experimental; 25 control

Macy’s department store was interested in Americans’ perception of their customer service, so the department store surveyed only those customers shopping at Penn Square Mall in Oklahoma City. What is the primary problem with this study?

They are not selecting a representative sample.

Anjali attempted to control for the age of children that she recruited to participate in her study to make sure that all of them had learned about multiplication before they took the math assessment in her study. Anjali was attempting to control for ________ variables.

confounding

Neither the experimenter nor the participants knew to which condition/group they were randomly assigned. This does not meet the requirements for a double-blind study.

False

Dr. Terry is conducting an experiment to determine the impact of feedback on eighth graders’ performance on algebra problems. He randomly assigns some participants to his control condition/group, in which the children complete the problems without feedback, and he assigns some children to his treatment condition/group, in which the children do receive feedback after completing each problem. Dr. Terry also decides to equate children in both groups based on their performance on a test of whole number division.

What type of experimental methodology is Dr. Terry using?

independent groups design

When a researcher claims that they had their hypothesis all along, when indeed they came up with the hypothesis after conducting data analyses, this is called:

HARKing

What are inferential statistics?

statistical methods used to draw conclusions about a population using sample data

Null Hypothesis

there is no mean difference in trait anxiety amongst people with cats vs dogs as pets.

Alternative Hypothesis

There is a mean difference in trait anxiety amongst people with cats vs dogs as pets

What does an alpha level do?

provides a criterion for interpreting the significance of a test statistic

When a statistic is p > .05, what is the appropriate way to refer to it in the null hypothesis significance testing framework?

fail to reject the null hypothesis

Which statistical test is appropriate to conduct when assessing whether a group of 5-year-olds' screen time in a week is significantly different from a group of seven-year-olds' screen time in a week?

independent samples t-test

Which hypothesis test is appropriate for a study that compares the heart rate before and after an anaerobic exercise for a group of cardiac  patients?

paired samples t-test

within subject design

participants complete a working memory task prior to training and again after training

Between subjects design

Half of the participants are assigned to a working memory training conditions and half of the participants are assigned to a control group

Because there was a significant effect of tattoo visibility group in the above mentioned study, researchers were justified in conducting post-hoc tests to ascertain which groups differed significantly from the others.

True

A study on academic motivation investigating the combined effect of grade in school and country in which the children lived can test which of the following hypotheses?

the main effects for grade in school and country of residence as well as the grade by country interaction

According to Rosenblatt et al., participants with unfavorable attitudes towards prostitution set higher bond amounts when mortality was made salient than when mortality was not salient. Is this result a main effect or an interaction?

interaction

Which type of research scenario can be evaluated using a chi-square test for independence?

A researcher is interested in determining the relation between gender and personality type (Introvert or Extravert).

A questionable research practice is to label results falling between p=.05 and p=.10 as "marginally significant."

True

The ability to generalize laboratory findings to "real world" situations is referred to as:

external or ecological validity

methods in order from least to most experimenter control over the situation.

naturalistic observation

structured observation

field experiment

Which of the following is a common challenge for those using the participant observation method?

It raises important ethical concerns.

Which of the following characterizes structured observations?

weaker internal validity but strong external validity

Gabriela is conducting a study about how many people floss their teeth regularly. She finds, however, that her surveys do not predict ratings of dental health produced by the dentists examining her participants. The participants’ inaccurate answers about how frequently they flossed are most likely to be the result of:

social desirability

Which term describes the ability to generalize from the sample to a larger population?

population validity

systematic sampling

a researcher plans to observe every fifth persons who walks through a door of a campus building

researcher uses a random number generator to generate a series of numbers. then they choose participants in the order they walk by

random sampling