SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY TEST PAPER QUESTIONS AND
ANSWERS 2025/2026 ALL RATED A+
✔✔observational research: Addressing Limitations - ✔✔-To address participant
reactivity:
-Participation plus observation
-E.g., Leon Festinger infiltrated the doomsday cult the Seekers
=However, ethical issues especially if participants are not anonymous and behavior is
not public
-To address subjectivity of researcher:
-Multiple observers
- Interrater
- Level agreement between 2+ people who independently observe and/or code a set of
data
✔✔correlational research (correlation does not cause causation) - ✔✔-identifying the
relationship between variable
- examples: survey method
✔✔Survey Methods - ✔✔- most often given to groups of people
e.g. COVID survivors
- Strengths: Can have many participants, Can collect information on many variables
- Limitations: Question effects, samples often not representative of population, response
not always truthful (social desirability)
✔✔Question effects - ✔✔Variations in wording can have an effect on responses, need
specificity and variety in responses
✔✔Representative Samples - ✔✔Is your sample representative of the larger
population?
One solution: Random sampling/selection
Disadvantage: Difficult
- often rely on convenience samples
- The college sophomore problem
- the best way to get a representative sample?
Examples: Questions about presidential election (only polled people w/ telephones or
cars, who tended to be Republican) - Literary Digest
✔✔the college sophomore problem - ✔✔an external validity (not representative sample)
problem that results from using mainly college sophomores as subjects in research
studies
,✔✔correlation coefficient (r) - ✔✔a statistical measure that indicates the extent to which
two factors vary together
- the sign indicates the direction of relationship
- positive = both variables move in the same direction ( x increases and y increases)
- negative = variables move in opposite direction (x increases, y decreases)
✔✔Pearson correlation coefficient - ✔✔The most common statistical measure of the
strength of linear relationships among variables
- other explanations for correlation:
- third variable
- reverse direction
✔✔Experiments - ✔✔- Random assignment
- Manipulation of IV
- Measure of the outcome DV
- Control over the research environment
- Potential to assess causation
✔✔Independent Variable (IV) - ✔✔the variable that a researcher actively manipulates,
and if the hypothesis is correct, will cause a change in the dependent variable
✔✔dependent variable - ✔✔The outcome factor; the variable that may change in
response to manipulations of the independent variable.
Variable the researcher measures
✔✔experimental research - ✔✔establishing causality requires control over the
environment
Control for factors that affect the DV, that are not the IV
Prevent other conditions/ factors from affecting the outcomes of the experiment (e.g.
number of hours slept before the experiment, past behavior)
✔✔Operationalization - ✔✔In order to manipulate and measure variables we need,
operational definitions: specific procedures for manipulating or measuring a conceptual
variable
What is the definition for this variable and how are you going to measure it?
✔✔random assignment - ✔✔participants have equal chance of being in any
experimental condition
ensures that differences in participants personalities or backgrounds are distributed
evenly across conditions (that their differences are not the third varibale causing the
change)
, ✔✔Beware of Confounding Variables - ✔✔anything that could cause change to the DV
that is not the IV
- preexisting variables that might affect the result (intelligence, hunger)
✔✔experimenter control - ✔✔Blind Studies:
- Single Blind: Participant does not know which group they are in
- Double Blind: Participant NOR researcher knows which group subject the participant is
in (until after DV is measured)
-> avoid biasis, hypothesis influences, much easier w/ todays technology
- Triple Blind: Participant, researcher and data analysist are unaware of P condition
✔✔Experimenter expectancy effects - ✔✔the effects produced when an experimenter's
expectations about the results of an experiment affect his or her behavior toward a
participant and thereby influence the participant's responses
✔✔Between-subject Design - ✔✔each participant is exposed to only one condition
the results from each group are then compared to each other to examine differences
and thus effect of the IV
✔✔within-subjects design - ✔✔participants are exposed to all levels of the independent
variable
Strengths: easy to control for individual differences
do not have to recruit more participants
✔✔Experimental Method: Strengths and Limitations - ✔✔Strengths: Researcher control;
Can study causal relationships
Limitations: Some variables cannot be manipulated; It is unethical to manipulate some
variables; Controlled procedures may lack realism
✔✔Evaluating Experimental Research: Validity - ✔✔- Internal Validity:
the extend to which we can draw conclusions about cause & effect
- Good design -> Random assignment & Control for cofounds
-External Validity:
the extent to which the findings generalize to other people, settings, IVs & DVs
- Representative Sample, Replication, Field Experiments
-generalization across situations & generalization across people
✔✔Random sampling - ✔✔- When is it used: When choosing people to be in the study
- Purpose: To be able to generalize to the population
- Importance: External Validity
ANSWERS 2025/2026 ALL RATED A+
✔✔observational research: Addressing Limitations - ✔✔-To address participant
reactivity:
-Participation plus observation
-E.g., Leon Festinger infiltrated the doomsday cult the Seekers
=However, ethical issues especially if participants are not anonymous and behavior is
not public
-To address subjectivity of researcher:
-Multiple observers
- Interrater
- Level agreement between 2+ people who independently observe and/or code a set of
data
✔✔correlational research (correlation does not cause causation) - ✔✔-identifying the
relationship between variable
- examples: survey method
✔✔Survey Methods - ✔✔- most often given to groups of people
e.g. COVID survivors
- Strengths: Can have many participants, Can collect information on many variables
- Limitations: Question effects, samples often not representative of population, response
not always truthful (social desirability)
✔✔Question effects - ✔✔Variations in wording can have an effect on responses, need
specificity and variety in responses
✔✔Representative Samples - ✔✔Is your sample representative of the larger
population?
One solution: Random sampling/selection
Disadvantage: Difficult
- often rely on convenience samples
- The college sophomore problem
- the best way to get a representative sample?
Examples: Questions about presidential election (only polled people w/ telephones or
cars, who tended to be Republican) - Literary Digest
✔✔the college sophomore problem - ✔✔an external validity (not representative sample)
problem that results from using mainly college sophomores as subjects in research
studies
,✔✔correlation coefficient (r) - ✔✔a statistical measure that indicates the extent to which
two factors vary together
- the sign indicates the direction of relationship
- positive = both variables move in the same direction ( x increases and y increases)
- negative = variables move in opposite direction (x increases, y decreases)
✔✔Pearson correlation coefficient - ✔✔The most common statistical measure of the
strength of linear relationships among variables
- other explanations for correlation:
- third variable
- reverse direction
✔✔Experiments - ✔✔- Random assignment
- Manipulation of IV
- Measure of the outcome DV
- Control over the research environment
- Potential to assess causation
✔✔Independent Variable (IV) - ✔✔the variable that a researcher actively manipulates,
and if the hypothesis is correct, will cause a change in the dependent variable
✔✔dependent variable - ✔✔The outcome factor; the variable that may change in
response to manipulations of the independent variable.
Variable the researcher measures
✔✔experimental research - ✔✔establishing causality requires control over the
environment
Control for factors that affect the DV, that are not the IV
Prevent other conditions/ factors from affecting the outcomes of the experiment (e.g.
number of hours slept before the experiment, past behavior)
✔✔Operationalization - ✔✔In order to manipulate and measure variables we need,
operational definitions: specific procedures for manipulating or measuring a conceptual
variable
What is the definition for this variable and how are you going to measure it?
✔✔random assignment - ✔✔participants have equal chance of being in any
experimental condition
ensures that differences in participants personalities or backgrounds are distributed
evenly across conditions (that their differences are not the third varibale causing the
change)
, ✔✔Beware of Confounding Variables - ✔✔anything that could cause change to the DV
that is not the IV
- preexisting variables that might affect the result (intelligence, hunger)
✔✔experimenter control - ✔✔Blind Studies:
- Single Blind: Participant does not know which group they are in
- Double Blind: Participant NOR researcher knows which group subject the participant is
in (until after DV is measured)
-> avoid biasis, hypothesis influences, much easier w/ todays technology
- Triple Blind: Participant, researcher and data analysist are unaware of P condition
✔✔Experimenter expectancy effects - ✔✔the effects produced when an experimenter's
expectations about the results of an experiment affect his or her behavior toward a
participant and thereby influence the participant's responses
✔✔Between-subject Design - ✔✔each participant is exposed to only one condition
the results from each group are then compared to each other to examine differences
and thus effect of the IV
✔✔within-subjects design - ✔✔participants are exposed to all levels of the independent
variable
Strengths: easy to control for individual differences
do not have to recruit more participants
✔✔Experimental Method: Strengths and Limitations - ✔✔Strengths: Researcher control;
Can study causal relationships
Limitations: Some variables cannot be manipulated; It is unethical to manipulate some
variables; Controlled procedures may lack realism
✔✔Evaluating Experimental Research: Validity - ✔✔- Internal Validity:
the extend to which we can draw conclusions about cause & effect
- Good design -> Random assignment & Control for cofounds
-External Validity:
the extent to which the findings generalize to other people, settings, IVs & DVs
- Representative Sample, Replication, Field Experiments
-generalization across situations & generalization across people
✔✔Random sampling - ✔✔- When is it used: When choosing people to be in the study
- Purpose: To be able to generalize to the population
- Importance: External Validity
