Psych Midterm 1

a testable prediction about the relationship between variables

A hypothesis is

naturalistic observation

A manager at a science museum wants to identify the most popular exhibits, so once every hour for six weeks she has volunteers count the number of people standing in front of each exhibit. This is an example of

a combination of results from many related studies

A meta-analysis is

studies

A meta-analysis most typically focuses on a multitude of

axon; synapse

A neuron's ___ meets another neuron's ___ at a(n) ___

functionalist

A research psychologist is most interested in discovering the answers to questions like, "Why is empathy helpful to people? and "How does education contribute to social stability?" This approach is most consistent with the ___ perspective

exposed internalized racism in African-American children, particularly among children attending segregated schools

Psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Phipps Clark found that doll tests

has a weak effect on consumers, if any at all

Psychologists now believe that subliminal adveritising

dendrites, cell body, axon, and axon terminals

Referring to picture of neuron The numerals 1, 2, 3, and 4 refer to ___ respectively

introspection

Research participants in early psychology studies might have been given a stimulus such as a ticking metronome and would reflect on the experience, reporting what the stimulus made them think and feel. These individuals would have been using a process called

experimental

Research that involves intentional manipulation of variables is called ___ research

should retain her hypothesis for now

Results from a recent experiment are consistent with a researcher's expectation that exposing people to unfamiliar groups reduces prejudice. This means that the researcher

not substantiated through research

Scientific investigation has revealed that the "Mozart effect" (the notion that children become smarter from listening to the music of Mozart) is

Hand

in the homunculus that corresponds to the mapping of the somatosensory cortex, which body part occupies the largest area?

test cause-and-effect relationships

scientists use laboratory experiments primarily to

our genes and strictly biological influences

When psychologists use the term "nature" to refer to causes of behaviors, they mean

sensory neurons

When you scrape your knee, pain is relayed from your knee to your central nervous system by

statistical significance

Whether depression levels are truly lower in a treatment group than in a control group is assessed by determining the ___ of the difference in scores between groups

Breathing

Which function is most directly controlled by the brainstem

-0.75

Which has the strongest predictive value +0.50, +0.30, 0.00, -0.75

Dopamine

Which neurotransmitter plays an important role in signaling pleasure?

Amino acids

Which of the following are subunits of proteins?

The temperature right now is higher than it was 24 hours ago

Which of the following is an empirical statement?

The closer a correlation to 0.00, the weaker the relationship

Which of the following is true about the strength of a correlation?

Survey research

Which of the following research methods would be most appropriate for investigating the relationship between political orientation and belief in climate change?

heights of all adult men in America

Which of the following samples would provide a nearly normal distribution? -number of men and women in the country -incomes of a small company with many low-level employees and two high-paid executives -heights of all adult men in America -scores on a very easy test

Behaviorist

Which of the following would be most likely to argue that an individual regularly drinks to excess because she grew up in an environment where adults were heavy drinkers?

Understanding a joke

Which of these behaviors is most likely to be controlled by a neural network?

Neurons send electrical messages across the synaptic cleft

Which statement about information transmission between neurons is correct?

Skepticism is advisable until an idea is proven right

Which statement reflects a reasonable attitude for a good student of psychology to have toward any claim about human behavior?

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)

Which technology enables researchers to temporarily inhibit a localized brain region, like a reversible brain lesion?

Genes

Which term refers to specific lengths of DNA that carry information needed to make the proteins that are required for proper bodily functioning?

parts of the brain filled with myelinated axons

White matter refers to

expose their children to a rich variety of sensory experiences

Parents who agree with John Locke's notion of tabula rasa would most likely

poor; not testable

"Green is the prettiest color" is a ___ hypothesis because it is ___

behaviorist

A ___ would be most likely to argue that a 13-year-old boy took up smoking because his father, older brothers, and friends were smokers

Which article the women read

A research team is investigating the impact of stereotypes on performance. In one group, women read an article about why the structure of men's brains makes them better at math. In the second group, women read an article saying there are no biological differences in the mathematical abilities of men and women. Then all women in the study take a challenging math test. Researchers time the test and score the number of items women answered correctly. In this study, which of the following is the independent variable?

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

A researcher is interested in understanding how the physical structure of the corpus callosum changes from childhood to adulthood. Which of the following would be the most useful brain imaging technique?

An fMRI image showing activity in the limbic system

A scientific paper includes a brain image showing that memory regions are active when research participants tell practiced lies but not when participants tell spontaneous lies. What would you expect this image to be?

reliable and valid

A self-report measure of the personality trait of agreeableness produces very similar scores each time the same person completes it. It is also strongly correlated with whether family members describe a person as friendly and cooperative. This measure appears to be

Freudian theory is untestable and not grounded in science

What is a mainstream psychologist most likely to think about Sigmund Freud?

he exists

According to Rene Descartes, the very fact that he is thinking proves that

will accumulate in the genomes of future generations if it improves survival and reproduction

According to the process of natural selection, a mutation

unconscious bias

Although very few people would admit to a belief that men make better hires than women, several experiments show that men are more likely to be hired than women with identical resumes. This is an example of

the act of learning changes the physical structure of the brain

An important principle to remember when studying psychology is that

people are born with specific sexual orientations

An overwhelming amount of scientific evidence indicates that

spurious correlation

As the number of pirates in the world has decreased the mean global temperature has increased. This is an example of a

Well people tend to be more accident-prone around the full moon, but the crime rate doesn't really go up

As you and your roommate watch a news report about a big fight that broke out at a local club, he turns to you and says "I'm not surprised. It's a full moon, after all. People always go crazy around the full moon." As a student of psychology, your responses should be

external behavior; internal mental processes

Behaviorism examines ___, whereas cognitive psychology examines ___

show brain structures but not areas of brain activity

Computed tomography (CT) scans

predicting behavior

Correlations are most useful for

is occasionally allowed but must be followed by a thorough debriefing

Deception in psychological research

reducing the perception of pain

Endorphins play a key role in the human nervous system by ___

provide information about potential risks to participants before they begin a study

Ethical principles require researchers to

prefrontal cortex

Following a head injury, Maria experienced a dramatic personality change. She now gambles heavily, swear and yells at work, and has difficulty planning ahead. She most likely experienced damage to her

share a particular genotype

If you and your siblings share a trait, then by definition you

refused to believe him

In Plato's cave allegory, a prisoner was temporarily unchained and allowed to see the fire at the mouth of the cave. When he returned to the chains, the other prisoners

repeatedly exposed to stimuli that are gradually more and more like rats

In a behaviorist approach to treatment for a patient with a fear of rats, the patient is

double-blind trial

In a depression-treatment study, neither the participants nor the researcher know who is taking medication and who is taking a sugar pill. This is an example of a

include a control group, which would receive some supportive counseling but not the actual treatment

In a phobia treatment study, the participants spend three hours facing their fears. Post-treatment scores show significant improvement in overall distress levels when handling the feared objects, so the treatment is judged as effective by the researcher. To improve the study's design, the researcher can

one or more individuals are studied in great detail

In case study research,

independent

In experimental research, which of the following variables is controlled by the researcher?

more irritable and aggressive

Jake has recently developed a disease that causes him to release too much testosterone. Compared with his behavior prior to developing the disease, his behavior now is likely to be

Temporal lobe

Kobe, a native English speaker, has moved to Germany and is learning to speak German. Which brain region is likely to show the greatest plasticity?

motor neurons

Messages from the central nervous system are carried to muscles by

allow action potentials to travel more quickly

Myelinated axons are useful because they

track radioactive markers in the blood

PET scans

collecting blood and tissue samples from research animals

The Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee is responsible for all of the following except

researchers failed to inform participants that they had a treatable disease

The Tuskegee syphilis study is famous because

genetic determinism

The belief that genes determine everything about us, including our behavior, is referred to as

transferring information between the left and right hemispheres

The corpus callosum is directly responsible for

hormone production and release

The endocrine system controls

Philipsophy

The foundations of psychology are most closely related to which discipline?

explain human thought and behavior

The goal of psychology is to

memory

The hippocampus plays the most significant role in

determine whether a proposed study is ethical

The key purpose of an Institutional Review Board (IRB) is to

provide electrical insulation

The key purpose of myelin is to

analyze sensory information and control behavior

The key role of the central nervous system is to

DNA

The molecule present in the chromosomes that "codes" hereditary information is called

nucleus

The part of the cell that contains chromosomes is called the

representative samples

The presence of adoring puppies at a small, local club make a rock band confident that they will become world famous. They should probably pay more attention the the importance of

chromosomes

The rod-shaped cellular structures that contain human DNA are called

people can keep close tabs on only about 150 different personal relationships

The social brain hypothesis states that

electroencephalography (EEG)

The technique that detects voltage changes in the brain is

changeable

The term "plasticity" is used to describe the human brain as

endocrine system

The thyroid and the pituitary gland are part of the

send chemical messages across small gaps between neurons

To allow communication, neurons

occipital lobe

To demonstrate that brain stimulation can create visual illusions, a doctor would stimulate his patient's

survey research

To identify the most popular exhibits at a science museum, visitors were asked every day for six weeks to rate how much they enjoyed each exhibit. The data were analyzed to look for age and sex differences in exhibit preferences. This was an examples of

independent variable

To test the impact of mood on generosity, a researcher has half of his participants watch a depressing movie and half watch a comedy. Then the researcher asks all participants for help moving boxes to another room. In this study, mood is the

randomization

Treatment-outcome researchers attempt to prevent initial differences between treatment and control groups by using

Sensory and motor

What are the two components of the somatic nervous system?

The mean of all salaries is $60,000 because the managers and president earn huge salaries

You accept a job selling high-end knives door-to-door on commission because you were informed that company employees, on average, earn $60,000 a year. After three months of making less than $1,000 a month, you learn that most other salespeople are making less than $20,000 a year. If the company has 20 sales people, two managers, and one president, how can the company's claim still be correct?

parietal

Your brain's ___ lobe is most involved in allowing you to feel an annoying pebble in your shoe

fertilization

Your first cell began making proteins when your father's sperm fused with your mother's egg in the process of

a Gestalt psychologist

Your psychology professor tells the class, "Experience cannot be analyzed successfully into its elements." Your professor is most likley

Wilhelm Wundt

___ is often credited with establishing the first psychological laboratory, thus establishing psychology as an experimental science

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)

___ temporarily disrupts brain activity

Broca's area

after surgery to control epilepsy, Miguel could understand people but lost his ability to speak. It is most likely that the surgery impacted his