Chapter 2 Of Textbook

Question 1

What did Cohen and Nisbett find with their study using a fictional applicant to a job?

Answer 1

Retailers from the South complied with the applicants requests more than retailers from the North

Question 2

Hindsight bias

Answer 2

People’s tendency to be overconfident about whether they could have predicted a given outcome

Question 3

Thought experiment

Answer 3

Thinking through how you would test a given idea can lead you to new ideas that, on reflection, might surpass your initial speculation

Question 4

How do you conduct a thought experiment?

Answer 4

You need to speculate about the results you might obtain under two different sets of circumstances to develop more precise hypotheses about the phenomenon in question

Question 5

Hypothesis

Answer 5

A prediction about what will happen under particular circumstances

Question 6

Theory

Answer 6

A set of related propositions intended to describe some phenomenon or aspect of the world

Question 7

Dissonance theory

Answer 7

The theory that people like their thoughts to be consistent with one another and will do substantial mental work to achieve such cognitive consistency

Question 8

How are hypotheses tested?

Answer 8

By studies, which examine predictions about what will happen in particular concrete contexts

Question 9

What is the first step in scientific research?

Answer 9

Looking at a phenomenon in a systematic way, with a view to understanding what’s going on and coming up with hypotheses about why things are as they are

Question 10

Participant observation

Answer 10

Involves observing some phenomenon at close range

Question 11

What type of research can be done at a computer?

Answer 11

Archival research

Question 12

Surveys

Answer 12

Can be conducted either using interviews or written questionnaires

Question 13

Representative sampling

Answer 13

People in the survey must be representative of the population as a whole, which is best achieves by selecting potential respondents randomly

Question 14

Convenience sampling

Answer 14

Can produce proportions that are severely skewed away from the actual proportions in the population as a whole. Examples include contacting people as they enter the library or e-mailing fraternity and sorority members.

Question 15

Biased

Answer 15

It might include too many of some kinds of people and too few of others

Question 16

Population

Answer 16

Group you want to know about

Question 17

Correlational research

Answer 17

Research that involves measuring two or more variables and assessing whether there is a relationship between them

Question 18

Experimental research

Answer 18

In social psychology, research that randomly assigns people to different conditions, or situations, and that enables researchers to make strong inferences about why a relationship exists or how different situations affect behavior

Question 19

Third variable

Answer 19

A variable, often unmeasured in correlational research, that can be the true explanation for the relationship between two other variables

Question 20

Self-selection

Answer 20

In correlational research, the situation in which the participant, rather than the researcher, determines the participant’s level of each variable (for example, whether they are married or not, or how many hours per day they spend playing video games), thereby creating the problem that it could be these unknown other properties that are responsible for the observed relationship

Question 21

What does it mean when the strength between variables is 0?

Answer 21

They have no relationship at all

Question 22

What does it mean when the strength between variables is 1 (or 1+)?

Answer 22

The higher the level on one variable, the higher the level on the other - without exception

Question 23

Longitudinal study

Answer 23

A study conducted over a long period of time with the same participants

Question 24

Independent variable

Answer 24

In experimental research, the variable that is manipulated; it is hypothesized to be the cause of a particular outcome

Question 25

Dependent variable

Answer 25

In experimental research, the variable that is measured (as opposed to manipulated); it is hypothesized to be affected by manipulation of the independent variable

Question 26

Random assignment

Answer 26

Assigning participants in experimental research to different conditions randomly, so they are as likely to be assigned to one condition as to another, with the effect of making the types of people in the different conditions roughly equal

Question 27

Control condition

Answer 27

A condition comparable to the experimental condition in every way except that it lacks the one ingredient hypothesized to produce the expected effect on the dependent variable

Question 28

Natural experiment

Answer 28

A naturally occurring event or phenomenon having somewhat different conditions that can be compared with almost as much rigor as in experiments where the investigator manipulates the conditions

Question 29

External validity

Answer 29

How well the results of a study generalize to contexts outside the conditions of the laboratory

Question 30

What study has poor external validity?

Answer 30

Milgram’s study of obedience

Question 31

What is one of the best ways to ensure external validity?

Answer 31

Conducting a field experiment

Question 32

Field experiment

Answer 32

An experiment conducted in the real world (not a lab), usually with participants who are not aware they are in a study of any kind

Question 33

What is an example of a field experiment?

Answer 33

The Cohen and Nisbett experiment

Question 34

Internal validity

Answer 34

In experimental research, confidence that only the manipulated variable could have produced the results

Question 35

What is essential for establishing internal validity?

Answer 35

Random assignment

Question 36

Reliability

Answer 36

The degree to which the particular way researchers measure a given variable is likely to yield consistent results

Question 37

Measurement validity

Answer 37

The correlation between a measure and some outcome the measure is supposed to predict

Question 38

Statistical significance

Answer 38

A measure of the probability that a given result could have occurred by chance

Question 39

Replication

Answer 39

Reproduction of research results by the original investigator or by someone else

Question 40

Open science

Answer 40

Practices such as sharing data and research materials with anyone in the broader scientific community in an effort to increase the integrity and replicability of scientific research

Question 41

Institutional review board

Answer 41

A committee that examines research proposals and makes judgements about the ethical appropriateness of the research

Question 42

Informed consent

Answer 42

A person’s signed agreement to participate in a procedure or research study after learning all of its relevant aspects

Question 43

Deception research

Answer 43

Research in which the participants are misled about the purpose of the research or the meaning of something that is done to them

Question 44

Debriefing

Answer 44

In preliminary versions of an experiment, asking participants directly if they understood the instructions, found the setup to be reasonable, and so on. In later versions, debriefing is send to educate participants about the questions being studied

Question 45

Basic science

Answer 45

Science or research concerned with trying to understand some phenomenon in its own right, with a view toward using that understanding to build valid theories about the nature of some aspect of the world

Question 46

Applied research

Answer 46

Science or research concerned with solving important real-world problems

Question 47

Intervention

Answer 47

An effort to change a person’s behavior

Question 48

After reading this chapter, do you think it's important for students of social psychology to have a basic understanding of research methods? Why or why not?

Answer 48

Although this question asks for your opinion, it's essential for students of social psychology to have a basic understanding of research methods. This knowledge contributes to your ability both to understand social psychology research (and many other kinds of empirical research) and to think critically about the science involved.

Question 49

Recall from Chapter 1 the experiment on nonconscious processing in which participants read a persuasive message in a room with either a fishy smell, an unpleasant smell that was not fishy, or no distinctive smell (Lee & Schwarz, 2012). The researchers measured the degree to which each participant was persuaded by the message and discovered that participants were least likely to be persuaded in the presence of a fishy smell (there was something "fishy" about the message). In this exper-iment, what was the independent variable? What was the dependent variable?

Answer 49

The independent variable is the variable the researcher manipulates-the hypothesized "cause." In this experiment, it was the smell participants were exposed to, and it had three levels: a fishy smell, an unpleasant smell that was not fishy, and no distinctive smell. The dependent variable is what the researcher measures-the hypothesized "effect." In this experiment, it was the degree to which the message persuaded the participants.

Question 50

Suppose a group of researchers hypothesized that finding your romantic partner physically attractive contributes to feel. ings of satisfaction in your relationship. To evaluate this hypoth-esis, the rescarchers asked 100 participants to complete a survey that included questions assessing their current relationship satisfaction, as well as ratings of how physically attractive they believed their partner to be. The researchers found that the more physically attractive participants rated their partners, the more satisfied they tended to be in their relationship. In this fictitious study, did the researchers employ a correlational or an experimental design? How do you know?

Answer 50

This study is correlational. The researchers evaluated whether a relationship exists between two naturally occurring variables: relationship satisfaction and perceived partner attractive-ness. The researchers did not randomly assign participants to levels of the independent variable, so the study cannot be considered an experiment.

Question 51

Consider the hypothetical study in question 3 again. The researchers found a relationship between perceptions of partner physical attractiveness and relationship satisfaction. With these data, can the researchers conclude that perceiving your partner as physically attractive causes you to become more satisfied in your relationship? Are there other potential explanations for these findings?

Answer 51

With these data, the researchers cannot determine a causal relationship between the two variables. For example, perceiving your partner as attractive may cause you to be more satisfied. It is also possible, however, that being in a satisfying relationship causes you to be more attracted to your partner. Perhaps a third variable, such as being a cheerful, optimistic person, causes you to be satisfied in your relationship and causes you to see your partner as attractive (the third-variable problem). To rule out these possibilities, the researchers would have to conduct an experiment.

Question 52

In Chapter 3, you will learn about research on the self, including self-esteem. Suppose the scatterplot below displays the relationship between self-esteem and academic success. How might you interpret this graph? Is the correlation between these two variables positive or negative? Try guessing the correlation coefficient.

Answer 52

The graph shows that as self-esteem increases, so does academic success. This is a positive correlation. To know the correlation exactly, we would have to evaluate these results with mathematical formulas. It would be reasonable to guess, however, that the correlation is between .30 and .50.

Question 53

6. In this textbook, you will learn about various studies evaluating social psycholegical phenomena using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which measures activation in the brain while the participant lies immobile in a large metal tube. For example, researchers may measure brain activation while participants experience a social rejection or may look at how brain activation during a stressful experience is affected if a close friend holds the participant's hand. How would you characterize the external validity of such research?

Answer 53

Research using MRI involves an unusual environment, one unlike any other a participant will experience in everyday life. For that reason, external validity is somewhat low. Unfortunately, questions about the connection between social experiences and reactivity in the brain cannot be answered by field research alone. Nevertheless, a thoughtful researcher can still set up a convincing psychological experience in a scanner.