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
