1. Dr. Adams is a psychologist who works in the area of animal behavior. She has a particular interest in crows, and her research is primarily aimed at gaining more information about the behaviors of these birds, such as their mating habits, eating rituals, and so on. Dr. Adams's research is best categorized as:
a. basic research.
b. applied research.
c. insight research.
d. interaction research
2. The psychodynamic perspective emphasizes all of the following causal factors EXCEPT:
a. unconscious processes.
b. unresolved conflicts.
c. early childhood experience.
d. genetics.
3. According to the ___________ psychological perspective, the factors that control behavior are in the external environment, not within the person.
a. cognitive
b. biological
c. behavioral
d. humanistic
4. Steve is having problems with unwanted feelings of anger and frustration at work. He consults with a psychologist who asks Steve many detailed questions about his early childhood and interprets Steve's problems as being due to conflicts between his unconscious aggressive urges and his defense mechanisms. Steve's therapist would most likely identify with which psychological perspective?
a. behavioral
b. cognitive
c. psychodynamic
d. sociocultural
5. Jerry is working with a psychologist who pays a great deal of attention to how he finds personal meaning in his life. The psychologist also focuses on the power of choice and free will. This psychologist most likelyadheres to which psychological perspective?
a. behavioral
b. psychodynamic
c. humanistic
d. biological
6. Which approach to psychology is concerned with how elements of experience are organized into wholes?
a. structuralism
b. sociobiology
c. functionalism
d. Gestalt psychology
7. In the 1950s, there was a particularly violent football game between Dartmouth and Princeton. After the game was over, there was a great deal of disagreement over what had happened in the game. Psychologists Albert Hastorf and Hadley Cantril decided to investigate this by interviewing students from each school and asking them questions about what had happened. The researchers found that despite the fact that they all had seen the exact same game, students from each school had surprisingly different interpretations and recollections of the game. The results from this study had a significant impact on one of the major psychological perspectives discussed in the text. Based on your current knowledge of psychology, which of the perspectives do you suppose it was?
a. the behavioral perspective
b. the cognitive perspective
c. the psychodynamic perspective
d. the biological perspective
8. ____________ refers to enduring values, beliefs, behaviors, and traditions that are shared by a large group of people and are passed from one generation to the next.
a. Culture
b. Socialization
c. Introspection
d. Self-actualization
9. Most industrialized cultures in North America and Europe emphasize ___________, while those in Asia, Africa, and South America stress ___________.
a. individualism; collectivism
b. collectivism; individualism
c. functionalism; collectivism
d. collectivism; functionalism
10. The research area of cognitive neuroscience represents a combination of which two psychological perspectives?
a. behavioral and biological
b. behavioral and cognitive
c. behavioral and cognitive behavioral
d. biological and cognitive
11. Behavior geneticists use which of the following methods to address the role of genetic factors in behavior?
a. twin studies
b. free association
c. introspection
d. insight
12. Which of the following factors associated with depression would NOT be classified at the biological level of analysis?
a. Depressed people are more likely than non-depressed people to have relatives who are also depressed.
b. Drugs that effectively treat depression appear to operate by restoring the balance of neurotransmitters.
c. The biological rhythms associated with sleep tend to be disrupted in depressed individuals.
d. Depressed people are more likely to have negative views of themselves and the world.
13. Dr. Kohler is a developmental psychologist who is concerned with some problems in the area of youth sport, such as overly critical coaches and children with poor self-esteem. He conducts research where coaches are observed during games and children are interviewed about their attitudes towards their sport and their coaches. The results from these observations are then used to create an education program designed to change coaching behavior and to help increase the self-esteem of the children they coach. Dr. Kohler's research is best characterized as:
a. basic research.
b. dualistic research.
c. applied research.
d. functional research.
14. Who founded the first laboratory of experimental psychology in 1879?
a. William James
b. Edward Titchener
c. Wilhelm Wundt
d. Wolfgang Köhler
15. Occasionally, parents will sacrifice their lives in order to ensure the survival of their children. An evolutionary theorist would be most likely to argue which of the following in order to explain these occurrences?
a. They are due to innate altruistic drives within every human being.
b. They occur because genetic survival is more important than individual survival.
c. They are due to the conflict between unconscious psychological forces and psychological defenses.
d. They occur because of the reinforcement of altruistic behavior by culture and society.
16. As part of their research on bystander apathy, John Darley and Bibb Latané created fake "emergencies" in their experimental laboratory and observed people's responses. When making these observations, what step of the scientific process were they engaged in?
a. creating a hypothesis
b. creating a prediction
c. generating a theory
d. conducting research
17. A psychodynamic psychologist assumes that people with unresolved childhood issues are more susceptible to stress and anxiety. This psychologist's assumption is best viewed as an example of:
a. a hypothesis.
b. an experiment.
c. correlational research.
d. a dependent variable.
18. Which of the following statements regarding theories and hypotheses is TRUE?
a. Hypotheses use independent variables while theories use dependent variables.
b. Hypotheses specify lawful relations between behaviors and their causes while theories do not.
c. Hypotheses are derived from theories.
d. Theories use operational definitions while hypotheses do not.
19. A psychologist is interested in studying stress. Since stress can mean different things to different people, she decides that she would like to assess stress by measuring people's blood pressure. This psychologist has just created:
a. a control group.
b. an operational definition.
c. a population.
d. a case study.
20. Which of the following would be a potentiallimitation of naturalistic observation?
a. The observer's presence may disrupt or influence the behavior of the person or animal they are watching.
b. Naturalistic observation makes improper use of random assignment.
c. The settings in which naturalistic observations typically occur tend to have low external validity.
d. Naturalistic observation relies too heavily on the use of archival measures.
21. An important limitation of the case study research method is that it:
a. is a poor method for determining cause-effect relationships.
b. tends to be a poor source for new ideas and hypotheses.
c. is a poor method for studying rare events or people.
d. tends to have high external validity.
22. As part of a class on animal learning, students are sent to a local park and are asked to watch and record the feeding behavior of the crows there. These students are engaged in which method of research?
a. a case study
b. naturalistic observation
c. a survey
d. an experiment
23. Which of the following correctly defines the term sample, as it is used in survey research?
a. a subset of individuals drawn from the entire group in which we are interested
b. all the individuals we are interested in drawing conclusions about
c. all the members of any experimental or control group
d. a preliminary survey designed to determine whether there are any problems with it
24. Assume that you are a researcher conducting a survey. Which of the following steps would be most important if you wanted to ensure that the sample in your survey is representative?
a. Use random assignment to create your sample.
b. Use unobtrusive measures of behavior.
c. Use random sampling to create your sample.
d. Use a placebo control group in your survey.
25. Dr. Little has heard that people tend to become more politically conservative as they get older. She decides to conduct a study to see if this is true. She conducts a telephone survey where she asks participants their age and political identification. She then uses statistics to determine whether there is a relation between these two variables. Which of the following research designs best describes Dr. Little's research?
a. experimental research
b. correlational research
c. naturalistic observation
d. behavioral observation
26. Random assignment is important in experiments because:
a. it eliminates experimenter expectancy effects.
b. it ensures that the samples are representative of the population.
c. it magnifies the validity of the operational definitions used in the study.
d. it balances differences between participants across experimental groups.
27. Dr. Gonzalez has just completed a correlational study where he found a strong association between parental expectations and child academic achievement. In other words, children who perform well in school tend to have parents who have high expectations of them. However, Dr. Gonzalez can't tell which variable causes the other. It may be that high expectations cause children to perform better, but it may be that children who perform better in school cause their parents to have higher expectations. This particular problem is known as:
a. the bidirectional causality problem.
b. the third variable problem.
c. poor external validity.
d. the experimenter expectancy effect.
28. You study 100 children for a month, measuring how much TV they watch and how many aggressive acts they perform. You find that TV watching and aggression are highly and positively correlated. Based on this study, you:
a. can conclude that watching TV caused children to behave more aggressively.
b. can conclude that an aggressive personality causes children to watch more TV.
c. can conclude that TV watching and aggression are causally related, though we can't tell which causes which.
d. cannot draw any causal conclusions about the relation between TV watching and aggression.
29. In a negative correlation, ___________ scores on one variable are associated with ____________ scores on a second variable.
a. lower; lower
b. higher; lower
c. lower; random
d. higher; higher
30. The logic behind most experimental research contains three essential steps: manipulate one variable, measure whether this manipulation effects another variable, and:
a. interpret the correlation between the two variables.
b. attempt to manipulate other factors.
c. attempt to control or hold constant other factors.
d. use random sampling.
31. A stress researcher wants to look at the effect of meditation on anxiety. To do this, she creates two groups of subjects: one group receives instruction in meditation, while the other receives no training at all. One month later, she has subjects complete a questionnaire designed to measure anxiety and she looks to see whether there are any differences in anxiety between the two groups. In this experiment, the meditation condition (meditation vs. no meditation) would be the _____________ variable and anxiety would be the _____________ variable.
a. dependent; dependent
b. independent; dependent
c. dependent; independent
d. independent; independent
32. In survey research, _____________ is typically used to ensure that a sample is representative, while in experiments, _____________ is used to balance differences between subjects across the various experimental groups.
a. random sampling; random assignment
b. random assignment; random sampling
c. random sampling; random appointment
d. random appointment; random assignment
33. Mark Rosenzweig has conducted research assessing the effect of environmental stimulation on the brain development of young infants. In this research, environmental stimulation would be considered the:
a. control group.
b. dependent variable.
c. independent variable.
d. sample.
34. Internal validity represents the degree to which:
a. the results from an experiment are generalizable to other situations.
b. an experiment supports clear causal conclusions.
c. a sample is representative of the population from which it is drawn.
d. it effectively utilizes random sampling.
35. The placebo effect refers to:
a. when an unintended "triple blind" design occurs.
b. how people's behavior can change because of their expectations rather than the treatments they receive.
c. the problems associated with drawing causal conclusions in correlational research.
d. how researchers can accidentally or unintentionally manipulate other dependent variables.
36. A psychologist is interested in looking at the effectiveness of a new computer program in helping students learn math. She decides to test this new program with a group of middle school students. At this particular school, the boys and girls tend to be disruptive when they are in the same classroom, so she decides to run them separately in the experiment. She creates a group of boys who use the computer program four times per week. She creates a group of girls who do not use the computer program to serve as a comparison group. This experimental design is flawed because gender is a ______________ and as a result, the internal validity of the study has been __________.
a. confounding variable; lowered
b. dependent variable; lowered
c. confounding variable; raised
d. dependent variable; raised
37. The internal validity of an experiment is lowered by experimenter expectancy effects because:
a. the behavior of the experimenter may have caused the participants to respond the way they did.
b. there is confounding and we can't tell whether the independent variable or the dependent variable caused the results.
c. the results of the experiment may have been due to participants' expectations about the treatment they thought they were receiving.
d. the participants may have used cues in the experiment to figure out the researcher's hypothesis.
38. The problem of participant placebo effects and experimenter expectancy effects are both minimized by:
a. unobtrusive measurement.
b. random assignment.
c. random sampling.
d. the double-blind procedure.
39. The specific genetic makeup of an individual is referred to as the:
a. genotype.
b. phenotype.
c. antigen.
d. heritability coefficient.
40. Your grandfather has blue eyes. What is the chance that you have the same gene responsible for this characteristic yourself?
a. 50 percent
b. 25 percent
c. 15 percent
d. 5 percent
41. Both of Bob's parents have blue eyes. Bob himself also has the gene for blue eyes, yet his eyes are brown. This means that the gene for blue eyes would be considered:
a. polygenic.
b. phenotypic.
c. recessive.
d. dominant.
42. The heritability coefficient is used to estimate:
a. the extent to which variation in a group of people can be accounted for by genetic factors.
b. the extent to which variation in a group of people can be accounted for by environmental factors.
c. the probability that a person will share a given gene with his or her parents.
d. the probability that a person will share a given gene with any blood relative.
43. Which of the following statements is most accurate?
a. Natural selection is the driving force of evolution and the products of natural selection are adaptations.
b. Evolution is the driving force of adaptations and the products of adaptations are natural selections.
c. Adaptations are the driving force of evolution and the products of adaptations are natural selections.
d. Evolution is the driving force of natural selection and the products of evolution are adaptations.
44. The portion of the chromosome that carries the specific hereditary units of information are called:
a. genes.
b. phenotypes.
c. polygenic transmissions.
d. heritability coefficients.
45. Even though a person may have the gene for blue eyes in her chromosomes, it is possible that she may actually have brown eyes because the gene for blue eyes is recessive. Instances like these most clearlydemonstrate the distinction between:
a. chromosomes and genes.
b. chromosomes and genotype.
c. genes and genotype.
d. genotype and phenotype.
46. Adoption studies have found that people with schizophrenia:
a. are more similar to their adoptive parents than to their biological parents.
b. are more similar to their biological parents than to their adoptive parents.
c. are equally similar to their biological and adoptive parents.
d. are not similar to either their biological parents or their adoptive parents.
47. Branchlike fibers called __________ collect messages from adjacent neurons and pass them along to the cell body of the receiving neuron.
a. axons
b. glial cells
c. dendrites
d. neurotransmitters
48. Shortly after a neural impulse has been triggered, a(n) ____________ occurs where, for a brief period of time, the neuron is not excitable and cannot fire another impulse.
a. action potential
b. graded potential
c. refractory period
d. depolarization
49. What is the effect of the myelin sheath on the conduction of neural impulses?
a. Myelin sheaths decrease the speed of electrical conduction.
b. Myelin sheaths increase the speed of electrical conduction.
c. Myelin sheaths have no effect on the speed of electrical conduction.
d. Myelin sheaths are responsible for the refractory period after a neuron has fired.
50. The synapse is a tiny gap between:
a. the nucleus and the axon
b. the axon terminal and the next neuron.
c. the cell body and the dendrites.
d. segments of myelin sheath.
51. Neurons produce ____________, which are chemical substances that carry messages across the synapse to the other neurons.
a. neurotransmitters
b. action potentials
c. graded potentials
d. hormones
52. The process in which neurotransmitters are deactivated when they are taken back into the presynaptic axon terminal is called:
a. restoring.
b. regeneration.
c. recycling.
d. reuptake.
53. What are the three major types of neurons in the nervous system?
a. sensory neurons, motor neurons, and interneurons
b. excitatory neurons, inhibitory neurons, and interneurons
c. excitatory neurons, inhibitory neurons, and sensory neurons
d. excitatory neurons, motor neurons, and interneurons
54. The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems play complementary roles in maintaining ____________, which refers to a balanced or constant internal state.
a. homeosynthesis
b. homeostasis
c. neural plasticity
d. the resting potential
55. The area of the brain that plays a role in vital life functions, such as heart rate and respiration, is the:
a. thalamus.
b. cerebellum.
c. medulla.
d. hypothalamus.
56. Judith has noticed that her elderly husband is behaving differently lately. His movements have become uncoordinated, jerky, and clumsy, and he even has difficulty walking or getting up from a chair. These symptoms are most likely related to a tumor in the:
a. cerebellum.
b. pons.
c. medulla.
d. reticular formation.
57. The reticular formation is considered to be the "brain's gatekeeper" because:
a. it regulates the flow of incoming sensory information.
b. it regulates the flow of outgoing neural motor commands.
c. it regulates the vital functions of respiration and heart rate.
d. it determines what neurons are physically connected to the cerebral cortex.
58. Research on schizophrenia has found that men with this disorder tend to have abnormalities in the ___________ and these abnormalities might account for their confused thinking and disordered attention.
a. cerebrum
b. limbic system
c. hypothalamus
d. thalamus
59. The condition known as agnosia is most strongly related to which of the following?
a. association cortex
b. the cerebellum
c. Wernicke's area
d. the limbic system
60. According to the text, the ability of neurons to change their structure and function is called:
a. neural concordance.
b. neural flexibility.
c. neural elasticity.
d. neural plasticity.