In one research project, a scientist gave students subliminal cassette tapes and told them to play them for 2 months. After 2 months, she assessed whether the tapes helped the self-esteem of her participants and found that self-esteem had indeed risen! While she may have attributed this to the tapes, it is also possible that those students may have found college life to be manageable and thus experienced an increase in self-esteem for that reason. This demonstrates which principle of critical thinking?

Which of the following words is probably the best synonym for the mean of a data set?

How does conducting a double-blind study attempt to remedy the experimenter expectancy effect?

Coach Ezell wants her players to minimize their anxiety before playing important conference games. At the halfway point in the season, instead of the dance music she normally had playing in the locker room, she switches to classical music before the games. What is the dependent variable in this scenario?

A medical doctor believes that the presence of aromatherapy will reduce the anxiety of first-time mothers-to-be during labor and will increase their reported satisfaction with their care at his hospital. He randomly assigns mothers to give birth in a room either with or without aromatherapy. What is the independent variable in this example?

Suppose Dr. Honeydew is proposing a theory of attraction that posits that “Opposites Attract.” Most of the available evidence suggests that “Birds of a Feather Flock Together” (i.e., similarities attract) rather than opposites attract. For his theory to be accepted by the scientific community, Dr. Honeydew will need to __________.

When assessing patients’ personalities using an “ink blot” test that she created, Dr. Hardcastle is gaining confidence in the test’s reliability. Which of the following is likely to be happening?

In one of the most shameful violations of research ethics to date, nearly 400 African American men from __________ were not informed that they had been diagnosed with syphilis and were not provided with available, effective treatments for this illness.

When someone experiences harm based solely on the expectation that they will experience harm, this is called the __________ effect.

What is one take home message from the discussion of autism and facilitated communication?