Psychology Midterm (MC Ch. 1-2) Flashcards
The school of psychology that focused on identifying and examining the fundamental components of conscious experience, such as sensations, feelings, and images,
A.) humanism.
B.) behaviorism.
C.) structuralism.
D.) functionalism.
C.) structuralism
The term used by William James to describe a continuous flow of thoughts was
A.) existential awareness.
B.) stream of consciousness.
C.) transcendental meditation.
D.) phenomenological flow.
B.) stream of consciousness
Sigmund Freud developed an innovative procedure for treating people with psychological problems, which he called
A.) behavior modification.
B.) primal therapy.
C.) psychoanalysis.
D.) rational-emotive therapy.
C.) psychoanalysis
The theoretical orientation that insisted on verifiability of observation was
A.) structuralism.
B.) functionalism.
C.) behaviorism.
D.) psychoanalysis.
C.) behaviorism
Christine is a psychologist who conducts research on the effects of reward on maze learning in rats. Christine would MOST likely be considered a
A.) behaviorist.
B.) structuralist.
C.) psychoanalyst.
D.) Gestalt psychologist.
A.) behaviorist
The notion that all behavior is fully governed by external stimuli is MOST consistent with
A.) behaviorism.
B.) humanism.
C.) structuralism.
D.) functionalism.
A.) behaviorism
It should be easiest to teach a child the behavior of picking up his/her toys by utilizing the principles and techniques developed by
A.) William James.
B.) Abraham Maslow.
C.) B. F. Skinner.
D.) Wilhelm Wundt.
C.) B. F. Skinner
The school of psychology that emphasizes the unique qualities of humans, and suggests that we have a drive for personal growth is
A.) humanism.
B.) psychoanalysis.
C.) behaviorism.
D.) functionalism.
A.) humanism
A clinical psychologist would probably be MOST interested in
A.) determining how small groups make decisions.
B.) studying facial expressions of emotion.
C.) figuring out the most effective ways of treating anxiety.
D.) studying the nature of optical illusions.
C.) figuring out the most effective ways of treating anxiety.
Which of the following is a recent movement in psychology that has revived the old interest in mental and conscious events?
A.) physiological psychology
B.) psychoanalysis
C.) behavioral psychology
D.) cognitive psychology
D.) cognitive psychology
A psychological perspective that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s that reflects a renewed interest in the study of the mind or consciousness that existed in psychology when it first became a science in the late 1800s is the
A.) cognitive perspective.
B.) mental perspective.
C.) philosophical perspective.
D.) biological perspective.
A.) cognitive perspective
The basic premise of evolutionary psychology is that natural selection favors behaviors that enhance organisms’ success in
A.) establishing a territory.
B.) locating a source of food.
C.) passing on their genes to the next generation.
D.) aggressive interactions with members of other species.
C.) passing on their genes to the next generation
According to the definition of psychology that appears in your textbook, psychology is both
A.) a science and a profession.
B.) a theory and an academic discipline.
C.) a school of thought and an occupation.
D.) a cognitive process and an undergraduate major.
A.) a science and a profession
A psychologist whose major interest focuses on how behavior changes as a function of age would probably be considered a
A.) physiological psychologist.
B.) developmental psychologist.
C.) social psychologist.
D.) cognitive psychologist.
B.) developmental psychologist
Brooke is a graduate student whose major area of interest is in describing and understanding the consistency in people’s behavior. Which research is Brooke MOST likely to specialize in?
A.) Social psychology
B.) Personality psychology
C.) Cognitive psychology
D.) Physiological psychology
B.) Personality psychology
A newspaper article reported a study by a psychologist in which the attitudes of men and women toward traditional sex roles were studied. MOST likely, the researcher was
A.) a cognitive psychologist.
B.) a counseling psychologist.
C.) a developmental psychologist.
D.) a social psychologist.
D.) a social psychologist
Which of the following areas is MOST similar to clinical psychology?
A.) Social psychology
B.) School psychology
C.) Industrial psychology
D.) Counseling psychology
D.) Counseling psychology
An area of specialization in applied psychology that is primarily involved in the treatment of less severe problems of everyday life (such as marriage counseling) is
A.) social psychology.
B.) counseling psychology.
C.) clinical psychology.
D.) cognitive psychology.
B.) counseling psychology
Which of the following qualifies as empirically-based knowledge?
A.) intuition
B.) insight
C.) common sense
D.) observed actions
D.) observed actions
Which of the following statements about the influence of culture is LEAST accurate?
A.) The influence of culture is everywhere.
B.) Our cultural heritage has a pervasive impact on our thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
C.) There is not much diversity in the behavior among members of the same culture.
D.) There are both differences and similarities across cultures in behavior.
C.) There is not much diversity in the behavior among members of the same culture.
When Watson proposed that psychology should only study observable behaviors and not consciousness, he was emphasizing the unifying theme that
A.) behavior is influenced by multiple causes.
B.) people’s experience of the world is highly subjective.
C.) psychology should use theories.
D.) psychology should be empirical.
D.) psychology should be empirical
According to research, which of the following is MOST likely to be associated with poor grades?
A.) Being absent from class
B.) Rewarding yourself for studying
C.) Overlearning the material
D.) Changing answers on a multiple-choice test
A.) Being absent from class
That people sometimes see what they either “want to see” or “expect to see” BEST reflects the text’s unifying theme that
A.) heredity and environment jointly influence behavior.
B.) behavior is shaped by cultural heritage.
C.) people’s experience of the world is empirical.
D.) people’s experience of the world is highly subjective.
D.) people’s experience of the world is highly subjective.
Research has shown that the skills and attitudes involved in critical thinking
A.) naturally develop during adolescence.
B.) naturally develop during early adulthood.
C.) need to be specifically taught to individuals.
D.) only develop in individuals trained in scientific disciplines.
C.) need to be specifically taught to individuals.
In criticizing the structuralists’ reliance on the method of introspection, William James argued that two people could view the same stimulus quite differently. James’s argument illustrates which of the textbook’s unifying themes?
A.) Psychology evolves in a sociohistorical context.
B.) Psychology is empirical.
C.) Heredity and environment jointly influence behavior.
D.) Our experience of the world is highly subjective.
D.) Our experience of the world is highly subjective.
The use of reinforcement principles to modify a child’s unruly behavior reflects the goal of science that deals with
A.) understanding and prediction.
B.) measurement and description.
C.) deterministic and teleological.
D.) application and control.
D.) application and control
Mrs. Smith, an elementary school teacher, believes that girls are smarter than boys. She predicts that the girls in her class will learn more than the boys during the school year. Her prediction is a(n)
A.) hypothesis.
B.) opinion.
C.) fact.
D.) theory.
A.) hypothesis
A researcher is measuring the heart rate of subjects as an index of anxiety. In this study, heart rate is
A.) a confounded variable.
B.) negatively correlated with anxiety.
C.) an independent variable.
D.) an operational definition of anxiety.
D.) an operational definition of anxiety
A scientific journal refers to
A.) a personal diary kept by a scientist.
B.) a periodical that publishes technical and scholarly articles.
C.) a detailed record of the daily procedures followed in conducting a study.
D.) a collection of biographies of famous scientists.
B.) a periodical that publishes technical and scholarly articles
The scientific approach requires that people specify exactly what they are talking about when they formulate hypotheses. Which advantage of scientific investigation does this illustrate?
A.) precision
B.) acceptance of a degree of error
C. skepticism
D.) operational definitions
A.) precision
An experimenter tests the hypothesis that physical exercise improves mood. Subjects in the experimental group participate on Monday and Tuesday and those in the control group on Wednesday and Thursday. What is the extraneous (confounding) variable?
A.) the hypothesis
B.) the day of the week
C.) the exercise
D.) the mood (degree of happiness)
B.) the day of the week
An industrial designer wants to determine if the new design for a piece of office equipment will result in fewer errors. The designer sets up a machine with the old design in one room and a machine with the new design in a second room. He counts how many errors are made using each of the two machines. In this study, the number of errors that are made would be
A.) a control variable.
B.) the dependent variable.
C.) the independent variable.
D.) an extraneous variable.
B.) the dependent variable
A group of researchers wanted to determine whether children would behave more aggressively after watching violent television programming. Half the children in the study watched a violent television show; the other children watched a non-violent program. In this study, the control group is the children who
A.) behave the most aggressively at the end of the study.
B.) watch the non-violent program.
C.) watch the violent show.
D.) behave the least aggressively at the end of the study.
B.) watch the non-violent program
In experimental research, the variable that the researcher measures because it is thought to be affected by the manipulation of another variable is the
A.) extraneous variable.
B.) dependent variable.
C.) independent variable.
D.) controlled variable.
B.) dependent variable
Conclusions concerning cause-and-effect relationships are only possible when the ____ method is used.
A.) survey
B.) experimental
C.) correlational
D.) descriptive
B.) experimental
An instructor wishes to find out whether a new teaching method is superior to his usual procedures, so he conducts an experiment. Everyone in his classes is quite excited about the prospect of learning under the new procedure, but he cannot administer the new teaching method to everyone: a random half of the students receive the new method and the remaining half receive the old. What is the most obvious flaw in this experiment?
A.) Subjects should have been systematically assigned to groups.
B.) The sample is not representative of the population.
C.) Placebo effects or experimenter bias are likely to affect results.
D.) Distortions in self-report will affect results.
C.) Placebo effects or experimenter bias are likely to affect results
Suppose a researcher discovered a strong negative correlation between the length of people’s hair and the amount of money they paid for their automobile. In general, people who paid the least amount of money for their automobile also had
A.) the longest hair.
B.) mid-length hair.
C.) the shortest hair.
D.) either extremely long or extremely short hair.
A.) the longest hair
As correlation coefficients ____, the ability to predict one variable based on knowledge of the second variable increases.
A.) become positive
B.) become negative
C.) increase in strength
D.) decrease in strength
C.) increase in strength
Which of the following is NOT listed in the textbook as a descriptive research method?
A.) criterion-based induction
B.) case studies
C.) surveys
D.) naturalistic observation
A.) criterion-based induction
Jolyn believed that there are gender differences in driving habits. To test this assumption, she stood near a quiet intersection. Jolyn then recorded the gender of each driver who approached a stop sign and whether the individual came to a complete stop before proceeding into the intersection. Jolyn is conducting
A.) an experiment with two dependent variables.
B.) case study research.
C.) naturalistic observation.
D.) psychological testing.
C.) naturalistic observation
Which of the following is NOT a descriptive/correlational research method?
A.) Survey
B.) Experiment
C.) Case study
D.) Naturalistic observation
B.) Experiment
A researcher who wants to get a broad perspective on an area of research by combining the results from a large number of existing studies would be MOST likely to use which statistical technique?
A.) standard deviation
B.) meta-analysis
C.) correlation
D.) means analysis
B.) meta-analysis
Research involving the repetition of a study to see whether the earlier results can be duplicated are referred to as
A.) verification studies.
B.) replication studies.
C.) clarification studies.
D.) duplication studies.
B.) replication studies
Darla has sent out a survey in which she is asking people to provide information about their attitudes on a number of sensitive subjects. When the surveys are returned, Darla needs to be aware that the responses may be distorted due to
A.) placebo effects.
B.) self-report biases.
C.) statistical artifacts.
D.) meta-analytic controls.
B.) self-report biases
Melvin and Leigh are interviewing students at their campus to determine if the students agree or disagree with a proposed policy change. Melvin believes the proposed policy change is a good idea, but Leigh believes the change will be bad for students. Nearly all the students who Melvin interviewed supported the policy change, but nearly all the students who Leigh interviewed disapproved of the change. The differences in the results illustrate the potential impact of
A.) the placebo effect.
B.) double-blind research studies.
C.) confounded dependent variables.
D.) experimenter bias.
D.) experimenter bias
When a researcher’s expectations or preferences about the outcome of a study influence the results obtained, it is referred to as
A.) experimenter bias.
B.) subject bias.
C.) the sampling effect.
D.) the placebo effect.
A.) experimenter bias
Which of the following statements regarding the use of deception in psychological research is FALSE?
A.) Defenders of deception believe that some research questions can only be studied by using deception
B.) Critics of deception believe that the conclusions from studies involving deception are not valid
C.) Critics of deception believe that the deception may result in subjects becoming less trusting of others
D.) Participants in research involving the use of deception generally report that they enjoyed the experience
B.) Critics of deception believe that the conclusions from studies involving deception are not valid
According to the ethical guidelines for psychological research with humans, if you agree to be a participant in a research study, you would understand that you
A.) will not be exposed to harmful or dangerous treatments.
B.) will not be exposed to deception.
C.) have to commit to participating in the entire research study.
D.) do not have the right to privacy.
A.) will not be exposed to harmful or dangerous treatments
The abstract of a journal article provides
A.) a concise summary of the entire article.
B.) an overview of the research problem, relevant theories, and previous research.
C.) a description of the research methods used in the study.
D.) a concise summary of the raw data and statistical analyses.
A.) a concise summary of the entire article
Which of the following statements concerning anecdotal evidence is false?
A.) Anecdotal evidence is based on a single example and may reflect sampling bias.
B.) Anecdotal evidence rarely influences a person’s opinion or behavior.
C.) Anecdotal evidence can usually be found to support any position.
D.) Anecdotal evidence often reflects a distortion in self-report.
B.) Anecdotal evidence rarely influences a person’s opinion or behavior
