Short Answer

Suppose you are designing a research study to investigate whether childhood allowances promote adult financial responsibility. Apply the principles of scientific skepticism by stating one alternative explanation your study's design must measure, and describe the type of evidence you must collect to rule it out.

Question: Suppose you are designing a research study to investigate whether childhood allowances promote adult financial responsibility. Apply the principles of scientific skepticism by stating one alternative explanation your study's design must measure, and describe the type of evidence you must collect to rule it out.

Sample answer: The study must measure whether receiving an allowance leads to materialism or increased spending habits rather than financial responsibility. To rule this out, the study must collect systematically gathered empirical evidence comparing long-term financial behaviors and materialistic attitudes between adults who received allowances and those who did not.

Key points:

  • Applying the concept of alternative explanations to design specific measures (materialism or spending).
  • Applying the standard of systematically collected empirical evidence to the study's data collection methodology.

Rubric: The short answer must apply scientific skepticism to a research design by: 1) Specifying a relevant alternative explanation (e.g., materialism or spending habits). 2) Outlining the collection of systematically gathered empirical evidence (such as a comparison group or behavioral measures) to address that alternative.

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Updated 2026-05-26

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Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition @ KPU

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