Explain what "percentage of variance" demonstrates, and give an example.
What will be an ideal response?
A good answer would include the following key points:
- "Percentage of variance" refers to the differences among a group of people rather than within one individual.
- We know that 10% of the variance in human height is determined by environment and 90% by genetics. For this factor, clearly, environment is a weak influence whereas genetics is a strong one.
- But that does not mean that 90% of any specific person's height is due to genetics. As a child, that specific person may have had poor nutrition or taken a prescription medicine that affected her or his height.
- Percentage of variance in this example demonstrates that among any group of people, 90% of the individual differences in height are due to genetics.
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Same-age infants' ability to retrieve an object hidden under a cloth
a. is greater when they can walk rather than only crawl. b. is greater when they can crawl but not walk. c. is greater when they can move--either by walking or crawling. d. is not affected by whether or not they can crawl or walk.
Studies of categorization among children from Japan, Israel, and the United States show all of the following EXCEPT ______.
a. older Israeli and Japanese children perform similarly on categorization tasks b. Israeli children regard plants as very different from humans and animals c. children in the United States regard plants, animals, and people in the same category of “living things” d. sharp distinctions between “people and animals” and “plants” increases with age among Israeli children
Mark asks his friends to sign a commitment to vote for his favorite candidate. Later, he returns and asks them to donate money to the campaign. What persuasion technique is Mark relying on?
A. reciprocity norm B. lowball technique C. door-in-the-face D. foot-in-the-door
Recall that Latané and Darley observed the number of participants in each condition who left their cubicles to help the alleged victim of a seizure. The ________ was the dependent variable in their experiment
a. severity of the seizure b. number of participants who tried to intervene c. number of other discussants d. number of personal problems reported by participants