Sue asked three of her friends after class if they thought the test they just finished taking was as easy as she thought it was. They all agreed that it was. She was surprised to find out the next day that, although she and her friends had indeed done well, a majority of the class had failed. Why shouldn’t Sue have been surprised?

The __________ is a phenomenon in which researchers’ hypotheses lead them to unintentionally bias the outcome of a study.

For many years, newspapers often mentioned the race of criminal suspects who were NOT white in the article detailing their crimes. This often led people who were not obviously biased or prejudiced to conclude that more non-whites committed crimes than whites. This is one example of __________.

With its concern on the adaptive functions provided by the various psychological characteristics, evolutionary psychology is most like what early psychological school of thought?

All types of psychology involve __________.

Once controlled research studies were conducted on the effectiveness of prefrontal lobotomies, they were discovered to be __________.

When a researcher tests his or her hypothesis, he or she is often hoping to gather information that is consistent with a particular theory. What, more specifically, allows a researcher to say that he or she has “proven” a theory?

If a researcher’s initial findings that a particular relationship or effect exists are not reliably demonstrated by other independent researchers, how are these initial findings thought of in the discipline of psychology?

The __________ variable is what the researcher “manipulates,” or varies, in an experimental study.

Dr. Andorski regularly looks at the Internet to see what his patients are saying about him. When a patient posts a positive, complimentary review, the doctor reads it intently and takes note of the comments. Dr. Andorski tends to ignore critical reviews and just assume that those patients don’t know what they are talking about. As a result of this __________, Dr. Andorski tends to miss good feedback that could make him a better physician.