AAMC 4 P/S

Which statement best distinguishes self-efficacy from collective efficacy, as it is described in the passage?

Self-efficacy predicts an individual's coping ability, whereas collective efficacy predicts a group's prosocial behavior. *Collective efficacy assessed respondents' perceptions that members of their community would help one another out. Collective efficacy can be described in terms of an assessment of the prosocial behavior of a group (predicting prosocial behavior in one's community). Because self-efficacy refers to a person's belief in his or her ability to accomplish tasks, self-efficacy can be described in terms of predicting one's coping ability.

Which theory of emotion is most compatible with the example provided in the passage (paragraph 2)?

The Schachter-Singer theory, because it focuses on the role of cognitive appraisal in influencing affective states *The example of a child being bumped into by a classmate focuses on the role of cognition (interpretation of situational variables) on affective states. The Schachter-Singer theory is the only alternative that involves cognitive appraisal.

Based on Table 1, which component(s) of social capital is(are) most likely to affect mammography usage? 1 Social cohesion 2 Collective efficacy 3 Social participation

2 - MISSED *Collective efficacy is the only component of social capital in the table that is statistically significant (indicated by an asterisk). In addition to that information, the odds ratio of 1.40 suggests that increases in collective efficacy were associated with an increased likelihood of having had a mammogram (the passage provides information on interpreting the odds ratio).

The beginning of the passage indicates that early studies found which relationship between an individual's attraction to the group and the group's influence on an individual's opinion?

A positive correlation *The passage indicates that the early studies found that as an individual's attraction to the group decreased, the individual's degree of opinion change also decreased. This type of relationship between two variables is a positive (or direct) correlation in which the values of both variables change in the same direction. As variable X increases, variable Y increases, and vice versa.

Which variable in Table 1 is associated with a lower likelihood of having had a mammogram?

Below poverty level - The odds ratio for below poverty level is 0.68; the asterisk indicates that it is statistically significant. As noted in the passage, an odds ratio below 1.00 represents a decreased likelihood of mammography. Thus, a woman with income below the poverty level is less likely to report having had a mammogram compared to a woman with income above the poverty line.

Which statement best applies Rogers's concept of incongruence to SDT's suggestion for how healthcare professionals can promote autonomous motivation?

By giving their patients options, healthcare professionals offer their patients ways to reduce the gap between their ideal selves and their actual selves.

Based on the description in the passage, which component of attitudes does the gender role attitude scale measure?

Cognitive *The cognitive component of an attitude consists of an individual's beliefs about the attitude object. The passage states that study participants were asked to indicate their level of agreement with statements that assert beliefs about gender and family life.

Which research design would allow a researcher to determine whether the study's finding about heterosexual marriage and alcohol consumption also holds for same-sex marriage?

Compare rates of alcohol consumption among a random sample of single, homosexual respondents and those married to a same-sex partner. - MISSED *To assess the relationship between variables, both variables must be measured and exhibit variation. The key describes an appropriate design because both variables (alcohol consumption and same-sex partnerships) are measured for a relevant population. It would thus provide data that could provide for a comparison with the findings of the study in the passage.

Which graph best describes the relative performance of Ps and controls on the type of lexical decision task described in the passage?

D - MISSED misread graph *The passage suggests that controls process emotional words more quickly than nonemotional words, whereas Ps do not show this difference. This graph correctly represents this pattern. * i got confused with the y axis thinking the higher it was was quicker timing but it was more bc it was "reaction time" silly mistake for going too fast

The distinction between binge drinking and alcohol dependence in the passage is best described as attributing preventable injuries to which effect of alcohol use?

Disinhibition - MISSED *The passage states that excessive alcohol use is associated with preventable injuries, which are more often due to binge drinking than to alcohol dependence. Disinhibition is associated with binge drinking and often leads to risk taking, which can lead to preventable injuries.

Participant responses to the childhood health history in Study 1 were dependent on retrieving which type of information from memory?

Episodic *When participants respond to questions about their childhood health history, they are retrieving autobiographical information, which is an important type of episodic memory.

Based on the results of Study 1, which symptom in childhood is most likely to be a risk factor for lower SES in adulthood?

Feelings of worthlessness *Study 1 found an association between childhood depression and substance use and lower SES in adulthood. Feelings of worthlessness is among the symptoms of depression.

Participants were given a candle, a box of matches, and thumb tacks and instructed to use the materials to mount the candle on a bulletin board. Only a few participants thought of using the inside of the matchbox as a candle holder and tacking this to the bulletin board. This result is an example of which barrier to problem solving?

Functional fixedness *Functional fixedness refers to people's tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions, which can inhibit solving problems. -The availability heuristic refers to the tendency to estimate the likelihood of events based on how easily (i.e., how rapidly) examples of those events can be retrieved from memory.

Assume that the participants were given the opportunity to discuss their initial ranking of the attributes with members of their group and found that they were in agreement. Which psychological process would then be most likely to affect each participant's opinion?

Group polarization *The most likely outcome of a group discussion of individuals who are initially in agreement is group polarization; each group member will express a more extreme opinion than they did initially.

The glass escalator concept predicts that a male employee's progression in a female-dominated industry is most likely to follow which pattern?

He will be promoted to supervisory roles more quickly than his female counterparts. *The sociological concept of the "glass escalator" suggests that men who pursue occupations that have high proportions of women (such as teaching or nursing) will quickly ascend the career ladder with promotions. As indicated in this option, the glass escalator concept would predict that men are likely to be granted supervisory roles.

Which stimuli are most likely to be included in a neuroimaging study to examine the function of the amygdala?

Images designed to evoke a fear response

Based on the findings of Study 2, which characteristic in adulthood is LEAST likely associated with childhood psychological disorders?

Impulsivity - The passage states that Study 2 found childhood psychological disorders were associated with the Big Five personality traits during adulthood. Impulsivity is not among the factors identified in Cattell's Five Factor (the BIG Five) theory. *OCEAN

Efforts to raise public awareness about dementia in LMICs are most likely to take the form of which community-based program?

Inform people that dementia is an abnormal condition rather than a normal part of aging. *Dementia is an abnormal condition, and not an inevitable result of normal aging. Making people aware of this fact may help alleviate the problem of underreporting of dementia in LMICs, mentioned in the passage.

When asked whether a person who is afraid of spiders would be diagnosed as having a psychological disorder, a psychologist replies, "It depends on whether or not this fear interferes with the person's life." The psychologist appears to rely most heavily on which criterion of abnormality?

Maladaptiveness - MISSED * The maladaptiveness criterion takes into account whether the behavior negatively impacts the person's life or poses a threat to others.

Which statement does NOT describe a monocular depth cue?

Objects that are to the front of the point of focus are perceived as being closer than objects that are behind the point of focus. - MISSED *Using the distance from the object of focus as a depth cue is associated with retinal disparity, which is a binocular depth cue.

A researcher proposes an alternative to the hypothesis in the passage that mammography rates are partly due to social capital. An alternative hypothesis that draws on the concept of institutional discrimination is most likely to make which prediction?

Mammography rates will be affected by healthcare policies that have a disproportionate impact on racial/ethnic minority groups. *The passage refers to research suggesting that the breast cancer mortality disparity may be partly related to differences in cancer screening with mammography. The question introduces another researcher's alternative hypothesis, proposing that the correct answer must apply the concept of institutional discrimination. Institutional discrimination calls attention to policies at the organizational or institutional level in health care. Rather than being directly exclusionary, these policies tend to have a disproportionate impact on certain groups.

A consultant is hired by an organization to break down barriers between managers and assistants by conducting a series of team-building activities over a period of time. If the team-building activities are successful, how would they most likely influence the attributions made by the organization's employees?

Managers and assistants would attribute positive outcomes by managers to dispositional factors. *If the team building activities are fully effective, then the managers and assistants would all see themselves as part of one group. There would be an in-group bias for all employees. They would all make dispositional attributions for their coworkers' successes and situational attributions for their coworkers' failures.

Auditory hair cells are what type of receptors?

Mechanoreceptors *Auditory hair cells are a type of mechanoreceptor. Auditory hair cells deflect when the sound signal is transduced into vibrations in the inner ear. The auditory hair cells (such as stereocilia) bend towards the tallest stereocilium and connect to mechanically gated ion channels.

A researcher proposes that higher alcohol consumption in men, compared to women, may be related to higher testosterone levels in men. Which result would cast doubt on this hypothesis?

Men and women with similar attitudes and adult roles consume the same amount of alcohol. *This option provides a result with an alternative factor that could explain the influence of gender on alcohol consumption. If men and women with similar attitudes and roles still consume similar amounts of alcohol, then the testosterone hypothesis can be questioned. With this finding, it would be attitudes and roles that impact consumption levels (not just hormones).

Are the assumptions of SCT regarding the role of participants' beliefs (paragraph 3) consistent with a traditional behaviorist approach?

No, because the traditional behaviorist approach holds that actual outcomes determine behavior, not cognitions regarding potential outcomes

Based on the findings in the study, what is the most likely prediction when people make attributions for their own behavior?

People attribute positive outcomes to dispositional factors and negative outcomes to situational factors. *People have a self-serving bias, wherein people tend to attribute their own successes to internal factors and attribute their own failures to external factors. In addition, people will match their attributions about their own behavior to the attributions they make for their in-groups, because the in-group is treated as an extension of the self. If the in-group looks good, then the self looks good.

The findings of Study 1 suggest that the assessment of alcohol use involved which indicator?

Presence of withdrawal symptoms *Alcohol dependence is most strongly indicated by withdrawal symptoms.

How would the pattern of attributions found in the study most likely be predicted to change during times of intense group conflict between managers and assistants?

The conflict would increase the effects of the in-group and out-group bias. *Intense group conflict increases the effects of the in-group and out-group bias and would most likely have the same effects on the attributions made by the different groups. For example, a delay in responding by management caused by some computer malfunction would be much more likely to be attributed to an internal factor ("they are not trustworthy") compared to a situational factor ("computer malfunction").

Which statement best explains autonomous motivation?

The desire to reach one's goals creates a drive that individuals are motivated to fulfill. *The passage describes autonomous motivation as a drive. Individuals are motivated to initiate behaviors that are consistent with their values.

Which statement does NOT provide a potential hypothesis for the gender difference in alcohol consumption between young men and young women?

The number of dependents living at home will be higher for young men than young women. *The question requires selecting a hypothesis that does not provide a factor that may potentially explain the gender difference in alcohol consumption. The correct answer provides a hypothesis about the relationship between gender and the number of dependents living at home. Since it offers no proposed relationship to alcohol consumption, this option does not provide a testable explanation for the gender difference in alcohol consumption.

Which concern about the study reflects problems as a result of the response rate?

The participants may differ from the employees who did not respond to the survey. - MISSED *A low response rate to a survey raises the question of whether the survey respondents differ from the nonrespondents on some important characteristics, such as personality traits or other factors. * SILLY MISTAKE

In an evaluation study for a diabetes intervention program, the subjects in the sample had a median age of 45 and a mean age of 55. Which statement accounts for the difference between the median age and the mean age?

The sample included subject(s) who were much older than the age of 45. - MISSED *A mean age (of 55) that is higher than the median age (of 45) suggests that the sample had a skew toward older ages. One way to represent this is to say that the sample included subject(s) who were much older than the average age.​

The concept of medicalization is most directly relevant to which passage statement?

When interventions from HICs are applied to LMICs, emphasis should be placed on framing excessive alcohol use as a treatable disorder. - MISSED *This option is most relevant to the concept of medicalization, the process in which a social problem comes to be defined as a disease or disorder. The focus on alcohol use as a treatable disorder raises the concept of medicalization more directly than the other options.

A researcher hypothesizes that the gender gap described in the passage is due to gender socialization. Which statement provides the best explanation for how gender socialization might affect drinking behavior?

Young men learn norms that encourage high-risk behaviors. *Gender socialization refers to the learning of norms and values associated with masculinity or femininity. Gender norms related to masculinity include the encouragement of high-risk behaviors, of which heavy drinking would be an example.

The ranking of attributes and the bogus group consensus are best described as making participants feel as though their group is:

a reference group, so that participants will evaluate themselves against the group. *The group is assumed to be a reference group because participants will evaluate themselves based on thoughts about the group. The ranking of attributes and bogus group consensus are part of the design to make participants evaluate themselves against the group.

Based on discussion of resistance in the passage, proponents of social skills training most likely will suggest that program implementation will succeed if trainers act out of:

altruism *The passage argued that, for successful implementation, the skills trainers should work pro bono (i.e., without pay), purely out of the desire to impact change and help others. Altruism is defined as doing something for others without the expectation of receiving anything in return.

A researcher applying the concept of assimilation to immigrant health would propose which hypothesis? An immigrant group's life expectancy will:

approximate the majority group's life expectancy over time. - MISSED *The concept of assimilation proposes that an immigrant group will eventually adopt the customs (norms, values, etc.) of the majority group in a society. Because of taking on such norms over time, the immigrant group's health outcomes (including life expectancy) would be likely to approximate the majority group's health outcomes (including life expectancy).

To explain the long-term effects of exposure to media violence, the passage makes a reference to all of the following types of learning EXCEPT:

classical conditioning. *Although classical conditioning may be involved in an individual's responses to media violence, it is not specified in the passage.

A dopamine antagonist will most likely lead to:

decreased mobility and increased frequency of tremors in patients with Parkinson's disease.

The retina functions to:

detect light rays and convert them into signals for the brain to process. *The retina contains photoreceptors such as rods and cones, which detect light and transduces light to energy. The energy eventually becomes an action potential and the signal travels through the optic nerve and travels to the primary visual cortex.

The numbers presented to the participants in the avoidance study function as:

discriminating stimuli - MISSED * The numbers are discriminating stimuli, which signal the availability of reinforcement or punishment - chose unconditioned stimulus but that is wrong because those naturally elicit a reflexive behavior (UR)

In paragraph 3, the passage identifies some SOCIAL SKILLS intervention programs as being designed to:

enhance students' learning of school norms and peer values. - MISSED *The third paragraph of the passage states that some programs are designed to enhance socialization for school-aged children. This option concisely describes socialization.

Which statement best explains how the concept of external motivation (used by SDT) is different from extrinsic motivation? Compared to external motivation, extrinsic motivation:

is a broader term that includes external motivation. - MISSED *Extrinsic motivation refers to any motivation that results from incentives to perform a behavior that are not inherent to the behavior itself. External motivation is described as social pressure, which is an example of extrinsic motivation. - B was wrong because it noted its narrow term and refers to external reinforcers but really it includes punishers as well- wrong

The respondents from the study in the passage are asked to report their alcohol consumption, gender role attitudes, and adult roles every 2 years for a decade after the initial study. This research design is best described as:

longitudinal *A longitudinal study is one that permits comparison of identical measures (including with the same group of participants) at two or more points in time.

A person is struggling to achieve generativity, rather than stagnation. In terms of Erikson's theory, this person is a(n):

middle-aged adult. *Adolescents struggle with identify vs role confusion * young adults struggle with intimacy vs isolation * elderly struggle with integrity vs despair

A team of researchers at a pharmaceutical company tests a new cancer drug. The researchers have concluded that the drug is effective, but other scientists CANNOT replicate the findings. Which is the most likely explanation for the lack of replicability of the original results?

observer bias - MISSED - guessed *Any bias on the part of the observers recording the data could have contaminated the original results. In this case, it is possible that proper precautions (for example, ensuring that observers were "blind" with respect to which patients received the drug and which patients received the placebo) were not taken. *The base rate fallacy refers to the error people make when they ignore the base rates (i.e., prior probabilities) when evaluating the probabilities (or frequencies) of events.

Which experimental procedure would establish that Ps differ from controls only in avoidance learning but perform similarly to controls in other types of operant conditioning? Comparing the Ps and the controls:

on a word-learning task in which they receive a monetary reward every time they provide the correct response *It describes an operant conditioning paradigm in which participants learn the response that is reinforced.

Whenever a two-year-old sees a moth, the butterfly-like pattern on her dress shoes, or hair bows that resemble the shape of a butterfly, she proudly exclaims, "Butterfly!" This process is referred to as:

overextension. *"Overextension" is the term for applying a term for one class of objects to other objects that bear only a superficial resemblance (for example, "doggie" for a cow).

According to Piaget's theory of cognitive development, programs like those described in the passage most likely will benefit:

preoperational individuals, since they are imaginative and vulnerable to influence. *In Piaget's preoperational stage, children are imaginative and unable to reconcile errors in their thinking such as errors in a conservation task. Once these errors are resolved and the child is capable of more advanced thinking, the preoperational stage is over.

Nonviolent video games can alter internal states by causing frustration. Based on the passage, how do nonviolent video games differ from violent video games as situational variables? Nonviolent video games are NOT likely to:

prime aggressive thought structures. *Although the GAM suggests that exposure to violent media can lead to aggressive behaviors, a nonaggressive game is unlikely to prime aggressive thought structures.

The passage suggests that family caregivers of patients with dementia are likely to experience:

role conflict. *The end of the dementia section states that support for family caregivers of dementia patients is also essential to help caregivers balance the demands of caregiving with their other social responsibilities. Balancing the demands of one role (caregiving) with other roles (other social responsibilities) defines role conflict (tensions stemming from multiple social roles).

According to the passage, one of the long-term effects of exposure to violence is providing individuals with aggressive:

schemas. *The passage emphasizes the role of repeated exposure to violence in creating violent scripts (which are a subtype of schemas) and knowledge structures.

Which procedure is most effective for teaching a dog to shake hands?

shaping *Shaping involves reinforcing successive approximations of a behavior. It is utilized to establish a novel behavior. -Missed

Attraction and commitment to a group is likely to be greatest when group members:

share equivalent cultural capital. - MISSED *Group affiliation (attraction and commitment) is likely to be greatest when the members or participants in the group share similar outlooks, knowledge, preferences, skills, and other aspects of cultural capital. Among the options, similarity in cultural capital would be most likely to solidify group bonds in a way that increases commitment to the group.

The studies in the passage that suggest the determinants of depression are most likely to take an approach consistent with:

social epidemiology. - From the depression section, studies suggest that structural factors, such as poverty or racial/ethnic minority status, are important determinants of depression. The focus on structural factors, such as poverty or race/ethnicity, is most consistent with social epidemiology, which focuses on the social determinants of health and disease.

According to the paradigm of symbolic interactionism, individuals develop a sense of identity primarily through:

social relationships. *Symbolic interactionism posits that individuals develop a sense of self, or identity, through the interactions and relationships that they have with others. The theory suggests that social relationships are fundamental for individuals to develop a sense of who they are.

A researcher applying the sociological perspective of labeling theory to the passage is likely to suggest that social skills training will have the greatest impact on:

social stigma applied to some students. *Labeling theory suggests that people are often placed into social categories, one of which could be a stigmatized category. Thus, labeling theory is most closely associated with social stigma. As related to the passage, labeling theory would suggest that social skills training could potentially prevent or counteract the stigmatization of some students in schools.

Underuse of available healthcare services for the disorders in the passage is most likely due to:

social stigma.

Based on the information regarding the differences between Ps and controls when anticipating aversive events and viewing fear-inducing pictures, it is likely that the two groups differ in:

sympathetic nervous system arousal *Increased skin conductivity, both when anticipating an aversive event and in the startle response when viewing fear-inducing images, is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system.