TEST BANK FOR ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY, 10TH EDITION, RONALD J. COMER, JONATHAN S. COMER

Name: __________________________ Date: _____________ 1. What are important differences between case studies and single-subject experiments? Describe the advantages and disadvantages of each. 2. Which steps would a researcher take to analyze the collected data from a correlational study to determine whether a correlation exists and whether the correlation is positive or negative? Include in your answer a description of each type of correlation: unrelated, positive, and negative. 3. A major shortcoming of a correlational study is that even when a correlation between two variables is statistically significant, one cannot infer causation. For example, a significant correlation exists between life stress and depression, yet one cannot say for sure that life stress causes depression. Given this major shortcoming, what are some specific reasons one might still wish to conduct a correlational study, as opposed to an experimental study (from which one might infer a cause-and-effect relationship)? 4. Suppose a researcher found a strong positive correlation between college grade-point average (GPA) and self-esteem. Describe three possible and distinctly different causal explanations for this relationship. 5. Assume that a researcher wishes to do research designed to pinpoint early childhood events related to later development of eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa. Which type of investigation might the researcher use? What would be potential strengths and weaknesses of that type of investigation? Are there any ethical concerns the researcher ought to address? 6. A researcher is designing a study to compare school achievement in children whose mothers drank alcohol during pregnancy and children whose mothers did not drink alcohol during pregnancy. Briefly describe two ways the researcher could ensure that the study has good internal validity and two ways the researcher could ensure that it has good external validity. 7. Design an experiment to test the hypothesis that older women who take estrogen are less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease. Be sure to identify the control group, experimental group, independent variable, and dependent variable. Page 2 8. A researcher wishes to use experimentation to study the effects of stress on the development of abnormal behaviors. Describe how the researcher might conduct that study, using either natural or analogue experiments. 9. Symptom-exacerbation studies and medication-withdrawal studies may be used to evaluate antipsychotic drug treatments for patients with psychoses. Which ethical issues are involved in each of these studies? Given these concerns, should researchers be allowed to perform these types of studies? Why or why not? 10. Which challenges might clinical scientists conducting research in abnormal psychology encounter? Briefly describe two challenges. Support your answers with examples of each. 11. Sound research in abnormal psychology uses the _____ method. 12. Clinical researchers form general, or _____, knowledge about the nature, causes, and treatments of abnormal behavior. 13. Clinical practitioners seek a(n) _____ understanding of human behavior. 14. A tentative explanation or hunch that provides a basis for study is a(n) _____. 15. The study design in which a researcher meets several times with a single research participant and interviews, tests, and physically evaluates that person to develop a detailed description of the person's life and psychological problem is called a(n) _____. 16. A study has _____ when it controls for all variables except the ones being investigated. 17. An investigation is said to have _____ when findings of the investigation can be generalized beyond the immediate study. 18. The direction of magnitude is expressed by the statistical term called the ___