midterm 1

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

Independent

Psychology is best defined as

the scientific study of mind and behavior

According to the social brain hypothesis, each of us can deal effectively with social interactions with roughly 150 people. This implies that

we are capable of maintaining social networks of up to 150 people throughout our lives

In an analysis testing differences between an experimental and a control group on the dependent variable, a p-value of 0.07 means there is a

. 7 percent chance that differences between the two samples are due to chance alone..

"Green is the prettiest color" is a _______ hypothesis because it is _______.

poor; not testable.

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

prefrontal cortex

The sensation of a fly landing on your arm is weaker than the sensation of being hit with a dodgeball because

the dodgeball triggers more action potentials per second from each sensory neuron..

Your uncle tells you about an interesting magazine article explaining that humans use only 10 percent of their brains. As a student of psychology, your response should be:

"Well, research actually shows that almost all of the brain is continually active.".

What is the primary difference between a hypothesis and a theory?

A theory is a collection of data-based hypotheses

Which neurotransmitter would you be most likely to find in the synaptic cleft between a motor neuron and a muscle?

Acetylcholine

Which approach would be most appropriate for testing the hypothesis that taking practice tests improves learning more than studying alone does?

Experimental research.

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

Freudian theory is untestable and not grounded in science

A quarter in your hand casts a different image on your retina than a quarter taped to the wall across the room, yet you know that the quarters have exactly the same dimensions. This phenomenon would be best explained by a

Gestalt psychologist

On an empathy questionnaire, Group 1 had a mean score of 117 with a standard deviation of 14. Group 2 had a mean score of 96 with a standard deviation of 23. Therefore, _______ scored higher on average and their scores were _______ spread out than scores from _______.

Group 1; less; Group 2.

Which of the following is a myth of psychology?

Heritable traits, such as IQ, cannot be altered by experience..

How is natural selection related to psychology?

Humans behave as they do in part because that behavior promotes survival

Xander has taken a medication that is an endorphin antagonist. Which side effect is most likely?

Increased pain sensitivity.

When the U.S. Supreme Court was deliberating on whether to require schools to integrate black children and white children, their decision to strike down laws permitting segregated schools was greatly influenced by the "Doll Test," conducted by

Kenneth Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark

Which is the correct order of measures of central tendency, from lowest to highest, for a positively skewed distribution?

Mode, median, mean.

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

Skepticism is advisable until an idea is proven right

Which approach to psychology did Edward Titchener advocate in the late 1800s?

Structuralism

A news organization wanted to predict who would win the next U.S. presidential election. They sent an opinion poll to every fiftieth person on a list of students enrolled at a nearby college. Which of the following is the study population?

Students at this particular college.

You take a job selling magazine subscriptions from home because the recruitment video says the average earnings per employee are $90,000 a year. You work 60 hours a week for a year and earn $30,000. An Internet search reveals that hundreds of people have had the same experience with this and other work-at-home schemes. How can companies legitimately claim that the average salary is $90,000 if most employees make less than $30,000?

The mean salary reflects the presence of outliers..

Which statement about vesicles is accurate?

They empty neurotransmitters into the synaptic cleft

The year 1879 might be thought of as the beginning of psychology as a science because that is the year

Wilhelm Wundt developed and opened the first psychology laboratory

A research team was investigating the impact of stereotypes on performance. In one group, women read a magazine article about why the structure of men's brains makes them better at math. In the second group, women read a magazine article saying there are no biological differences in the mathematical abilities of men and women. All women in the study then took a challenging math test. Researchers scored the number of items women answered correctly. In this study, which of the following was the dependent variable?

Women's scores on the math test.

A professor wanted to learn more about the body image concerns of young teenage girls. She randomly selected 200 girls from local middle schools to complete her questionnaire. These girls were

a representative sample..

sensory input > participant processing information > report, press button, etc.

cognitive psychology

An unethical experimenter wants to test the relationship between discomfort and aggression. On a hot day, she turns off the air conditioning in one dorm and leaves it on in another, then has her research assistants count occurrences of verbal aggression in common areas of the buildings. Students in the air-conditioned dorm would be the _______, and students in the overheated dorm would be the _______.

control group; experimental group.

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

determine whether a proposed study is ethical

You feel sick after eating leftovers you found in the back of the refrigerator. Occam's razor would favor the hypothesis that you have

food poisoning..

which perspective argues that human behavior develops in certain ways because it serves a useful purpose?

functionalism

Students _______ would be the most representative sample for a study of competitiveness in high school.

in a required health class.

Which type of neuron is most common in the brain?

interneuron

A researcher presents his participant with a series of flashing lights at varying intervals. After each presentation of a light, he asks the participant to fully describe her internal experiences, a method known as

introspection

A correlation of −0.80 between meditation and anxiety symptoms would indicate that

meditation predicts lower levels of anxiety

The study of the nervous system is called

neuroscience

A patient has a dangerously low heart rate and is having difficulty breathing. The neurotransmitter that would be most helpful to him is

norepinephrine

A depressed teenager treated with medication begins feeling better immediately, even though the medication typically takes weeks to work. This is an example of a _______ effect.

placebo

A researcher testing a new medication for attention deficit disorder randomly assigns half of the participants to get the actual medication and half to get a sugar pill. Neither the researcher nor the participants know who is getting what. This study design will

reduce unconscious bias

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

refused to believe him

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

reliable and valid..

A researcher would be most likely to find a negative correlation between _______ and _______.

shyness; party attendance.

Dopamine is most directly involved in

signaling pleasure

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.

statistical significance.

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 example of

survey research

The idea that children are born with no knowledge or "content" whatsoever and are "filled" by life experiences is called

tabula rasa