Short Answer

Suppose you are designing a laboratory experiment to study how public speaking anxiety impairs cognitive processing. How would you apply the design strategy from Fredrickson's swimsuit experiment to ensure the study has high psychological realism, even if it lacks mundane realism?

Question: Suppose you are designing a laboratory experiment to study how public speaking anxiety impairs cognitive processing. How would you apply the design strategy from Fredrickson's swimsuit experiment to ensure the study has high psychological realism, even if it lacks mundane realism?

Sample answer: To prioritize psychological realism, I would design a laboratory task that successfully triggers the psychological process of public speaking anxiety, such as requiring participants to deliver an impromptu speech to a completely unresponsive panel of evaluators. This artificial situation would successfully engage the real-world anxiety mechanism even though delivering impromptu speeches to silent panels is not a common everyday activity for students.

Key points:

  • Proposes a laboratory manipulation (e.g., speaking to an unresponsive audience) that actively triggers the target psychological state.
  • Applies the concept of psychological realism by focusing on evoking real-world cognitive and emotional processes.
  • Demonstrates that the design can lack mundane realism (everyday classroom contexts) while still producing generalizable results.

Rubric: The student should propose an artificial laboratory setup that successfully induces the psychological process of public speaking anxiety (such as presenting to an unresponsive panel) while acknowledging that the scenario does not need to mimic a routine classroom environment.

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Updated 2026-05-27

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Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition @ KPU

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