General Psych (final) Flashcards
The psychological perspective that is associated with William James is
functionalism
Because psychologists want to be precise and measure as carefully as they can, they use ________ to study psychology.
the scientific method
Mary is a psychologist who focuses on the role of the conscious and unconscious minds. To which perspective does Mary ascribe?
psychodynamic perspective
Freud believed that personality was formed:
in the first 6 years of life
What did Watson believe about behavior?
that it is learned
________ focuses on how people think, remember, store, and use information.
Cognitive psychology
Addison is 45 years old and is suffering from hot flashes and extreme moodiness. From a(n) _____ perspective, Addison’s symptoms can be attributed to menopause.
biopsychological
A ________ has a medical degree and is a medical doctor who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders.
psychiatrist
Researchers use ________ for reducing bias and error in the measurement of data.
the scientific method
Teri sat in the preschool classroom and watched the children play, writing down how well they interacted with each other. The children could see that Sasha was watching them, so they made an attempt to be extra well-behaved for her. Teri’s research will be impacted by
the observer effect.
A researcher wants to describe children’s normal behavior on the playground. The best method for this research is to use
naturalistic observation.
When Donna took the survey in the mall, she noticed that the interviewer was wearing an Obama button. She answered the questions more favorably toward Obama than she might otherwise have, probably because
of courtesy bias.
Experimenters control the effects of extraneous or confounding variables upon members of experimental and control groups by using
double-blind studies.
Mrs. Minor participated in a study in which she was given no treatment for her condition. Mrs. Minor was in the ________ group.
control
Mrs. Puckett participated in a study in which she was told she would try out a new allergy medicine. She was in the group that received a sugar pill, but she believed that the pill did indeed help control her allergy symptoms. This phenomenon is known as
the placebo effect.
A drug company is determining the effects of a treatment for depression. Neither the researcher nor the participants know who is getting the treatment and who is given a sugar pill. This type of study is
double-blind.
Dr. Evans wants to show a causal relationship between tobacco smoking and cancer. Dr. Edwards should
conduct an experiment using animal participants.
If a correlation coefficient is positive
the two variables increase in the same direction.
Correlation will tell researchers all of the following EXCEPT ________ between variables.
if there is causation
Which of the following is a guideline for doing research with people?
Participants must be allowed to make an informed decision about participation.
The ____ is a network of cells that carries information to and from all parts of the body.
nervous system
A branch of the life sciences that deals with the structure and functioning of the nervous system is called ________.
neuroscience
Special types of glial cells generate a protective fatty substance called
myelin.
Neurons fire
either full strength or not at all.
When the action potential gets to the end of the axon
the message gets transmitted to another cell.
The sac-like structures that are found at the end of a neuron’s axon and that contain neurotransmitters are called
synaptic vesicles.
The venom of a black widow spider is an example of a(n) __________, which mimics or enhances the effects of neurotransmitters.
agonist
The ______ is composed of the brain and the spinal cord.
central nervous system
Neuroplasticity is
the brain’s ability to change both the structure and function of many cells in response to experience and trauma.
According to the textbook, scientists are investigating the use of stem cells to
repair damaged or diseased brain tissue.
When people are walking, raising their hands in class, or smelling a flower, they are using the
somatic nervous system.
The job of the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system is to
get the body ready to deal with stress.
The part of the autonomic nervous system known as the “eat-drink-and-rest” system is the
parasympathetic division.
The “master gland” that controls or influences all of the other endocrine glands is the
pituitary gland.
The adrenal glands are located right on top of
each kidney.
A(n) _____ is used to record the activity of the cortex just below the skull.
electroencephalograph
The part of the brain that controls life-sustaining functions, such as heartbeat, breathing, and swallowing, is the
medulla.
Which sense is the only one that is NOT processed through the thalamus?
smell
A work-related accident left Bob with a paralyzed left arm and an inability to recognize the left side of his visual field. Bob’s condition is called
spatial neglect.
Which statement most accurately explains the difference in functioning between the right hemisphere of the brain and the left hemisphere?
The right processes information all at once, whereas the left breaks things down into parts.
After having many cavities fixed as a child, Kyle now has an active dislike of the dentist’s drill. His tendency to become anxious when hearing a similar-sounding noise is termed
stimulus generalization.
Carla was bitten by a dog when she was a toddler. She’s older now, but still backs up in fear whenever a dog approaches her. This is an example of
conditioned emotional response.
Whenever Vernon comes home too late on a Saturday night, his parents refuse to give him his weekly allowance. Vernon’s parents are using what technique to modify his behavior?
punishment by removal
A teacher has decided to give “caught being good” tickets to her students when they behave according to class rules. This teacher also rewards students with gold stars each time they improve their math speed. This teacher is using
operant conditioning
_____ is learning new behavior by watching a model perform that behavior.
Observational learning
Which psychologist is best known for working with children and a Bobo doll to study whether aggressive behavior is learned by watching others be aggressive?
Albert Bandura
Which of the following is one of Bandura’s elements of observational learning?
memory
In his study of rats in mazes, Tolman concluded that the rats in the group that did not receive reinforcement for solving the maze had
learned the maze by wandering around in it and forming a cognitive map.
Learning that remains hidden until its application becomes useful is called
latent learning
In Köhler’s experiment, Sultan the chimp first used just one stick that was lying in his cage to rake the banana into the cage, and then he learned to fit two sticks together to reach a banana placed farther away. This was an example of
insight.
In Seligman’s study on dogs, the dogs that were not conditioned to fear the tone
jumped over the fence when the shock started.
The law of effect states if an action is followed by a pleasurable consequence, the action is likely to
be repeated.
In a(n) ________, the occurrence of reinforcement is more predictable and therefore the individual being reinforced is more likely to adjust his response to the timing of the reinforcement.
fixed interval schedule of reinforcement
Small steps in behavior that are reinforced, one after the other, to create a particular goal behavior are known as
successive approximations.
Birds, who find their food by sight, will avoid any object or insect that simply looks like the one that made them sick. This is a result of
biological preparedness.
Pavlov initially set out to study his dogs’ ___________.
digestive systems
A naturally occurring stimulus that leads to an involuntary (reflex) response is a/an
unconditioned stimulus.
In his classical conditioning experiment, Pavlov’s dogs were conditioned to salivate when they
heard the sound of the metronome.
_________ is the disappearance or weakening of a learned response following the removal or absence of the unconditioned stimulus (in classical conditioning) or the removal of a reinforcer (in operant conditioning).
Extinction
Changes such as an increase in height or the size of the brain are called
maturation.
Which of the following is a feature of the storage stage of memory?
holding information just long enough to work with it
The _________ assumes that how long a memory will be remembered depends on the stage of memory in which it is stored.
information-processing model
The information-processing model assumes that the length of time a memory will be remembered depends on
the stage of memory in which it is stored.
Short-term memory tends to be encoded primarily in
visual form.
The ______ acts as interpreter for both the visual and auditory information in short-term memory (STM).
central executive
Once you learn how to tie your shoes, the action becomes part of
procedural memory.
In _________, new long-term declarative memories cannot be formed.
anterograde amnesia
An example of an episodic memory would be
a special gift you received on your 13th birthday.
It is extremely difficult to bring ______ into consciousness.
implicit memories
In the three-stage process of memory, the second stage is
short-term memory.
Visual sensory memory is known as
iconic memory.
Echoic memory lasts ______ iconic memory.
about two to four seconds longer than
Information that enters long-term memory by automatic encoding
requires little or no effort to retrieve.
While hypnosis may make it easier to recall some memories, it also
makes it easier to create false memories.
Higher false recall and recognition response can be predicted by
symptoms of depression.
Decay is the fading of
a memory trace.
Long-term memories may be inaccessible because
of interference.
Anterograde amnesia can be caused by
a concussion.
Early memories from the first few years of our lives are often difficult to bring into consciousness because they tend to be
implicit.
Autobiographical memories
tend to form when children are able to talk about shared memories with adults.
Mechanical solutions may involve solving by
rote
Which of the following is a true statement regarding algorithms?
They will always result in a correct solution, if there is a correct solution to be found.
A useful heuristic that works much of the time is
working backward from the goal.
Writing a term paper may be best approached by using
subgoals.
The ________ heuristic is based on one’s estimation of the frequency or likelihood of an event based on how easy it is to recall relevant information from memory or how easy it is to think of related examples.
availability
When people think, they often have _______ in their minds.
images and words
Divergent thinking is especially difficult to teach to
Japanese children.
Csikszentmihalyi found that
creative people are not necessarily unconventional in all aspects of their lives.
Brainstorming, keeping a journal, and subject mapping are all _________________________.
strategies to stimulate divergent thinking
Gardner theorized that there are ____ types of intelligence.
nine
Sternberg’s three types of intelligence are analytical, creative, and
practical.
___________ is a method for comparing mental age and chronological age that was adopted for use with the revised Binet intelligence test.
Stern’s formula
Standard deviation is the average variation of scores from the
mean.
________ is a developmental delay related to living in poverty and one that usually produces relatively mild intellectual disabilities.
Familial retardation
Terman determined that gifted people
are more resistant to mental illnesses than those of average intelligence.
In The Bell Curve, Herrnstein and Murray made the unfounded claim that
intelligence is largely inherited.
In some languages, changing the ______ of a spoken word can change its entire meaning.
phonemes
In a well-known animal language research study, Kanzi the chimp _________________________.
demonstrated four consistent sounds to represent banana, grapes, juice, and the word yes
Vegetables, fruit, vehicles, and animals are all examples of _______, or categories of objects.
concepts
Which of the following examples does NOT illustrate divergent thinking?
Michelle knits a blanket and uses it as a cover for her bed.
In extrinsic motivation, a person is motivated
to work for an outcome that is separate or external from themselves.
People driven by the need for ___________ have a strong desire to attain both realistic goals and very challenging ones.
achievement
According to Carol Dweck’s research, people who believe that their lives are controlled by others more powerful than them, or who believe in luck or fate, are considered to be
external in locus of control.
According to Dweck’s research, how might a student with an internal locus of control likely react to a failure on a math test?
The student would decide to try a new method of studying and hire a tutor to help in understanding the concepts of the course more clearly.
A(n) _________ motive, such as curiosity, appears to be unlearned but causes an increase in stimulation.
stimulus
Many arousal theorists believe that a _________ level of arousal is optimal for most people under normal circumstances.
moderate
___________ is the theory of motivation in which behavior is explained as a response to an external stimulus and its rewarding properties.
Incentive approach
According to Maslow, peak experiences are
times in a person’s life during which self-actualization is temporarily achieved.
According to Maslow’s hierarchy, one cannot meet cognitive needs until ________ needs are met.
esteem
Which of the following is NOT a criticism of Maslow’s hierarchy?
Maslow’s idea that people can move up and down the hierarchy as frequently as every hour is actually impossible.
The biologically determined and innate patterns of behavior that exist in both people and animals are called
instincts.
____________ is the psychological tension and physical arousal created when there is a need that motivates the organism to act in order to fulfill the need and reduce the tension.
Drive
As the basal metabolic rate (BMR) ________ with age, the weight set point ________.
decreases; increases
Obesity is a condition in which the body weight of a person is _____ percent or more over the ideal body weight for that person’s height.
20-30
The United States has the highest rate of obesity in the world because ________ of its population is obese.
one third
Which part of the brain is associated with emotions, such as fear and pleasure, in both humans and animals?
amygdala
Which area of the brain has been associated with sadness, anxiety, and depression?
right frontal lobe
According to the James-Lange theory of emotion, a physiological response to a stimulus is caused by the arousal of the
sympathetic nervous system.
In Schachter and Singer’s _________, they proposed that physical arousal and a labeling of the arousal based on cues from the surrounding environment result in labeling the emotion.
cognitive arousal theory
Tanisha studies every night and works very hard to get good grades in school. She is a member of the National Honor Society, is enrolled in all advanced placement classes, and participates in debate competitions throughout the school year. Tanisha appears to be driven by a high need for ______.
achievement
Stress has been shown to
put people at higher risk for heart attacks.
Marge is easygoing, slow to anger, and usually relaxed. Marge probably has a ________ personality.
Type B
Claire’s boss scolded her in front of her coworkers in a meeting. When she got home, she started a fight with her roommate. What form of coping with this frustration did Claire demonstrate?
displaced aggression
When Ravi found out that he didn’t get a high enough grade on his final for an A in his psychology course, he experienced stress from
frustration.
If Tom has been adapting to a stressor and is now experiencing fatigue due to prolonged muscle tension, according to psychologist Selye, Tom is in the _____ stage.
exhaustion
When Ben found out his girlfriend had been unfaithful, he didn’t say anything to her, but he was furious on the inside. Ben’s personality may be considered a ________.
Type C
Howard was upset that he got a B in Biology, but he felt better knowing that he had improved over his previous grade and that he could work hard to get an A on the next exam. Howard was using _______ to help himself feel better.
optimistic thinking
According to Lazarus’s cognitive appraisal approach, the first step in appraising a stressor is called ______ appraisal.
primary
_______ refers to negative changes in thoughts, emotions, and behavior as a result of prolonged stress or frustration.
Burnout
During the _____ stage of the general adaptation syndrome, the adrenal glands release hormones that increase heart rate, blood pressure, and the supply of blood sugar.
alarm
The phases of the general adaptation syndrome are alarm, resistance, and
exhaustion.
The ______ returns the body to normal functioning after the stress has ended.
parasympathetic nervous system
Endocrinologist Hans Selye’s three stages of the body’s physiological reaction to stress are called the
general adaptation syndrome.
___________ results when people experience unpleasant stressors.
Distress
Which of the following is a typical first response to a source of frustration?
persistence
Holmes and Rahe’s Social Readjustment Rating Scale focuses on
how life events cause stress in one’s life.
According to the Social Readjustment Rating Scale, what life event causes the highest number of “life change units”?
death of a spouse
Adults find the hassle of _______ to be the greatest source of stress.
fighting among family members
People facing _________ conflict are dealing with two or more goals or events that are unpleasant.
avoidance-avoidance
A strategy of coping with stress in which a person changes the way he or she feels or emotionally reacts to a stressor is ____________________
emotion-focused coping.
With regard to the Big Five traits of personality, when someone is creative, artistic, non-conforming, and curious, he or she tends to score high on the ________ trait.
openness
Heidi is exploring her options and trying to decide where her best potential and abilities lie. She has a good idea of who she is and what she wants out of life. Carl Rogers would say that Heidi is a
fully functioning person.
The advantage of personality inventories over projective tests is that inventories are
standardized.
Jim and Jose were studying for their psychology test. Jim asked Jose to name a test developed by Cattell based on factor analysis to measure one’s personality characteristics. Jose knew right away that Jim was talking about the
Sixteen Personality (16 PF) Factor Questionnaire.
The tendency to form a favorable or unfavorable impression of someone at the first meeting that affects later interpretation of that person is
the halo effect.
Tests in which people are asked to tell what they see in ambiguous visual stimuli are
projective tests.
The ________ consists of 20 black and white pictures of people in ambiguous situations.
Thematic Apperception Test
The ________ specifically tests for abnormal behavioral patterns in personality.
MMPI-2
What are surface traits?
They are seen in the outward actions of a person.
________ are more concerned with describing personality and predicting behavior than with the explanation of personality development.
Trait theorists
The assumption that the particular circumstance of any given situation will influence the way in which a trait is expressed is known as
trait-situation interaction.
The image of oneself based on information from significant people in one’s life is that person’s
self-concept.
Which of the following perspectives on personality focuses on aspects that make people uniquely human, such as subjective feelings and freedom of choice?
humanistic
The Oedipus and Electra complexes refer to
a child developing a sexual attraction to the opposite-sex parent and displaying jealousy of the same-sex parent.
According to Freud, children in the latency stage
develop intellectually, physically, and socially.
Freud believed the mind was divided into three parts: the ________, the ________, and the preconscious.
unconscious; conscious
Turning socially unacceptable urges into socially acceptable behavior is known as
sublimation.
According to Freud, the oral stage
involves the conflict of weaning.
________ believed that there was not only a personal unconscious, but a collective unconscious as well.
Jung
Joe complains that his coworker, George, is irritating because George never has a nice thing to say about anyone or anything. Joe believes George’s problem is an enduring characteristic with which George was born. In other words, Joe dislikes George’s
temperament.
Maria is a college student and is generally anxious. She cannot identify any one thing in particular that is bothersome, but feels anxious most of the time. Maria is exhibiting
free-floating anxiety.
Bill tends to have relationships with others that are very intense and often unstable. He is moody, manipulative, and sometimes engages in suicidal behaviors to get attention from others. Bill would best be diagnosed with ________ disorder.
borderline personality
There are ___ basic categories of recognized types of personality disorders in the DSM’5.
three
The emotional unresponsiveness of people who suffer from _______ personality disorder has been linked to lower than normal levels of stress hormones.
antisocial
The term ____ means that the person is unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy and experiences disturbances in thinking, emotions, and behavior.
psychotic
Negative symptoms of schizophrenia appear to reflect a decrease of normal functions such as
poor attention or a lack of effort.
_____ disorders involve a break in consciousness, memory, or a person’s sense of identity.
Dissociative
A ________ occurs when a person travels away from home and then cannot remember the trip or personal information such as identity.
dissociative fugue
The ______ theory explains dissociative disorders as the result of “thought avoidance” to avoid or decrease the pain of guilt, shame, or anxiety produced from disturbing thoughts and experiences.
cognitive/behavioral
________ is a condition in which a person reduces eating to a point that results in significantly lower-than-normal body weight.
Anorexia nervosa
Severe sadness that comes on suddenly, and is either (a) too severe for the circumstances or (b) exists without any external cause, is called
major depression.
_______ is the most commonly diagnosed mood disorder.
Major depression
_____ is a mood disorder that is caused by the body’s reaction to low levels of light present in the winter months.
Seasonal affective disorder
This is apparent when there is a sudden onset of intense alarm in which there can be multiple physical symptoms of stress occurring.
a panic attack
_______ is when a person believes that his or her behavior must be perfect or the result will be a total failure.
All-or-nothing thinking
An irrational and often persistent fear of an object, situation, or activity is called
a phobia.
A person who finds it difficult to function on a day-to-day basis may be displaying ______ behaviors.
maladaptive
The ____ model explains disordered behavior as the result of repressing one’s threatening thoughts, memories, and concerns in the unconscious mind.
psychodynamic
In the ______ model, abnormal behavior is seen as the result of the combined and interacting forces of biological, psychological, social, and cultural influences.
biopsychosocial
The study of abnormal behavior is called
psychopathology.
