The Science of Psychology: An Appreciative View, 2nd Edition (King)

Chapter 2: Psychology's Scientific Method

Applied Multiple Choice Questions

Your Results:

The correct answer for each question is indicated by a .

1			Olivia and Hannah are talking about dreaming one day after their psychology class. Most mornings Olivia doesn't remember any of her dreams, but occasionally she has vivid recollections when she awakes. Hannah says she has the same experience and wonders why. When they talk to friends about the phenomenon, they notice a pattern related to the stress of the previous day. They verbalize this pattern as, "If someone feels stressed out over something one day, then she is more likely to remember her dreams the following day." Olivia and Hannah have just formed a
			A)	scientific attitude.
			B)	valid statement.
			C)	hypothesis.
			D)	hindsight.
2			Zhuang is trying to decide which major he should choose in college. His older brother notes that Zhuang is always asking questions, so maybe he should become a scientist. If Zhuang asks the same kinds of questions that successful scientists ask, he is probably asking things like
			A)	Why? How do you know? Where's your evidence? Is there another explanation?
			B)	How does this affect me? Why is it important that I know this?
			C)	Where will I use this information? Will it help me get ahead in life?
			D)	Who? What? When? Where? How? Can I get a quote?
3			Hailie is writing a psychology research paper. She has collected research from the past three decades, which her professor says is fine. What is confusing for Hailie is that her articles say different things. She finally asks you why all of the research has been published if some of it is obviously wrong. You tell her that
			A)	scientists rarely work together or review previous research, which can leave publications in disagreement with each other.
			B)	there is no review process in scientific publication; if someone writes well enough, the article will be published regardless of its validity.
			C)	truth and reality are in the eye of the beholder.
			D)	part of the scientific process is testing and retesting a theory, to see if everyone gets the same results each time; if they don't, the research may not agree.
4			For her experimental psychology class, Kristen has developed the hypothesis that "intelligent people are more stressed out." Kristen's teacher tells her she needs to use operational definitions for her variables. This means that she needs to
			A)	define which behaviors or qualities differentiate one person's "intelligence" from the next person's, and define the behaviors she associates with "stressed out."
			B)	explain what procedures she will use to collect her data.
			C)	define which variables are independent and which variables are dependent.
			D)	use self-report measures as part of her experiment.
5			Sitting in the park one sunny day, Chaim notices that people who are walking dogs smile at him more often than people without dogs. Chaim concludes that people who own dogs are happier than those who do not own dogs. Based on the principles of psychological research, what is the biggest problem with Chaim's conclusion?
			A)	Just because someone is walking a dog doesn't mean the person owns that dog.
			B)	Chaim did not observe people with cats before coming to his conclusion.
			C)	Correlation does not prove causation; the association may be spurious.
			D)	Chaim did not operationalize "dog."
6			Gary's son, Sam, is learning to drive. Each night, Gary takes Sam out in the family car for driving lessons. Gary notices that Sam improves more in lessons in which Gary is extremely critical. In fact, the more critical Gary is, the more Sam improves. After Sam gets his driver's license, Gary's wife, Chrissy, tells him that every time Gary was critical of Sam, she took him out so he could improve before his father's next lesson. What was the problem with Gary's initial interpretation of Sam's improvement?
			A)	parsimonious problem
			B)	non-representative sample problem
			C)	generalizability problem
			D)	third variable problem
7			Stephanie conducts an experiment to learn if brunettes have more fun. She has three brunette female friends and three blonde female friends go to the same party and record how many times they are asked to dance. In her experiment, Stephanie has defined her _____ as the number of times the friends were asked to dance, and her _____ as hair color.
			A)	independent variable; extraneous variable
			B)	extraneous variable; dependent variable
			C)	independent variable; dependent variable
			D)	dependent variable; independent variable
8			A researcher is conducting a study on the effects of yoga on mental health. She plans to randomly assign participants to one group that is given a five-week yoga intervention or to another group that is given a free five-week gym membership. Which of the following would she use to randomly assign participants to one of the groups?
			A)	The first 10 people who enroll will be put in the yoga group; the next 10 will be put in the gym group, and so forth.
			B)	Men will be put in the yoga group; women will be put in the gym group.
			C)	Each participant will flip a coin; those who get heads will be put in the yoga group, those who get tails will be put in the gym group.
			D)	Those that have previously done yoga will be put in the yoga group; those that have not done yoga will be put in the gym group.
9			A researcher obtained a correlation coefficient of –.65 for the relationship between job satisfaction and experiences of discrimination in the workplace. What does this correlation coefficient mean?
			A)	Discrimination causes decreased job satisfaction.
			B)	People who experienced more discrimination were less likely to be satisfied with their job.
			C)	People who were more satisfied with their job experienced more discrimination.
			D)	There is no relationship between job satisfaction and experiences of discrimination.
10			Caitlin is interested in how teenage mothers cope with stress. She wants to start by finding one teenage mother and interview her about her goals, fears, and hopes for the future. With that information, she hopes to question a larger sample of teenage mothers on the age of their child and their overall stress level. Once she has that information she hopes to develop a therapeutic technique to help reduce that stress. She would test that method by randomly assigning a set of mothers to undergo therapy and compare their end stress level with a group of mothers who would not undergo treatment. Caitlin's plan seems to involve conducting a(n) _____, followed by a(n) _____, and ending with a(n) _____.
			A)	case study; survey; experiment
			B)	case study; correlational study; experiment
			C)	naturalistic observation; correlational study; experiment
			D)	correlation; survey; experiment

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