Experimental Psychology – exam 1

Experimental Psychology

Instructions:-

Writer Gets to pick 5 out of the 8 questions to answer. The notes and chapters are all uploaded. As well as all 8 Exam questions. THE WRITER HAS TO CHOOSE 5 OUT OF 8 QUESTIONS. Please also if the writer could look at the question from a qualitative mathematical stand point. That would be good.

Experimental Psychology – exam 1
Pick 5 of the following

Provide a thorough answer for the following questions, do not limit your answer to just the specific points. Where applicable, provide empirical evidence for your answers!

You will need to answer the question completely and thoroughly. Your exam should be typed, double-spaced, and follow APA format. Make sure all material is cited appropriately to avoid any illusion of impropriety.

Good Luck!

Chapter 2: Where to Start

Think of at least five “commonsense” sayings about behavior (e.g., “Spare the rod, spoil the child”; “Like father, like son”; “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”). For each, develop a hypothesis that is suggested by the saying and a prediction that follows from the hypothesis. (Based on Gardener, 1988.)

For example, a good answer would be: A proverb or commonsense saying is “opposites attract” – the general hypothesis is that people with very different personality traits are more attracted to one another than are people with similar characteristics. A specific prediction might be that dating couples in which one person is highly dominant and the other low on dominance will be more attracted to one another than couples in which both people are similar in dominance. A list of such proverbs may be found at this website: http://www.corsinet.com/braincandy/proverb.html

Chapter 3: Ethics

Consider the following experiment, similar to one that was conducted by Smith, Lingle, and Brock (1978). Each participant interacted for an hour with another person who was actually an accomplice. After the interaction, both persons agreed to return one week later for another session with each other. When the real participants returned, they were informed that the person they had met the week before had died. The researchers then measured reactions to the death of the person.

a. Discuss the ethical issues raised by the experiment.
b. Would the experiment violate the guidelines articulated in APA Ethical Standard 8 dealing with research with human participants? In what ways?
c. What alternative methods for studying this problem (reactions to death) might you suggest?
d. Would your reactions to this study be different if the participants had played with an infant and then later been told that the infant had died?

A good answer should include discussion of ethical issues regarding psychological stress and the use of deception. The answer should also include a discussion of an alternative method in examination of the topic.

Chapter 4: Fundamental Research Issues

The limitations of nonexperimental research were dramatically brought to the attention of the public by the results of an experiment on the effects of postmenopausal hormone replacement therapy (part of a larger study known as the Women’s Health Initiative). An experiment is called a clinical trial in medical research. In the clinical trial, participants were randomly assigned to receive either the hormone replacement therapy or a placebo (no hormones). The hormone replacement therapy consisted of estrogen plus progestin. In 2002, the investigators concluded that women taking the hormone replacement therapy had a higher incidence of heart disease than did women in the placebo (no hormone) condition. At that point, they stopped the experiment and informed both the participants and the public that they should talk with their physicians about the advisability of this therapy. The finding dramatically contrasted with the results of nonexperimental research in which women taking hormones had a lower incidence of heart disease; in theses studies, researchers compared women who were already taking the hormones with women not taking hormones. Why do you think the results were different with the experimental research and the nonexperimental research?

A good answer should include the differences between experimental and non-experimental research. Sampling procedures, blind vs. non-blind experiments and include this example to support your answers. Also include a discussion of how using already existing groups affects a researcher’s work. What could have made this a better experiment?

Chapter 5: Reliability / validity

Define reliability and validity (including the various types of each as well as a self-generated example of each type) and then discuss how to make measures more reliable and more valid. If you had to pick only having one (reliability or validity) which would you pick and why?

Here are a number of references to variables. For each, identify whether a nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio scale is being used.

a) The temperature in cities throughout the country that are listed in most newspapers.
b) The birth weights of babies who were born at Wilshire General Hospital last week.
c) The number of hours you spent studying each day during the past week.
d) The amount of tip left after each meal at a restaurant during a 3 hour period.
e) The number of votes received by the Republican and Democratic candidates for Congress in your district in the last election.
f) The brand listed third in a consumer magazine’s ranking of DVD players.
g) Connecticut’s listing as the number one team in a poll of sportswriters, with Kansas listed number two.
h) Your friend’s score of logic on an intelligence test.
i) Yellow walls in your office and white walls in your boss’s office.
j) The type of programming on each radio station in your city (e.g., KPSY plays jazz, KSOC is talk radio).
k) Ethnic group categories of people in a neighborhood.

Chapter 6: Observational Methods

Some questions are more readily answered using quantitative techniques, and others are best addressed through qualitative techniques or a combination of both approaches. Begin with a brief definition and self-generated example of the differences between quantitative and qualitative research.

Suppose you are interested in how a parent’s alcoholism affects the life of an adolescent. Develop a research question best answered using quantitative techniques and another research question better suited to qualitative techniques.

In 2-3 paragraphs design a qualitative study that would address this including sampling and the types of research questions asked. And then In 2-3 paragraphs design a quantitative study that would address this including sampling and the types of research questions asked.

Chapter 7: Asking People About Themselves: Survey Research

In the Steinberg and Dornbusch (1991) study on teenage employment (see Figure 7.1), longer work hours were associated with lower grade point averages. Can you conclude that working longer hours causes lower grades? Why or why not? How might you expand the scope of this investigation through a panel study?

If you were to design a survey study looking at this topic what would you do?

Chapter 8: Experimental Design

Design an experiment to test the hypothesis that single-gender math classes are beneficial to adolescent females. Operationally define both the independent and dependent variables. Your experiment should have two groups and use the matched pairs procedure. Make a good case for your selection of the matching variable. In addition, defend your choice of either a posttest-only design or a pretest-posttest design. Should you use a repeated measures design? Why or why not?

Solution