Psychological Research Academic Essay

Limits of everyday reasoning and methods of psychological research Academic Essay

The correlation is positive. The cigarettes increase anxiety and also the higher the anxiety the more cigs the participants smoke.

Speaking at a college graduation ceremony, Professor Robson compared college graduates with adults who are less educated. She correctly noted that college graduates pay more taxes, vote more frequently, engage in more volunteer activities in their communities, and are less likely to go to jail than less-educated adults. The professor concluded that colleges obviously do great things for society. How might you reasonably challenge the way the professor reached her conclusion?

 She should do research on people who haven’t gone to college or to a university. There are people who can’t afford to go to college and get education. College students also often go into debt and some won’t finish school because they keep getting deeper into debt. I think she should also do more research on the people who are less educated because not all of them turn out to be bad. Also, correlations is not causation.

3. Design an experiment to test whether alcohol consumption influences people’s tendency to become socially aggressive. In your experimental design, identify the following experimental elements and procedures: hypothesis, random sampling, random assignment, experimental group, control group, independent variable, dependent variable, ethics in research.

 Hypothesis- If alcohol is consumed, then there is an increase in people’s tendency to be socially aggressive.

Independent variable- Alcohol being consumed

Dependent variable- Amount of people being aggressive.

Experiment- Random sample 20 men and women and split then into 2 groups. One group will get alcohol, the experimental group, and the other will remain sober. Put then in the same setting at the same time at day and observe how they react.

4. Five students received the following test scores: 7, 11, 5, 6, and 11. Calculate the mode, median, mean, and range of this distribution of scores. Which measure of central tendency would change the most if an additional test score of 2 was included in the distribution?

Mean- 8

 Median 7

Mode- 11

Range-6

The median would change the most.

5. A researcher wants to investigate people’s attitudes toward violence on television. Explain which of the following research methods the researcher should use and why: case study, survey, or naturalistic observation.

 This research question is best investigated with the survey because it is the only method in this list that can gather information about a sample of attitudes toward violence on television. A case study could only gather data about one person’s attitude, and a naturalistic observation study couldn’t gather data about attitudes.

6. A researcher gathered evidence about the number of times different age students consult the internet to check facts for research reports. Participants between 10 and 15 years old consulted the internet an average of 10.1 times during the research report, and participants between 15 and 25 years old averaged 7.3 times. Explain what “statistical significance” would mean in the context of this study.

Statistical significance would mean the age the person is and the number of times they checked the internet to make sure the facts are correct.