Midterm 1 (Ch. 1-2)

Question 1

According to the social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, why are people so often unaware of their weaknesses?

Answer 1

A lack of skill prevents people from recognizing the difference between good and poor results.

Question 2

A poor or inexperienced consumer of scientific research…

Answer 2

is wary of all new scientific findings

Question 3

In what way are internal validity and external validity different?

Answer 3

External validity relates to generalization; internal validity relates to experimental control.

Question 4

Which of the following is a correct explanation for why hindsight bias exists?

Answer 4

Once we know the outcome, we reinterpret old evidence to make sense of that outcome.

Question 4

As Dr. O’Malley begins an experiment, he reviews the factors that might affect participants’ willingness to take part. Dr. Quick, on the other hand, is providing a detailed explanation to participants who have just completed a study. Which of the following statements is true?

Answer 4

Dr. O’Malley is obtaining informed consent from his participants; Dr. Quick is debriefing her participants.

Question 5

Students who study little tend to make more errors on tests; students who study a lot tend to make fewer errors. If a researcher collected data on the amount of studying and test errors, they would likely spot a(n)

Answer 5

negative correlation

Question 6

How do theories reflect the law of parsimony?

Answer 6

Good theories tend to be the simplest explanations that fit the data.

Question 7

Which of the following professors BEST exemplifies the characteristics of an amiable skeptic?

Answer 7

Dr. Rojas read a magazine article about a new finding that seems to conflict with previous studies, so he does some research to find out if anyone else has reported similar findings.

Question 8

A little boy is running around a grocery store screaming, yelling, and throwing cans. His parents cannot control him. A strict nurture-only theorist might say,

Answer 8

“His parents did a terrible job in raising him to act this way.”

Question 9

Why do scientists and researchers use inferential methods to determine whether their results are statistically significant?

Answer 9

They want to find out whether their findings were likely to occur by chance.

Question 10

Suppose a researcher studying the effect of owning a pet on elderly people’s subjective well-being does NOT use a control group in their study. What type of validity is this measure lacking?

Answer 10

Internal Validity: examines whether the study design, conduct, and analysis answer the research questions without bias.

Question 11

Which of these researchers appears to be guilty of HARKing?

Answer 11

Dr. Murphy obtained some surprising results. For the sake of simplicity, she reports her results as though they matched what she had originally predicted.

Question 12

Based on the textbook’s definition of psychological science, which statement best reflects the relationship between the mind and the brain?

Answer 12

The brain influences the mind

Question 13

Barry and Candace disagree on the definition of psychology. Barry says that psychology is the study of the mind. Candace believes that psychology is the science of behavior. Given your knowledge of psychology, how would you resolve this argument?

Answer 13

Both are correct. Psychology studies both the mind and behavior.

Question 14

Which level of analysis in psychology is correctly matched with an example?

Answer 14

Biological level: Cocaine exerts its effects by prolonging the presence of specific chemicals at the junctions between nerve cells.

Question 15

Alison just took a test in her Introduction to Psychology course. Which of the following is she most likely to experience as a consequence?

Answer 15

She will remember the information she was tested on better than she would have if she had not taken the test.

Question 15

Dr. Soshell administered surveys to 100 incoming freshmen at the start of the year and at the end of the year. She wants to know if there is a correlation between anxiety at the start of the year and feelings of community spirit at the end of the year. In which of these cases would she be guilty of p-hacking?

Answer 15

Her predicted correlation was not statistically significant, but she realizes that it becomes significant if she analyzes only the data from out-of-state students.

Question 16

Which of the following is a benefit of using heuristics?

Answer 16

They can lead to reasonably good decisions without too much effort.

Question 17

A researcher believes that presenting possible suspects in a lineup one at a time instead of in a group would lead to more accurate identification of the true suspect. This belief could be referred to as a(n)

Answer 17

hypothesis

Question 18

Which of these students has chosen the MOST effective study technique?

Answer 18

Wade has been listening to his professor’s lecture online. Every few minutes, he pauses the lecture to explain the material to himself in his own words.

Question 19

Juan is in the market for a new toaster. Which of the following is an example of confirmation bias?

Answer 19

Juan reads reviews of his favorite brand of toaster on the company’s website.

Question 20

Research has shown that some types of behavioral or psychiatric disorders are more prevalent among people with low levels of education. This pattern of data is best represented by

Answer 20

a correlation coefficient

Question 21

Dr. Lateefa emphasizes to her students that research aimed at understanding human behavior and mentality should examine biological factors, psychological processes, and social-contextual influences together. Which approach is Dr. Lateefa championing?

Answer 21

the biopsychosocial model

Question 22

Researchers are likely to choose a correlational design when

Answer 22

It is impossible or unethical to control the variables being studied.

Question 23

Dr. Chen studies several traits and dispositions that distinguish one person from another. Dr. Doherty investigates how people grow and change during late adolescence and young adulthood. Dr. Chen is most likely a __________ psychologist, and Dr. Doherty is most likely a __________ psychologist.

Answer 23

social-personality; developmental

Question 24

If a participant always shows fast reaction times on a visual task not because she is good at the task but because she can hear the experimenter start the presentation and is able to prepare for the stimulus, her data will show a high level of

Answer 24

systematic error

Question 25

Isaac is trying to decide how often shark attacks happen. He quickly remembers the many shows about shark attacks that he saw on television last week, so he decides they must be common. Isaac’s overestimation of the rate of shark attacks is an example of

Answer 25

the availability heuristic.

Question 26

One criticism of many experimental studies in psychology is that

Answer 26

researchers often use convenience samples, leading to biased sampling.

Question 27

In order to maximize the likelihood that experimental and control groups are similar before any treatment is begun, researchers typically use

Answer 27

random assignment

Question 28

Which of the following best explains why errors and biases occur in our thinking processes?

Answer 28

The human brain is highly efficient at finding patterns between things.

Question 29

Which of the following is a way in which the open science movement has attempted to increase research transparency in the field of psychology?

Answer 29

publishing researchers’ plans and hypotheses online before they begin collecting data

Question 30

If a researcher created two groups by assigning the first 30 people to the experimental group and the last 30 to the control group, the process would violate the principle of

Answer 30

random assignment

Question 31

Bai is conducting a study on learning. When she manipulates an independent variable, it is possible that some other factor, such as noise in the hall, will affect learning in one of the groups but not in the other. This possibility reflects the presence of

Answer 31

a confound

Question 32

Who would be most likely to agree with the statement “Psychologists should study that which is observable”?

Answer 32

a behaviourist

Question 33

Dr. Lin studies obesity. She believes that the likelihood of obesity in adulthood is related to levels of the trait of agreeableness. In which subfield is Dr. Lin most likely to work?

Answer 33

socio-personality psychology

Question 34

Ideally, who should conduct a replication study?

Answer 34

researchers not affiliated with the researchers who produced the original findings

Question 35

The psychologist Jean Piaget observed children to see how they solved problems. Over the course of many studies, he was able to spot general patterns of behavior. This led him to connect different concepts and behaviors within a single ______

Answer 35

theory

Question 36

Chen has just finished analyzing her data, and she finds that the results did not support her theory. Based on what you know about the scientific method, Chen should

Answer 36

revise her theory and design a new study to test it

Question 37

A store owner wants to make sure she has enough shirts in the correct sizes in her inventory, so she buys an extra supply of shirts in the most popular size. In order to make this purchase, what type of statistic would she need to know?

Answer 37

mode

Question 37

Which of the following is an example of research done at the social level of analysis?

Answer 37

testing whether people perform a new skill better alone or in front of a group