AP Psychology Unit 1
A double-blind control is essential for which of the following?
Assessment of a treatment designed to reduce schizophrenic symptoms
On a test, the mean score for a class of 100 students is 80 and the standard deviation of the scores is 10. The professor who gave the test then realizes that she made a scoring error, which she corrects by adding 5 points to each student's score. The standard deviation of the students' new scores is
10
What is the range of the numbers? 2,2,2,4,6,8,9,10,12,14,16
14
2, 3, 17, 10, 2, 3, 8, 2, 7 What is the mode of the set of scores above?
2
What is the mode of the numbers? 2,2,2,4,6,8,9,10,12,14,16
2
10, 3, 5, 7, 10, 3, 10, 5, 2 The numbers above represent the quiz results for a psychology class. What is the median score for the class?
5
What is the median of the numbers? 7,5,10,4,4
5
A test has a mean of 80 with a standard deviation of 4. Which of the following scores is within one standard deviation of the mean?
77
Research finds that, in general, the higher an incoming college student scores on a given test, the higher the student's college grade point average (GPA). Which of the following best describes this relationship?
A positive correlation
Which of the following accurately describes a major change in perspective in the field of development psychology over the past twenty-five years?
A shift from an emphasis on childhood and adolescence to an interest in development over the life span.
John B. Watson is best known as the founder of
Behaviorism
Which of the following research approaches would be best for testing the hypothesis that the presence of certain odors causes people to gamble more?
Experimental
Synesthesia is a phenomenon that has been estimated to occur in only a few people in a million. Because of its rarity, researchers are likely to choose which research method to study it?
Case study
Although Paul seems bright and capable to his parents and friends, he has been failing in school. Paul agrees to speak with a psychologist, who suggests that his problems stem from internal processes such as unrealistic expectations and negative thinking. The psychologist's view is typical of which of the following models of behavior?
Cognitive
In an experiment, which of the following variables refers to the outcome that is measured by the experimenter?
Dependent
Wilhem Wundt
Father of Modern Psychology - structuralist
A researcher randomly assigned boys and girls to each of two groups. One group watched a violent television program while the other group watched a nonviolent program. The children were then observed during a period of free play, and the incidence of aggressive behavior was recorded for each group. What is the dependent variable in this study?
Incidence of aggressive behavior
Which of the following is a statistical approach concerned with forming conclusions about the effect of the independent variable on variations in the dependent variable?
Inferential
Which of the following statements best describes the placebo effect?
It can be brought about by the individual's expectations.
In a normal distribution, which of the following statements is true about the area that falls between one standard deviation above and one standard deviation below the mean?
It contains the middle 68% of the distribution.
Which of the following statements is true of behaviorism?
It holds that development is largely a product of learning.
According to the ethical guidelines set by the American Psychological Association (APA), which of the following is true of psychological research in which animals are used as subjects?
It should conform to all APA ethical guidelines for animal research.
Which of the following research methods is being used if the same subjects are tested at two, four, and six years of age?
Longitudinal
A statistical procedure that summarizes a large body of evidence from the research literature on a particular topic, allowing the researcher to assess the strength of the relationship between the variables.
Meta-analysis
Dr. Grayson is interested in studying the relationship between weight loss and mood. To conduct the study, Dr. Grayson analyzes the results of several previous studies on weight loss and emotional state. Which research strategy is Dr. Grayson using?
Meta-analysis
Professor González is interested in evaluating the ability of a new method of note-taking to improve student grades. Group A is trained in the new method and group B uses the traditional outline method of taking notes. What is Professor González' independent variable?
Method of note-taking
What is the mode?
Most common number
Mr. Gregg wants to help his second-grade students improve their reading skills. He tests the students with 20 reading comprehension questions at the beginning of the year. Every week throughout the year he gives the students 30 minutes of reading comprehension tips. He tests the students at the end of the year with 20 reading comprehension questions that are similar in difficulty to those on the original test. He finds that the students' reading comprehension has increased and concludes that his tips worked. Which of the following describes the most significant problem with Mr. Gregg's study?
Mr. Gregg failed to account for changes in the students' maturity.
A researcher interested in cooperative play in young children unobtrusively places several video cameras at a public playground and counts how many children engage in cooperative play behaviors. Which type of research method is the researcher using?
Naturalistic observation
Which of the following is required for a psychological experiment?
Precise operational definitions
Which of the following is used to reduce the effects of confounding variables in experiments?
Random assignment
All of the following are American Psychological Association ethical guidelines for researchers EXCEPT:
Research may not involve deception.
Dr. Wilson, who teaches engineering classes, is interested in learning about how lack of sleep affects performance. What would be the best way to ensure that her findings are generalizable to all the students at her university?
Surveying every tenth student listed in the university directory about their sleep habits
What is the primary advantage of conducting a surgery rather than using other types of research methods?
Surveys can gather information from a diverse representation of and a large number of people.
Which of the following studies demonstrates a cross-sectional research design?
Testing first, third, and fifth graders at the beginning of the school year
Who reviews research at a college or university?
The Institutional Review Board
A list of the presidents of the United States in chronological order up through the year 2000 is presented in the exact same manner to two classes of students, and they are then asked to recall them. A fourth-grade class is tested in the morning and a sixth-grade class is tested in the afternoon. The percent recall for both classes was combined and is presented in the figure above. The teacher noticed that the afternoon class recalled more presidents than the morning class did and concluded that this was caused by time of day. Which of the following is a confounding variable?
The grade level of the students
Respondents to surveys and questionnaires often report that they are healthier, happier, and less prejudiced than would be expected based on the results of other types of research. This finding can best be explained by which of the following?
The social desirability bias
An instructor conducted an experiment to determine the effects of two different methods of study on the amount students learned in introductory physics. The results showed that the average amount learned by the group using one method was greater than the average amount learned by the group using the other. However, the difference was not statistically significant. Which of the following is the most appropriate conclusion to be drawn?
There is a possibility that the difference between the two groups occurred by chance.
Operational definitions are used for which of the following reasons?
They enable researchers to replicate studies by precisely describing the variables and how they are used.
A researcher randomly assigned boys and girls to each of two groups. One group watched a violent television program while the other group watched a nonviolent program. The children were then observed during a period of free play, and the incidence of aggressive behavior was recorded for each group. What is the independent variable in this study?
Type of television program viewed
The law of proximity states that -
When things are closer together, they are seen as related or as a single unit.
A person displays a set of rare behaviors that psychologists had not known about previously, because nobody had ever shown them before. The best strategy to investigate the nature of those behaviors is
a case study
Samantha experienced a traumatic brain injury and afterward began to exhibit bizarre symptoms that no one had ever documented before. The best research method to study Samantha would be
a case study
Dr. Rodriguez is interested in finding out if stress levels throughout the year have a relationship with students' grades. The research method she most likely used is
a correlational study
Evaluating the relationship between two naturally occurring variables is best done with a
a correlational study
To minimize experimenter bias, researchers should use
a double-blind design
Functionalism
an early psychological perspective concerned with how an organism uses its perceptual abilities to adapt to its environment
Structuralism
an early school of psychology that used introspection to explore the elemental structure of the human mind
A research design involves two randomly assigned groups of participants. One group receives a one-time treatment, and the other does not. Later, the two groups are compared to see whether the treatment had an effect. Psychologists call this kind of research
an experiment
When seeking approval to conduct an experiment using participants from her college psychology course, a student researcher should
apply to the institutional review board at the university
Ethical principles developed by the American Psychological Association help ensure that human participants in psychological research
are protected from physical and psychological harm
According to one theory of psychology, many people have mental illnesses because their maladaptive behaviors have proven rewarding for them in the past and thus have been continued. This belief is consistent with which of the following models?
behavioral
Experiments demonstrate
cause and effect
Random assignment demonstrates -
cause and effect
A person who is given a role to play in an experiment so that the social context can be manipulated.
confederate
Research that examines the relationship between variables with the purpose of determining whether and how two variables change together.
correlational research
A type of correlational study in which variables are measured at a single point in time.
cross-sectional design
Drawing a random sample of people from a town for an interview study of social attitudes ensures that
each person in the town has the same probability of being chosen for the study
When deception is used, the researcher must
debrief after the experiment
In an experiment to test the effects of hunger on aggressive behavior, aggressive behavior would be the
dependent variable
Research that determines the basic dimensions of a phenomenon—defining what it is, how often it occurs, and so on.
descriptive research
Mathematical procedures that are used to describe and summarize sets of data in a meaningful way.
descriptive statistics
In experimental psychology, a significant difference refers to a
difference not likely due to chance
Gaining knowledge through the observation of events, the collection of data, and logical reasoning.
empirical method
In a research study, informed consent is a concern of
ethics
A researcher randomly assigned boys and girls to each of two groups. One group watched a violent television program while the other group watched a nonviolent program. The children were then observed during a period of free play, and the incidence of aggressive behavior was recorded for each group. This research method is best characterized as
experimental
James's approach to mental processes, emphasizing the functions and purposes of the mind and behavior in the individual's adaption to the environment
functionalism
Leadership, job satisfaction, and employee motivation are all studied in which of the following psychological disciplines?
industrial-organizational psychology
The advantage of an experiment is that it allows a researcher to
infer cause and affect
One advantage of experiments over correlational studies is that experiments generally allow one to
infer cause and effect
Mathematical methods that are used to indicate whether the data sufficiently support a research hypothesis.
inferential statistics
A survey shows that children who have encyclopedias in their homes earn better grades in school than children whose homes lack encyclopedias. The researcher concludes that having encyclopedias at home improves grades. This conclusion is erroneous primarily because the researcher has incorrectly
inferred causation from correlation
The mean will be higher than the median in any distribution that
is positively skewed
Deception can be used in research when
it is appropriate for what is being studied
A special kind of systematic observation, used by correlational researchers, that involves obtaining measures of the variables of interest in multiple waves over time
longitudinal design
The benefit of using inferential statistics is that it allows a researcher to
make generalizations about a population
Experimental research differs from correlational research in that experimental research
may reveal a causal relation
A measure of central tendency that is the average for a sample.
mean
A measure of central tendency that is the middle score in a sample.
median
Dualism
mind and body are separate
A measure of central tendency that is the most common score in a sample.
mode
A definition that provides an objective description of how a variable is going to be measured and observed in a particular study.
operational definition
A disadvantage of longitudinal studies is that
participants who drop out during the course of the study may be different in important ways from ones who do not drop out
In psychology, Gestalt principles are used to explain -
perceptual organization
Dr. Sampson follows the structuralist school of thought. Her techniques would most likely include
presenting a participant with an object, such as a can of soda, and having the subject report his or her perceptions or experience of the can
In studying the behavior of five year olds in free play situations, a cognitive psychologist would be most interested in the children's -
problem-solving strategies
an approach to psychology emphasizing unconscious thought, the conflict between biological drives (such as the drive for sex) and society's demands, and early childhood family experiences
psychodynamic approach
Julie is interested in developing a test to measure achievement levels of middle school students. Which of the following domains of psychology is most applicable to Julie's interest?
psychometric
The first area of psychology to be studied as a science is known as
psychophysics
The assignment of participants to experimental groups by chance, to reduce the likelihood that a study's results will be due to preexisting differences between groups.
random assignment
A measure of dispersion that is the difference between the highest and lowest scores.
range
Gestalt Psychology
refers to form, or organization, rather than content of behavior; tied the whole is greater than the sum of the parts; heavily influenced modern cognitive psychology
In developmental psychology, one advantage of cross-sectional over longitudinal studies is that cross-sectional research
requires comparatively little time
Students from a journalism class ask only their friends to participate in a school newspaper survey and neglect to ask the rest of the student body. The journalism students' data may not be generalizable due to
sampling bias
The correlation between two measures obtained on a group of individuals is graphically represented as a
scatterplot
The most distinctive characteristic of the experimental method is that it
seeks to establish cause-effect relationships
Introspection, a research tool used by early psychologists, is a technique which involves -
self-examination of mental processes
A measure of dispersion that indicates how much the scores in a sample differ from the mean in the sample.
standard deviation
A research psychologist generalizes from a particular sample to an entire population. This is an example of
statistical inference
Wundt's approach to discovering the basic elements or structures of mental processes
structuralism
Psychometrics is the study of -
tests & measurement
A researcher was interested in studying the effects of a new medication on depression. One group received the new medication and another group received a standard medication for depression. The researcher asked participants to answer a series of questions rating their mood levels before and after six weeks of taking the medications. Which of the following is the control condition in this study?
the group who received the standard medication
Monsim
the presumption that mind and body are different aspects of the same thing
If the outcome of a study is statistically significant, it means that
the results are unlikely to be obtained if there is no difference between the control group and the experimental group
The results of a correlational study involving student volunteers in a psychology laboratory might not apply to the general population because
the sample is not randomly chosen and therefore may not be a representative sample
Ms. Li, a principal, is interested in the differences in student behavior between two of the third-grade classrooms at her school. She asks the teachers, Mr. Williams, whose class meets at 9:00, and Ms. Walsh, whose class meets at 1:00, to record over a week the number of times students in their classrooms act out. Mr. Williams' class has 31 students, and Ms. Walsh's class has 32 students. "Acting out" is defined as students speaking without raising their hand or getting out of their seats without being given permission. At the end of the week, Mr. Williams reports that on average, his students acted out 73 times a day, and Ms. Walsh reports that, on average, her students acted out 27 times a day. Ms. Li decides that the students in Ms. Walsh's classroom act out more often than those in Mr. William's class. The results of this study are inconclusive because
the time of day was a confounding variable
Empiricism
the view that knowledge originates in experience and that science should, therefore, rely on observation and experimentation