Red sways men.The way to a man’s heart on Valentine’s Day? Wear red. This ScienCentral News video explains there is scientific evidence for the attractive power of red. Interviewee: Daniela Niesta, University of Rochester Copyright © ScienCentral, Inc. Use the information on pages 43–47 of your textbook to answer a few questions: |
| 1. Does this research meet the standard of being an experiment? Based on pages 43–46, explain your reasoning. |
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| 2. What is the independent variable in this study? |
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| 3. What was the dependent variable in this study? Dr. Niesta mentions two ways they measured this variable. What are they? |
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| 4. The researchers asked college students to do the ratings, but not all college students were eligible to be in the study. What was the characteristic of the college student that determined eligibility to be in the sample? |
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| 5. Obviously, everybody doesn’t find the same people to be attractive. If some women were shown in red and other women were shown in blue, the women in red might simply have been more attractive, and that would be a confound (page 45). How did the researchers handle this problem? |
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| 6. The video says that different men viewed the pictures of women in red and the pictures of women in blue. Although we are not told how the participants were assigned to one or the other of these groups, what would be the best way to assign participants to groups and why? Base your answer on the discussion on pages 46–47. |
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Threat and politics: Are political views rooted in biology?If you got into an argument this election season with someone who supported the other guy, chances are neither of you won. Maybe it’s not just stubbornness. New research has found that people with strong opposing political views might also have very different physical responses to threat. Interviewee: John Hibbing, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Copyright © ScienCentral, Inc. |
| 7. On page 37 of your textbook, you are told that there are “three main types of designs” for research studies. Using the discussion on pages 37–44, which type of design do you think fits Dr. Hibbing’s study? What characteristics of the study make it fit this design? |
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| 8. On pages 58–61, there is a section about how “Body/Brain Activity Can Be Measured Directly.” The researchers in this study used which of the techniques discussed in this section? |
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| 9. Dr. Hibbing wanted to find the relationship between certain physical responses and people’s beliefs. How did he measure their beliefs? |
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| 10. The video explains what Dr. Hibbing published a paper in the journal Science to summarize the results. Below you see three scatterplots (see description on page 69). Which of the three scatterplots below best fits the results as explained in the video? 
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| 11. Based on page 70 of your textbook, what is the name for this kind of relationship? |
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Baby Scent and DadsEven the toughest dads can get warm and nurturing when it comes to their kids. Now researchers studying monkeys have found that’s not just an attitude, it’s a physical response to the mere scent of their infant. This ScienCentral News video explains. Interviewee: Toni Ziegler, Wisconsin National Primate Research Center Copyright © ScienCentral, Inc. Relationships between parents and their children are complex and difficult to study in controlled (laboratory) conditions. In this video, marmoset monkeys are used to study the responses of male monkeys to the scent of baby marmosets. This gives them much more control over the situation, but is the study valuable for understanding humans? |
| 12. What characteristics of human and marmoset social relationships could be used to argue that this comparison between the two species is valid? |
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| 13. What hormone discussed in this video found in marmoset monkeys is also found in human males? |
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| 14. The researchers had the father smell his own baby’s scent and they found that the hormone from question 2 was reduced. But how could they be sure that it was the father-child relationship that was critical and not that this particular smell reduces the hormone level regardless of relationship? Be sure you answer based on the actual study as reported in the video. |
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| 15. In Chapter 2, there is a section titled “Research with Animals Provides Important Data.” That section explains “one central assumption underlying . . . behaviorism.” Identify that assumption and explain whether or not you believe the research reported in that video supports this central assumption of behaviorism. |
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Scared SlowAfter a car accident or other scary experience many people report feeling like the event happened in slow motion. One neuroscientist set out to test whether our brains really see things slowed down in response to fear. This ScienCentral News story shows why he had to scare people in order to do the experiment. Interviewee: David Eagleman, Baylor College of Medicine Copyright © ScienCentral, Inc. |
| 16. The researchers could have approached this problem by simply asking people if, in their own experience, time seems to slow down. Using some of the ideas from pages 55–57 (“Asking Takes a More Active Approach”), what might be some of the limitations of the “asking” approach? |
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| 17. Look at the discussion of validity on page 66. One problem that can reduce the validity of a study is if the researcher really isn’t studying the experience he or she wants to study. Here, the study would be invalidated if people really weren’t afraid. Based on what you see in the video, do you think that—at least insofar as the task is concerned—this study has the potential to produce valid data? Explain your response. |
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| 18. The researchers used a “response performance measure,” as described on pages 57-58. There are three types of response performance measure described there. Which of those three types was used in this experiment? |
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| 19. All research in universities must be approved by an IRB (see page 65). Based on your reading of pages 62–65 (“There Are Ethical Issues to Consider”), are there any ethical issues that the IRB should have discussed when considering whether or not to approve this study? How would you rate the study’s risk/benefit ratio? |
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