How can you ensure that a popular media article accurately reflects the original research of a scientific study?

Below you will find excerpts from an empirical article by Campbell et al. (2010). Please respond to the 6 fill-in-the blank questions. In 1988, Raskin and Terry developed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), a self-report measure of narcissism. These researchers defined narcissism as including 7 distinct components: authority, entitlement, exhibitionism, explotativeness, self-sufficiency, superiority, and vanity. In order to provide evidence of  validity, Raskin and Terry (1988) included items that assessed each of the seven components of narcissism. In a 2010 paper, Campbell et al. agreed that entitlement is clearly a component of narcissism. However, these researchers noted that there are a few problems with using the NPI Entitlement subscale as a stand-alone measure of psychological entitlement. First, they argue, the NPI entitlement subscale lacks  validity: some items (e.g., “I will never be satisfied until I get all that I deserve”) sound/look like they are measuring entitlement; but other items (e.g., “I have a strong will to power; If I ruled the world it would be a better place”) sound/look more like power seeking or dominance. In addition, Campbell et al. (2010) argued that the NPI entitlement subscale lacks the degree of  reliability desired for self-report measures, with Cronbach alpha values often far below the .70 rule of thumb. Campbell et al. (2010) note: “Our goal in this article was to develop and validate a measure of psychological entitlement as well as look at some potential interpersonal consequences of entitlement. In the process, we gain a better theoretical understanding of the construct.” Later, Campbell et al. (2010) note: “It is important to state explicitly our approach to psychological entitlement. We conceptualize psychological entitlement as a stable and pervasive sense that one deserves more and is entitled to more than others. This sense of entitlement will also be reflected in desired or actual behaviors.” What is the name of the conceptual variable that Campbell et al. (2010) investigated? Campbell et al. (2010) correlated scores on their Psychological Entitlement Scale (PES) with other measures as a test of the scale’s validity. As expected, there was a positive correlation between scores on the PES and scores on Raskin and Terry’s (1988) Entitlement subscale of the NPI (r = .54). This finding provides evidence of validity for the PES. In addition, as expected, scores on the PES were not significantly correlated with social desirability (a measure of overall level of socially desirable responding), (r = -.06). This finding provides evidence of validity for the PES.

Blair is writing her first empirical journal article. Although she thinks she knows why she found the results she did, she also wants to mention some alternative explanations for her findings. In which section will she mention these alternative explanations?

SCENARIO: Dr. Kushner is planning on conducting a study next semester. He is curious as to whether sleep deprivation is associated with poorer cognitive performance. For example, if you sleep poorly the night before a big exam, will you do worse? Dr. Kushner is especially curious about selective sleep deprivation, where people are kept from entering REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Using an electroencephalograph (EEG) to monitor brain waves, he plans to let participants sleep until they enter REM sleep and then wake them. After the participants are awake for one minute, Dr. Kushner plans to let them return to sleep. As they enter REM sleep again, he will wake them again and follow the same procedure. He plans to do this through the entire eight-hour sleep session. The following morning, participants will be asked to take a sample SAT test. QUESTION:  Dr. Kushner is deciding whether he needs to give participants a reason for waking them up several times during the night. He knows that he cannot tell them the real reason, but he is unsure whether he should deceive them (give them a false reason why he is waking them up) or provide them with no cover story at all. Which of the following issues should be considered most heavily when deciding whether to use deception?

Dr. Ickes insists that all of his research assistants know how to be producers of research. All of the following relate to this requirement EXCEPT:

When examining the statistical validity of a frequency claim, one should look for the:

Which of the following is a benefit of the peer-review process?

Naomi is studying the relationship between popularity and academic success for her research methods project. To do this, she has elementary school students rate how popular each member of their class is. She then uses this information to rank the students on popularity (e.g., John is the most popular, Vanessa is the second-most popular). Which of the following best describes this variable?

If Sam finds that his data match his theory, which of the following statements should he make?

Tanya is interested in examining the relationship between perfectionism and burnout. She locates 70 studies that have examined this relationship, combines the results of all 70 studies and then calculates an overall effect size to describe the relationship. Her research can be described as a: