STUDY GUIDE
Part 1.
1. Define hindsight bias.
2. Your friend’s father is watching a football game. If a gutsy play works, he credits the coach for
being good; if a gutsy play fails, he faults the coach for a stupid play. How does this scenario
illustrate the hindsight bias?
3. Define overconfidence.
4. How does hindsight bias and overconfidence affect our perception of random events?
5. What are the three main components of the scientific attitude?
6. Why is skepticism important in scientific psychology and in our lives?
7. What is critical thinking? Why is it important to practice in scientific psychology and in our
lives?
Read the situations below and identify whether the phenomenon of hindsight bias (HB),
overconfidence (O), or the tendency to perceive patterns in random events (P) is at work
and explain why.
8. Toni notices that the last four times she has been to the grocery store she has scored a
parking place right up front! She knows she is on a lucky streak!
9. Bruce is often called a Monday Morning Quarterback by his friends for saying he knew the
Redskins should have put the rookie wide receiver in last Sunday’s game.
10. Janelle, a senior in high school with a 3.0 GPA, is filling out her college applications. When
asked by her friends and family what schools she is applying to and what schools she thinks
she will get into, she lists Princeton, Yale, Harvard and Stanford and says she thinks she will get
into all of them, except maybe for Harvard, which is her reach school.
11. Shreya and Steve break up. Their classmate, Iram, tells her mother that she knew all along
the two of them were not going to make it.
12. Fiona, a student in your class, is certain the instructor does not like her. For the last three
class sessions, the instructor has not called on her to answer a question, even though her hand
was raised.
Part 2.
1. Complete the table below by providing definitions and examples of the following terms.
Term Definition Example
theory
hypothesis
operational definition
replication
case study
naturalistic
observation
survey
sampling bias
population
random sample
2. Why is it essential to operationally define variables in a study?
3. Why is replication important to the research process?
4. Identify the independent and dependent variables for the following situations:
● Sleep improves memory
○ IV: DV:
● Smiling more increases the number of friends a person has
○ IV: DV:
● A person will have a lower grade in class depending on how frequently they talk out of
turn.
○ IV: DV:
5. Complete the table below on the benefits, drawbacks, and key characteristics of descriptive
research methods.
Descriptive Benefits Drawbacks Key Characteristics
Research Method
Case Study
Naturalistic
Observation
Survey
6. Why are descriptive research methods limited in their ability to explain behavior?
7. How can the phrasing of a research question affect the responses provided?
8. How would you guarantee a random sample of participants if you were surveying
● college students
● restaurant owners
● music listeners
Part 3
1. List two examples of a positive correlation between two variables. The first example should
be from the text and the second example should be from your life.
2. List two examples of a negative correlation between two variables. The first example should
be from the text and the second example should be from your life.
3. How is a scatterplot used to represent correlations between two variables?
4. The text author refers to a New York Times headline that states U.S. counties with high gun
ownership rates tend to have high murder rates.
Is this a positive or negative correlation?
Why is the correlation positive or negative?
5. Draw a scatterplot below that would support your answer in #4. Be sure to correctly label the
x- and y-axis.
6. The text states that self-esteem correlates negatively with depression.
● Which of the following scatterplots could support that statement? Why?
● Based on the two scatterplots above, is it possible to say that low self-esteem causes
depression? Why or why not?
● Based on the two scatterplots above, is it possible to say that depression causes low
self-esteem? Why or why not?
● What point do you need to keep in mind regarding correlation and causation?
● What is an illusory correlation? Give a real-life example of an illusory correlation.
7. Why should researchers (and people in general) be careful of illusory correlations?
8. Two studies on the relationship between breast-fed babies and intelligence scores or social
class. Working within that scenario, develop a hypothesis and show how the following terms
would apply in an original experimental design that you create.
● Hypothesis
● Experimental group
● Control group
● Random assignment
● Double-blind procedure
● Placebo effect
● Independent variable
● Dependent variable
● Confounding variable(s)
9. A high school track coach is interested in the impact of carbohydrate consumption on running
times in her athletes. She asks half of her team to eat a huge pasta dinner the night before a big
meet and asks the other half of her team to eat a large steak and no carbohydrates. Identify the
variables in this experiment.
● Independent variable:
● Dependent variable:
10. Read the pairs of variables below and predict whether the correlation would likely be
positive (P) or negative (N):
● The number of fast food restaurants: the obesity rate in the U.S.
● The average U.S. household income: annual gross profit reported by U.S. retailers.
● The illiteracy rate: the presence of Head Start or early intervention education programs.
● The number of hours spent commuting to and from work; the amount of dinners cooked
at home from scratch.
● Hours spent learning a skill; proficiency in the skill. 2
11. Give an example and an explanation of an illusory correlation in your life.
Part 4
1. What purpose does each of the measures of central tendency serve?
● mean
● median
● mode
2. What effect do outliers have on the following measures of central tendency?
● mean
● median
● mode
3. Describe how to calculate the range of a set of data.
4. Calculate the range for the following set: 29, 39, 40, 52, 55, 80.
5. What does standard deviation tell us?