Psyc 202 Exam 1

The claim that we are built out of nothing but the experiences that we've had in life so far is known as what?

"blank slate"

If someone thinks that the attention her little brother gets when he has tantrums actually encourages him to have more tantrums, their explanation is based on what approach?

Behavioral Approach

A psychologist who focuses on providing services to people with schizophrenia and studying the maladaptive ways in which schizophrenia sufferers receive and process information about themselves and the world around them is what kind of psychologist?

Clinical/Counseling Psychologist

"Group decision making: The role of the leader" would be a likely title for a research paper written by what kind of psychologist?

Collectivist

Dr. Rose, a cross-cultural psychologist, is most likely to find which behavior to be similar in all of the groups she studies? A. striving for achievement B. rules governing social behavior C. styles of communication D. recognition of a smile

D. recognition of a smile

You are a wise consumer of therapy (and other products). Which of the following questions is not among the five critical thinking questions you usually ask yourself? A. What am I being asked to believe or accept B. Is there evidence available to support claims for this type of therapy C. Are there other ways to interpret the claims made to support this type of therapy D. Which celebrities have gone on record as endorsing this form of therapy

D. which celebrities have gone record as endorsing this form of therapy

What is it called when a person demands evidence be based on experience and observation?

Empiricism

If your sample suffers from bias, one way to fix it is to gather a large sample

False

The first figure in psychology to suggest that all of our processes, from actions to slips of the tongue to dreams, were influenced by psychological factors was

Freud

A group is studying how stress and lack of exercise lead to illness. They want to use this information to aid in a campaign for maintaining a balanced lifestyle. This is an illustration of what field of psychology?

Health psychologists

Which statement is the best representation of the impact that Sigmund Freud has had?

His theories have never gained universal acceptance, but they have had wide-ranging influence in psychology and in other fields

Pick out an appropriate use of the phrase "I feel..."

I feel sad. I feel afraid. I feel happy.

Who decides whether a particular study on campus meets the standards for ethical research?

Institutional Review Board (IRB)

Why are placebos so effective?

Placebo cues tell us "Hey! Circumstances have changed so a response is more likely to succeed"

clinical and counseling psychologists

Psychologists who seek to assess, understand, and change abnormal behavior.

Educational Psychologists

Psychologists who study methods by which instructors teach and students learn and who apply their results to improving those methods

School Psychologists

Psychologists who test IQ's, diagnose students' academic problems, and set up programs to improve students' achievement

community psychologists

Psychologists who work to obtain psychological services for people in need of help and to prevent psychological disorders by working for changes in social systems

In science, what is the difference between a theory and law?

Theory: widely acceptable concept that makes many predictions that have a history of being validated; they do not become laws

Which American Psychologist is credited with conceptualizing and advancing the perspective of functionalism early in the history of the field?

William James

Which American psychologist is credited with conceptualizing and advancing the perspective of functionalism early in the history of the field?

William James

Using introspection as a way to study mental processes is associated with which approach to the study of consciousness?

William James and functionalism

What is the most effective way to eliminate experimenter bias?

a double-blind design

Biological Psychologists

analyze biological factors influencing behavior and mental processes

If research has shown a positive correlation between the number of books in families' homes and the grade-point averages of the children in those families, what do the results indicate (and what don't they)?

as the number of books in families' homes increase, the grade-point averages of the children in those families also increase

Biological Approach

behavior is the result of physical processes, especially those relating to the brain, hormones, and other chemicals, and activity of nervous system

Larry says that people act the way they learned to act. He believes that if others stop rewarding a person's annoying behavior, that behavior will lessen. Larry most likely takes a(n) _________ approach to psychology

behavioral

Dr. Jamison is conducting a study examining the emotional and behavioral changes that occur during puberty. Dr. Jamison is especially interested in how these changes are associated with changes in hormones and brain structures. The subfield of psychology Dr. Jamison seems to be interested in is __________ psychology.

biological

Eclectic

blend aspects from 2 or more approaches

A doctor has spent the last six months gathering extensive data on one patient with this unique injury to two different parts of the cerebral cortex. What kind of research is being conducted?

case study

A psychologist is interested in how much of personality is inherited, so she tests whether the personalities of siblings are more similar to each other than they are to distant cousins. What is this kind of research called?

case study

Freud and Psychoanalysis

cause of physical ailments were psychological problems or psychodynamic conflicts within ourselves that occur without our awareness

Hank is a psychologist interested in providing services to help those suffering schizophrenia. He focuses on the maladaptive ways in which its sufferers receive and process information about themselves and the world around them. Hank is most likely a(n) __________ psychologist.

clinical

Psychologists who focus on the role of such processes as perceptions, judgments, and assumptions in explaining behavior take a(n) __________ approach

cognitive

Which approach to psychology holds that our choices are dictated not by our instincts but by our unique perceptions of the world?

cognitive approach

Case studies are used to

collect descriptive data

Cicely is trying to prevent teenage inner-city boys from joining gangs. She has set up a program in the boys' neighborhood to teach job skills. Cicely is most likely a __________ psychologist.

community

If ice cream sales tend to increase on the same days that air-conditioning repair businesses get a lot of calls, what is the name for the kind of thing that is probably causing the relationship?

confound variable

Collectivist

connected to others, defined by others; belong; occupy your proper place; meet your obligations to others; be like others, ability to restrain the self and be part of a social unit; ability to be self-effacing, success is due to help from others; failure is due to personal faults, look at family and work group

Your book used this definition: "The sum of all values, rules of behavior, forms of expression, religious beliefs, occupational choices, and the like among a group of people who share a common language and environment" to define what term?

culture

Why do psychologists follow ethical guidelines A. Psychologists would not want the cost of participating in an experiment to be too high in comparison with the information to be gained B. The American Psychological Association has set standards for psychologists to follow when conducting research and treating clients C. stress and pain could act as confounding variables in an experiment D. all of the above

d. all of the above

In Dr. Daneli's experiment, Group A receives serotonin before being given a memory test, whereas Group B takes the same test without being given serotonin. In this experiment, performance on the memory test is the __________ variable

dependent

For his sociology research paper, Sawyer would like to report descriptive statistics from his survey findings. In other words, the statistics Sawyer plans to report will

describe a data set numerically

Quantitative Psychologists

develop statistical methods for evaluating and analyzing data from psychological research

Which early school of psychology was the closest to evolutionary psychology?

developmental psychology

What process makes sure that an experimental group and a control group don't systematically differ from one another before the experimenter introduces a manipulation?

double-blind study

Dr. Hemmings believes that human behavior is influenced by genetic inheritance, unconscious motivations, and environmental influences. Dr. Hemmings uses a(n) __________ approach.

eclectic

Cognitive Approach

emphasize research on how the brain takes in info, creates perceptions, forms and retrieves memories, processes information and generates integrated patterns of action

Evolutionary Approach

emphasizes the inherited, adaptive aspects of behavior and mental processes, behavior of humans and animals today is the result of evolution through natural selection

"We should study the world by observing it" and "We are who we are because of what we have observed" are both definitions of what term?

empiricism

Wilhelm Wundt

established 1st formal psychology research lab in Germany; wanted to describe basic elements of consciousness and their organization and relation to each other; structuralism

Tomeka is a clinical psychologist who specializes in working with clients who have phobias. One of the basic assumptions she makes about people's fears of spiders and snakes is that such fears can be adaptive, since spiders and snakes are sometimes dangerous. Tomeka's assumption best fits the __________ approach to psychology.

evolutionary

Industrial/Organizational Psychologists

examine factors that influence people's performance in the workplace

If someone is planning to do a behavioral genetics study about impulsivity and consumer behavior, what design would help establish the genetics component?

experiment

Dr. Kilgore is studying the effects of Prozac on depression. Dr. Kilgore ran a double-blind study on a group of sixty college students. Thirty students received Prozac and thirty students received a placebo. At the beginning and end of the study, Dr. Kilgore administered the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) to determine the efficacy of the drugs. In this experiment, the group that received Prozac is considered the __________ group.

experimental

Jeremy designed an experiment to test the effects of praise on the sharing behavior of children. Children in Group A will be praised after they share; children in Group B will only be observed. Group A is the _________ group

experimental

Giorgi wants to manipulate certain aspects of his study to understand the effect of those changes. Such manipulation is a foundational part of

experiments

Jose wants to know whether growing up in an abusive family causes children to become physically violent. Which of the following research methods would create the greatest ethical problems in trying to study this question scientifically?

experiments

Personality Psychologists

focus on people's clear and unique characteristics

To understand what rewards a child receives for bullying other children, a behaviorist would use

functional analysis of behavior

In a classic song from the 1980s, singer Janet Jackson asked her listeners "what have you done for me lately?" If she applied this question to the purposes of consciousness, she would most likely be classified as a

functionalist

Which subfield of psychology is concerned with clients who are dealing with "problems of life", where some suffer from diagnosable problems, while others simply need help figuring out how to overcome obstacles or solve problems?

health psychology

William James and Functionalism

how consciousness functions to help people adapt to their environments; ongoing "stream" of consciousness (images, memories, sensations, etc) and how they can be applied

Behavioral Approach

human behavior is determined mainly by what a person has learned in life, especially by rewards and punishments

Naturalistic Observation

human or animal in their natural environment; provides descriptive data about behavior "without" outside influences; observer bias and participant self consciousness can distort results

Brad was having difficulty finding time to study. He went to a counselor and they talked about Brad's perceptions of his study habits. The counselor emphasized that it was Brad's decision about whether and when to study. She stressed that Brad was a resourceful person and would be able to solve his study problem. Brad's counselor was demonstrating the __________ approach.

humanistic

A pharmacologist believes she has found a medication that will greatly reduce the symptoms of depression, so she decides to conduct an experiment. The experiment is testing her idea, which is called what?

independent variable

A great football player who credits himself for his successes but always seems to have a criticism for the rest of the team when a game goes badly is likely from what kind of culture?

individualist

Case Studies

intensive examination of behavior and mental processes with a specific situation; detailed descriptive analyses; may not be representative of phemomena

Usually discussions about culture center on what?

intercultural differences; values, rules for behavior, forms of expression, religious beliefs, occupational choices, etc

If you believe that exercise is a cause of higher levels of life satisfaction and plan to study this hypothesis experimentally, what will be your dependent variable?

levels of life satisfaction

Experiments

manipulation of an independent variable and measurement of its effects on a dependent variable; can establish cause-effect relationship; confounding variables

What are inferential statistics?

mathematical procedures used to draw conclusions from data and make assumptions about what they mean

If a psychologist measures the frequency of fighting and also the television viewing habits of many twelve-year-old children and concludes that children who watch more violent programming also get into fights more often, she has done what kind of research?

naturalistic observation

If you select a sample from one local high school to study adolescent addiction and family drug use, why might your results not be generalizable?

not a large enough sample size

John B. Watson and Behaviorism

observable behavior in animals and humans was most important source of information for psychology; ignore mental events

What is a major limitation of naturalistic observation in the study of human behavior?

observer bias and participant self-consciousness can distort results

What is a "single-blind" study

only participants don't know their status

What was the evolutionary explanation for anger given in class?

our mind still use stone-age algorithms;

What single factor seems to be the thing that determines what kind of observations our brain tends to make?

our observation systems

What is the relationship between "psychological processes" and "biological processes"?

our psychological processes are affected by our biological processes; behavior and mental processes are biological processes

Scientific psychology has its roots in

philosophy

In an antidepressant trial, one group gets assigned a potentially potent new medication while the other group gets all of the same treatment except that their pill contains no active ingredients. What did the control group receive?

placebo

Deepthi tells her academic advisor that she is tired of learning about mental disorders and stress-related illnesses. She would rather focus on what goes right with people and learn about creativity or self-actualization. Deepthi's advisor should recommend Deepthi look into the study of __________ psychology.

positive

Critical Thinking

process of assessing claims and making judgements on the basis of well-supported evidence

Dr. Foreman emphasizes the role of unconscious processes in explaining behavior. Dr. Foreman takes which approach to psychology?

psychodynamic

Jami says to her therapist, Len, "I really want to understand myself better. That is why I am in therapy." Len replies, "Then we will have to start digging in your past and understanding all of the unconscious motives that cause you to be who you are." Len probably takes a(n) __________ approach to psychology.

psychodynamic

Your psychology professor asks you to learn about the smoking habits of Asian American female students on your campus. To select your participants for this study, you would use a

representative sample

Double-Blind Design

research design in which neither the experimenter nor the participants know who is in the experimental group or the control group

Psychology

science that seeks to understand behavior and mental processes and to apply that understanding in the services of human welfare

Developmental Psychologists

seek to understand, describe, and explore how behavior and mental processes change over time

Individualist

separate from others, self-defined; be unique; realize your personal potential; compete with others, ability to express unique aspects of the self; ability to be self-assured, success comes from personal effort; failure comes from external factors, look at personal attitudes

Functional analysis of behavior was developed by B.F. Skinner to understand how punishment and reward

shape and maintain behavior

Surveys

standard set of questions asked to a large number of participants; gathers large amounts of descriptive data quick and inexpensively; sampling errors, poorly phrases questions

If you invite friends over for dinner, and in the middle of the meal you ask them to stop and focus carefully on the flavors of the food in their mouths, your question would be most similar to that used by

structuralists

Cognitive Psychologists

study basic mental processes such as sensation, perception, learning, memory, judgement, decision-making, and problem solving

What did B.F. Skinner focus on in his attempt to explain behavior?

study only observable behavior and explain behavior via learning principles

health psychologists

study the effects of behavior on health and the impact of illness on behavior and emotion

Cognitive psychologists are primarily interested in

studying memory, thinking, learning, and other mental processes

To quickly find out what percentage of people and what types of people might be interested in a product, what method of research should someone use?

survey

Veronica is preparing a lecture for class tomorrow on the topic of behavioral genetics. The content of her lecture will be about

the study of how genes affect behavior

According to the evolutionary idea shared in class, why might it be that humans are so motivated to consume large amounts of nicotine or alcohol?

to get rid of the "parasites" and "worms" in our body; the consumption of just enough to the point where we don't die and wake up the next morning and think that wasn't so bad

If an animal doesn't require conditioning to produce a behavior in response to a stimulus, what is that behavior called?

unconditioned response

What kinds of explanations would a psychologist who takes a psychodynamic approach suggest for behavior?

unconscious mental processes affect behavior

Psychodynamic Approach

unconscious mental processes in explaining human thought, feelings, and behavior

Humanistic Approach

view of behavior as controlled by the decisions that people make about their lives based on their perceptions of the world

Empiricism

view that knowledge comes from experience and observation

With the proper application of science, what can we say about how sure we are about the world?

we see the world in terms of how it's useful to see it, not necessarily the truth itself; we cannot be absolutely certain of anything

When was the modern age of psychology generally considered to have been "born"?

when Wilhelm Wundt established the 1st psychology research lab in Germany in 1879

Gestalt Psychology

whole is greater than the sum of the parts