Researchers would like to compare exercise and meditation to see which is more effective in reducing stress. One hundred people who suffer from high stress volunteer to participate in a study for ten weeks. These volunteers will either participate in a 10-week exercise program or a 10-week meditation program. The researchers must decide whether to randomly assign the volunteers to the two programs, or allow them to choose which program to be in. Which one of the following is the main advantage of randomly assigning participants to the two programs rather than allowing them to choose? A. In order for the results of an experiment to be deemed "statistically significant," random assignment must be used. B. The participants are more likely to stick with the program for the full 10 weeks if random assignment is used. C. Random assignment will ensure that the results of an experiment are double-blind. D. Lurking variables, such as experience with exercise or past practice of meditation, should be approximately equal for the two groups if random assignment is used. E. If random assignment is not used, the researchers will end up with something called a placebo effect. 2. If you name a cow and regularly mention the cow's name when you are talking to it, will the cow yield more milk than a cow who is not talked to by name? To investigate this, researchers surveyed 375 dairy farmers in the United Kingdom. They asked each farmer if they regularly refer to their cows by name. They also asked each farmer how much milk their cows typically produce each year. The researchers found that cows who were regularly referred to by name produced an average of 500 more pints per year of milk than cows who were not regularly referred to by name. Based on this information, which of the following statements is correct? A. The explanatory variable is the amount of milk produced by the cows. B. The individuals are the farmers. C. This study is an example of an experiment. D. The response variable is the name of the cow. E. None of the above answer options are correct statements. 3. Can the type of music that is playing in the background have an impact on the taste of wine? In an experiment conducted in Scotland, 200 adults volunteered to take part in a wine tasting. Each adult was assigned at random to one of four rooms. The rooms all looked the same, but a different type of music (classical, country, rap, or rock and roll) was being played in each room. While in their assigned room, the adults were asked to taste and rate a glass of cabernet sauvignon wine. Those adults who were listening to classical music while tasting the wine rated the wine more positively than adults listening to country, rap, or rock and roll music. How many treatments does this experiment have? A. One B. Two C. Three D. Four E. More than four 4. Patients who are suffering from Alzheimer's disease are randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group is given a new drug that must be taken once each day. The other group is given a sugar pill that must be taken once each day. The sugar pill looks like the new drug but does not contain the active ingredient found in the new drug. After six months of taking either the new drug or the sugar pill, the patients are asked to complete a memory test. Those patients who took the new drug performed better on this test than those who took the sugar pill. We'd call the sugar pill a(n) A. individual. B. dependent variable. C. placebo. D. subject. E. lurking variable. 5. A financial organization conducts an extensive study on credit card usage among college students. They do this by administering a survey to a large random sample of college students. Students are asked, among other things, whether or not they have a part-time or a full-time job, and whether or not they have at least one credit card. If the financial organization believes that whether or not a college student has a part-time or a full-time job influences whether or not that student has at least one credit card, which one of the following statements is correct? A. Whether or not a college student has a part-time or a full-time job would be the response variable. B. Whether or not a college student has a part-time or a full-time job would be the explanatory variable. C. Whether or not a college student has a part-time or a full-time job would be a lurking variable. D. Whether or not a college student has at least one credit card would be a lurking variable. E. None of the above answers are correct. 6. Can a nicotine patch help a person quit smoking? Doctors at Rampart General Hospital design and conduct a study involving 240 smokers. All smokers are between the ages of 20 and 65 years, and all volunteered to take part in the study. Each smoker was randomly assigned to wear either a nicotine patch or a dummy patch for eight weeks. The dummy patch looked and felt just like the nicotine patch but did not deliver any nicotine to the body. After the eight-week period ended, it was observed that 52% of the smokers who wore the nicotine patch had quit smoking, and 50% of the smokers who wore the dummy patch had quit smoking. The fact that many smokers responded to the dummy treatment in this experiment is an example of the A. placebo effect. B. confound effect. C. comparison effect. D. double-blind effect. E. nonresponse effect. 7. Return to Question 6. Suppose you learn that the experiment was double-blind. What does this mean? A. The doctors who were conducting the study were told which treatment each subject received, but they were forbidden to share this information with the subjects. B. The subjects were told which treatment they received, but they were forbidden to share this information with the doctors who were conducting the study. C. Neither the subjects nor the doctors who were conducting the study were allowed to talk publicly about their involvement in the study. D. Neither the subjects nor the doctors who were conducting the study knew who received which treatment. E. All individual data recorded as part of the study was kept confidential. 8. Suppose you learn about a study in which the sample was randomly selected from the population, but the subjects were not randomly assigned to treatments. This means that A. it is possible to generalize the results of the study from the sample to the population, but we cannot draw conclusions about causality. B. it is possible to generalize the results of the study from the sample to the population, and it is also possible to draw conclusions about causality. C. we cannot generalize the results of the study from the sample to the population, but it is possible to draw conclusions about causality. D. we cannot generalize the results of the study from the sample to the population, and we also cannot draw conclusions about causality. E. we have what is called statistical significance. 9. Confounding often defeats attempts to show that one variable causes changes in another variable. Confounding means that A. the study in question has no explanatory variable. B. we don't know which variable is the response variable or which variable is the explanatory variable. C. we would get very different results if we repeated the study many times. D. the researchers were unable to select a random sample of study participants. E. the effects of several variables are mixed up, so we cannot say which is causing the response. 10. Consider the following five research questions. For which question would it be impossible to conduct a randomized comparative experiment? A. Does diet have an effect on weight loss? B. Can smelling the aroma of coffee while studying influence the amount of information that is remembered? C. Does a person's love for sports affect the number of sporting events that person attends? D. Can the use of St. John's Wort lessen the severity of depression? E. Does the background color in a computer game affect a player's reaction time during the game? 2