Question 1

The ethical principles for research developed by the American

Psychological Association
The correct answer is: guide researchers regarding the ethical
dilemmas that occur with human and animal research subjects.
Question 2
The best solution when differential transfer is likely in an experiment
is to
The correct answer is: conduct an independent groups design.
Question 3
One threat to the internal validity of research that affects both true
experiments and quasi-experiments is
The correct answer is: experimenter expectancy effects.
Question 4
The degree to which a young child's dolls show signs of wear might
indicate which dolls the child likes the best. This potential physical
trace measure would be described as a
The correct answer is: natural-use trace.
The application of single-case experimental designs to socially
relevant problems has its origin in
The correct answer is: behaviorism and the experimental analysis of
behavior.
Question 6
A written research proposal, unlike the report of a completed
research study, generally will not include
The correct answer is: an Abstract.
Question 7
The hallmark of a quasi-experiment is
The correct answer is: lack of random assignment of participants to
conditions.
Question 8
A new measure of intelligence (e.g., speed of processing spatial
distances) would be a valid measure of intelligence if scores on the
new measure were
The correct answer is: related to scores on other accepted measures
of intelligence.
Question 9
A major approach to "confirming what the data reveal" is the
calculation of
The correct answer is: confidence intervals for a population
parameter.
Question 10
A student conducts a research project to test the effect of an
independent variable with two conditions. The value for Cohen's d for
her data is 0.25. Based on this, she concludes that the independent
variable had _________ effect on the dependent variable.
The correct answer is: a small
Question 11
For a class research project, students conceal themselves in bathroom
stalls in order to observe conversational behavior of individuals at
sinks in the washroom. They count the number of words spoken by
women and men in their respective washrooms. The most important
ethical issue in this research is
The correct answer is: privacy.
Question 12

A researcher designs a 2 x 2 x 2 complex design in which the first

independent variable uses a random groups design, the second
independent variable uses a natural groups design, and the third
independent variable uses a repeated measures design. The
researcher wants to have 20 participants in each independent groups
condition. How many participants will she need to recruit?
The correct answer is: 80
Question 13

When observers have biases regarding what they expect participants'

behavior to be like in an experiment, the observations may be
influenced by
The correct answer is: experimenter effects.
Question 14

When deciding how to make a claim about the effect of a variable,

researchers should
The correct answer is: be aware of limitations association with null
hypotheses significance testing.
Question 15

A clinical psychologist wants to test a treatment to reduce the self-

injury behavior of an autistic child. She faces an ethical dilemma of
needing to remove a potentially beneficial treatment to establish its
effectiveness. In order to conduct an experiment that would allow
causal inferences but also eliminate her ethical dilemma, the
psychologist should conduct
The correct answer is: a multiple-baselines design.
Question 16
A TV reporter interviewed several dozen people at the scene of a
political demonstration about their opinions regarding the
demonstration. The reporter searched for people on both sides of the
issue. In the terminology of survey research, the reporter has
gathered a
The correct answer is: convenience sample.
Question 17
Which of the following statements is true?
The correct answer is: If an interaction effect is statistically significant,
it is likely the researcher will discover at least one statistically
significant simple main effect.
Compared to random starting order with rotation, an advantage of
the Latin Square technique for selecting orders in the incomplete
repeated measures design is that in the Latin Square
The correct answer is: each condition precedes and follows each other
condition exactly once.
Question 19
When participants begin an experiment but fail to complete it, the
internal validity of the experiment can be threatened. Which of the
following types of subject loss poses the most serious threat to
internal validity?
The correct answer is: the loss occurs because of some characteristic
of the participant that is related to the outcome of the study.
Question 20
In which of the following situations could individuals be vulnerable to
excessive inducement or pressure to participate in research?
The correct answer is: requiring prisoners to participate in a
psychology experiment
Question 21
Placebo control groups and double-blind procedures are typically
used to control for
The correct answer is: demand characteristics and experimenter
effects.
Question 22
In order to interpret the findings of a complex design experiment,
researchers
The correct answer is: all of the answers are correct
Question 23
The first stage of a single-case experiment is the baseline stage. The
baseline stage provides information about
The correct answer is: what behavior would be like if the treatment
were not provided.
Question 24
A researcher tests a sample of first-grade children for a school district
to help the district identify areas in which the curriculum should be
changed. The measure is a valid and reliable measure of intelligence.
The researcher estimates the population mean for the intelligence
scores and observes a large value for the standard error of the mean.
The best thing the researcher could do to improve the estimate is
The correct answer is: increase the sample size of children tested.
Question 25
In a survey of 500 randomly selected respondents, 360 respondents
(72%) said they want the United Nations (U.N.) headquarters to
remain in the United States. A TV news show conducted a call-in
survey and asked the same question. Of the 186,000 who phoned in
their response, 124,620 people (67%) said they want the U.N. out of
the United States. The most reasonable statement about these
different findings is that
The correct answer is: the findings for the randomly selected sample
more likely represent the views of the population.
Question 26

The main difference between physical measurement and

psychological measurement is that physical measurement
The correct answer is: involves dimensions with agreed-upon
standards and instruments.
Question 27
When graphing the results of an experiment with an independent
variable and a dependent variable, the values for the dependent
variable are plotted
The correct answer is: on the vertical or y-axis.
Question 28
A researcher administers a treatment to four children in succession
and monitors whether each child's behavior changes with the onset of
the treatment. The researcher is using
The correct answer is: a multiple-baseline design.
Question 29
If participants know they have been given alcohol in an experiment,
they may expect certain effects such as giddiness or relaxation. The
general term for such cues that guide participants' behavior in a study
is
The correct answer is: demand characteristics.
Question 30
Which of the following is a measure of the strength of the relationship
between the independent and dependent variables that is
independent of sample size?
The correct answer is: effect size
Question 31
A key factor when "thinking like a researcher" is to
The correct answer is: be skeptical.
Question 32
An intervention in an office setting leads employees to be pleased
that the management is interested in their welfare. If the employees'
performance improves in this situation, the researcher should be
concerned about potential
The correct answer is: novelty effects such as the Hawthorne effect.
Question 33

A researcher conducted an experiment in which participants played

either a violent or a nonviolent video game. After the game, the
researcher measured hostile cognitions. The effect size, Cohen's d, for
the difference in mean hostile cognition between the violent and
nonviolent conditions was .83. Based on this, it is possible to state
that the video game independent variable had a _______ effect on
hostile cognition in this experiment.
The correct answer is: large
Question 34
When using psychological measurement of a dimension such as
aggression, psychologists often base their measurements of people's
aggressiveness on
The correct answer is: agreement among a number of observers
regarding their ratings of behavior on an aggressiveness scale.
Question 35
The remnants, fragments, and products of past behavior that provide
unobtrusive measures of behavior are called
The correct answer is: physical traces.
Question 36
Which of the following survey methods is best for dealing with highly
personal or embarrassing topics, especially when the anonymity of
respondents is preserved?
The correct answer is: mail survey
Question 37
Which of the following designs is used when the researcher focuses
on the way behavior changes with the systematic introduction and
withdrawal of the treatment?
The correct answer is: ABAB design
Question 38
A confidence interval is basically the same as
The correct answer is: a margin of error.
Question 39
Suppose you come across a car accident at an intersection and
observe that a small car is severely damaged and a large SUV appears
to have only a headlight broken. If you describe the accident as
occurring because the SUV hit the smaller car, your report likely
includes
The correct answer is: low response rate.
Question 41
The initial overall analysis of an experiment based on the analysis of
variance is called
The correct answer is: an omnibus F-test.
Question 42
In a recent criticism of the practice of clinical psychologists, all of the
following suggestions were made except
The correct answer is: make some clinical psychology training
programs non-scientific to keep psychology balanced.
Question 43

Violations of scientific integrity include

The correct answer is: fabricating data, reporting only the data that
support the researcher's expectations, and failure to acknowledge
people who contributed significantly to the research.
Question 44
Repeated measures designs are more sensitive than random groups
designs because the systematic variation due to individual differences
is _________ the statistical analyses.
The correct answer is: eliminated from
Question 45
Researchers may not be required to obtain informed consent in which
of the following situations?
The correct answer is: when observing behavior in public settings with
no intervention
Question 46
When scientists report their findings they strive to describe
The correct answer is: only what they have observed.
Question 47
Stratified random sampling is especially useful when the researcher is
interested in
The correct answer is: making general statements about specific
portions of the population that has been sampled.
Question 48
An example of a violation of scientific integrity is
The correct answer is: selectively reporting research findings when
making a claim about behavior.
Question 49
Results that are "statistically significant" may not be of interest to the
scientific community because
The correct answer is: any of the reasons mentioned
Question 50
According to some clinical psychologists, the practice of present-day
clinical psychology
The correct answer is: all of these
Question 51
Which of the following is one of the arguments against the use of
deception in psychological research?
The correct answer is: Deception causes people to believe
psychologists are "tricksters" or liars.
Question 52
A conceptual definition of effect size for an independent variable with
two conditions is the difference between the two sample means
divided by
The correct answer is: the variability within the groups.
Question 53
A researcher interested in aggression told participants his experiment
investigated whether paying attention to details would affect how
things taste. One group of participants wrote down details from a 5-
minute violent gun scene. The second group of participants wrote
details while watching a high-speed car chase. Afterward, participants
tasted and rated a sample of water with a drop of hot sauce in it as a
measure of "taste sensitivity." They were then asked to prepare a
sample of water for the next participant, and could put in as much hot
sauce as they wanted. There was no "next participant;" the amount of
hot sauce was a measure of aggression. The researcher predicted
participants who watched the violent gun scene would add more hot
sauce. The ethical issue most relevant to this experiment is
The correct answer is: deception.
Question 54
Subject loss (attrition) poses a problem for a random groups design
because
The correct answer is: group equivalence established at the beginning
of the experiment may be lost.
Question 55
The problem of _____ in a repeated measures design occurs when the
effects of a condition persist or carryover to affect performance in the
subsequent conditions.
The correct answer is: differential transfer
Question 56
The "margin of error" typically reported for survey results estimates
the difference between the sample results and the population values
due to
The correct answer is: chance or random factors.
Question 57
Which of the following is typically not one of the dimensions a
researcher should consider when deciding what information is private
and what safeguards should be employed?
The correct answer is: source of the information
Question 58
When footnotes are used in a research manuscript, they are
The correct answer is: listed on a separate page after the References
section.
Question 59
A good Discussion section of a research report begins with
The correct answer is: a succinct statement of the study's findings.
Question 60
After checking the data for errors and outliers, the next step in
analyzing the data from a research study is to use
The correct answer is: descriptive statistics.
Question 61
The three steps of data analysis are
The correct answer is: check the data, summarize the data, and
confirm what the data reveal.
Question 62
Oral presentations differ from written presentations of scientific
studies mainly in terms of
The correct answer is: the amount of details provided.
Question 63
One of the main ways that true experiments differ from quasi-
experiments is that true experiments use
The correct answer is: random assignment to conditions.
Question 64

In a field experiment, the investigator

The correct answer is: always manipulates an independent variable in
a natural setting.
Question 65
Assume that the results of an F-test are reported as: F(2, 42) = 7.30, p
= .01. On the basis of this information we may conclude that
The correct answer is: the results are statistically significant.
Question 66
Researchers who conduct research with individuals who have limited
ability to understand the nature of the research and its possible risks
The correct answer is: must obtain informed consent from the parents
or legal guardian and should strive, when feasible, to get assent from
the participants themselves.
Question 67

The additional step needed when analyzing the results in a complete

repeated measures design is to
The correct answer is: compute the mean (or median) score for each
participant for each condition of the experiment.
Question 68
An effective treatment is identified in an ABAB (reversal) design when
The correct answer is: behavior after the intervention is different
from the baseline in both the first and the second AB stages.
Question 69
A student sets a computer program to record participants' responses
to materials in her experiment to the millisecond, rather than to the
tenth of a second. Which characteristic of the measuring instrument is
the student trying to ensure?
The correct answer is: precision
Question 70
Data fabrication, plagiarism, and failure to acknowledge individuals
who contributed to a research project
The correct answer is: represent violations of scientific integrity.