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Chapter 2 Self-Test

Question 1

Shaun posts a sign-up sheet to her college’s psychology department bulletin board advertising a survey she is conducting. Her population of interest is all undergraduates at her college. This recruitment technique

is a good example of random sampling.

assures that everyone in the population has an equal chance of being in the sample.

is likely to produce a representative sample.

is not likely to produce a representative sample because psychology students are likely to be overrepresented.

Question 2

Which of the following pairs of variables is likely to be negatively correlated?

Hours spent studying and exam score

Days absent from class and final course grade

Servings of caffeine and hours spent awake

Hours per week spent at the gym and cardiovascular fitness

Question 3

Cellie computes the correlation coefficient for the relation between inches of daily precipitation (rain and snow) in Chicago during December and number of daily on-time flights out of O’Hare International Airport (in Chicago) during December. Which of the following is the most likely value of this correlation coefficient?

− 3.43

− .64

.00

.90

Question 4

Even though ice cream sales and crime are correlated, we cannot claim that ice cream causes crime because

crime probably causes ice cream sales to increase.

summer heat is the likely cause of increases in both ice cream sales and crime.

crime cannot be operationally defined.

All of the above

Question 5

Researchers (Damisch, Stoberock, & Mussweiler, 2010) manipulated what people were told about a golf ball before they were asked to sink as many putts out of 10 as possible. Half were told that the ball was lucky and the other half were simply told that this was the ball they had been using all day. The researchers measured the number of putts the participants were able to sink. In this study, the independent variable was _____ and the dependent variable was _____.

the people who were told the ball was lucky; the people who were told this was the ball they had used all day

number of putts; what people were told

the people who were told this was the ball they had used all day; the people who were told the ball was lucky

what people were told; number of putts

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Question 6

Random ______ is used to increase the representativeness of one’s sample, whereas random ______ is used to help eliminate a potential confound: differences between people.

sampling; selection

assignment; selection

sampling; assignment

assignment; sampling

Question 7

Asking people to fill out a self-esteem questionnaire would be an example of _____ research, whereas asking people to describe, in words, how positively they regard themselves would be an example of _____ research.

correlational; qualitative

correlational; quantitative

quantitative; qualitative

qualitative; quantitative

Question 8

Ramon fills out a personality questionnaire designed to assess self-esteem and gets a mean score of 4 on a scale of 1 to 5. A month later, he fills it out again and gets the same score. At the very least, what quality can we be certain this questionnaire possesses?

Validity

Reliability

Accuracy

Variability

Question 9

What was the operational definition of self-esteem in the above question?

Ramon’s mean score on the questionnaire

The discrepancy between Ramon’s score at each testing period

How long it took Ramon to fill out the questionnaire

Ramon’s willingness to fill out the questionnaire

Question 10

On your last exam, most students earned 75% of the available points. The ease with which you can now compare your own performance is a clear advantage of using

words to quantify variables.

the correlational method.

numbers to quantify variables.

the scientific method.

Question 11

Yvonne compared the math skills of 8-year-old boys and girls and found that the girls outscored the boys, but that the mean difference was not statistically significant. What does this mean?

This is a difference we would expect by chance.

This is a much larger difference than we would expect by chance.

This is not a difference we would expect by chance.

There is a 1% probability that this finding was due to chance.

Question 12

Which of the following research methods would be least useful for obtaining naturalistic evidence?

Case study

Observational study

Community-participation study

Laboratory experimental study

Question 13

Chaya prides herself on her willingness to try new things and scored very high on this trait on a personality questionnaire she completed. However, direct observations of her behaviors this past week revealed that she was quick to shoot down novel ideas, she refused to go to the Ethiopian restaurant that her friends suggested, and she watched the same TV shows over and over. This discrepancy illustrates the limitations of

observer reports.

direct observation.

self-reports.

experimentation.

Question 14

In science, a theory can be described according to all of the following qualities below, except which one?

It is merely speculative.

It is systematic.

It is evidence-based.

It can be broad or narrow in scope.

Question 15

Bernie signed an informed consent form and got about halfway through the experiment when he started to feel uncomfortable. What is one of his rights as a research participant?

He may request permission to withdraw from the study.

He may withdraw from the study without penalty.

He may withdraw from the study, with only a minor penalty.

His rights will differ depending on where in the United States the study is run.