Health Psychology: Straub Chapter 2
Do this assignment by yourself. You may write answers verbatim from the text if you
wish. Answers MUST be typed and double spaced.
1. _______ is a form of faculty reasoning where our expectations prevent us from
seeing alternative explanations for our observations.
2. “The scientific study of the frequency, distribution, and causes of a particular disease
or other health outcome in a population” is the definition for ___________
3. What data collection methods fall under the category of descriptive studies?
4. One “serious disadvantage” of the case study method is ____.
5. The correlation coefficient “r” is a statistical measure of _______. It can take on any
value between ___ and ___.
6. A positive r means _____. A negative r means ____.
The absolute value of the correlation coefficient indicates ____.
7. Even when two variables are strongly correlated, one does not necessarily _____.
8. Experiments test hypotheses by systematically manipulating (varying) one or more
_______ while looking for changes in one or more ______ and controlling
(holding constant) all other variables.
9. A quasi-experiment is not a true experiment because _____. Therefore, no causeand-effect conclusions can be drawn.
10. Define cross-sectional study, and longitudinal study.
11. Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies are used to study the effect of ______.
12. Define heritability .
13. What two principal methods are used to estimate heritability?
14. Single blind and double blind studies are used to reduce the possibility of ___(hint:
you’ll need to backtrack in your book a bit to find the answer).
15. _____ is a technique used to ensure that members of the different groups in an
experiment are similar in every important aspect except their exposure to the
independent variable. (hint: you’ll need to backtrack in your book again, sorry ).
16. _____refers to the number of cases of an unfavorable health outcome in a given
group of people at a given time.
_____ refers to the number of deaths due to a specific cause in a given group of
people at a given time.
17. ___________ = the number of new cases of a disease or condition that occur in a
specific population within a defined period of time
____________ = the total number of diagnosed cases of a disease or condition
that exist at a given time
18. In epidemiological research, a __________ study compares people with a certain
disease to people without – looking at their backgrounds in an effort to identify
reliable differences between them which could account for the disease.
19. In epidemiological research, a _________ study is a longitudinal study that
follows a healthy group of people over time to see who gets the disease and who does
not.
20. To pin-point cause and effect, epidemiologists rely on ____
21. _____ is a quantitative technique that combines the results of many studies
examining the same effect or phenomenon to establish consistent trends or results.
22. List the 6 basic conditions which must be met before one can infer cause and effect
between a particular risk factor and a negative health outcome.