Psych A2

Which of the following is a brain-imaging technique that produces the most detailed picture of brain structure?

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

Which of the following is an example of a cognitive distortion according to Aaron Beck's cognitive therapy model of treatment?

"If I don't get all As in college, then my degree will be worth nothing."

Morgan made the fundamental attribution error in explaining her students' poor performance on their geography examination when she said which of the following?

"The students just do not care enough about their grades."

Which of the following is an example of an individual who demonstrates an internal locus of control?

. A student decides to run for student government because he feels he can make some positive changes in the school.

Rachel plays on the high school basketball team. Her scores for the season are presented in the table below. SCORES 4 6 6 9 10 12 15 19

15

Which of the following is the median of Rachel's scores?

9.5

Which of the following examples best illustrates the defense mechanism of regression?

After failing an exam, a college student has a temper tantrum and tears up his books and notes.

The idea that the explanation for prejudice lies in children's modeling of their parents' prejudicial beliefs, emotions, and behaviors is most closely aligned with the theories of which of the following?

Albert Bandura

Researchers have found a negative correlation between income and dental problems. What conclusion can correctly be drawn from this statement?

As income increases, the likelihood of dental problems decreases.

Which of the following therapeutic approaches is most likely to be criticized because it does not treat the underlying cause of the disorder?

Behavioral

Which of the following psychological theories would explain post traumatic stress disorder as being the result of irrational beliefs and ideas?

Cognitive

Cocaine blocks the reuptake of which neurotransmitter?

Dopamine

Client-centered therapists try to appreciate how the world appears from the client's point of view. This is an example of which of the following concepts?

Empathy

A psychologist who classifies an individual's personality according to the person's manifestations of traits such as neuroticism, openness, and extraversion probably believes in which model of personality?

Five-factor

Serena is in a hotel room with a cake that needs slicing, but she does not have a knife. She goes to the bathroom and comes back with a long strand of dental floss, which she uses to cut the cake. Serena has overcome which barrier to problem solving?

Functional fixedness

To study differences in the cognitive processing of younger and older adults, Genevieve assessed a group of 30 year olds and a group of 60 year olds using the same cognitive task. She found no significant difference in cognitive processing between the two groups. Which of the following is a true statement that best explains her findings?

Genevieve's task involved semantic memory, which does not typically show decline among people of the ages she tested.

During a quiz, a student is asked, "Which is more common in the English language, the letter "k" as the first letter in a word or the letter "k" as the third letter in a word?" Which of the following would be the student's likely response if he relied on the availability heuristic to answer the question?

He would say that "k" is more likely as the first letter of words because those are the first words that come to his mind.

The notion of self-actualization is most closely associated with which of the following approaches to explaining personality?

Humanistic

After an electrode implanted in a cat's brain stimulates the cat's amygdala, the cat will most likely do which of the following?

Immediately withdraw in fear

The Flynn effect is best illustrated by which of the following statements?

Intelligence scores increase from generation to generation.

Which of the following is a common symptom of the manic phase of bipolar disorder?

Rapid speech

If an individual has lost the ability to feel pain in the left arm, there is most likely damage to what area of the brain?

Right parietal lobe

Ashley began her banking career as a teller, but she was quickly promoted to increasingly more responsible managerial positions. Despite the fact that she has very limited experience to justify her promotions, she believes that she has been successful because she is very talented. Which of the following explanations is Ashley using to justify her success?

Self-serving bias

The chart above illustrates which of the following psychological concepts?

Serial position effect

Mary is introduced to three new people at a party. Later, however, she cannot remember the names of any of her new acquaintances, even though she remembers what she ate, her old friends who were there, and the address of the host. What may account for Mary's inability to remember these individuals' names?

She never encoded the names into long-term memory

The data above represent research findings by Bibb Latané and colleagues. What psychological principle is best represented in the graph?

Social loafing

Which of the following treatments would be most effective for someone who experiences a rapid heartbeat, light-headedness, and nausea when speaking in public?

Systematic desensitization

What hormone seems to be most closely linked with aggressive behavior?

Testosterone

Which of the following occurs when a neuron is stimulated to its threshold?

The movement of sodium and potassium ions across the membrane creates an action potential.

Children who are consistently praised for receiving high grades in school will likely continue to work for high grades. Using an operant conditioning explanation of this phenomenon, which of the following is true?

The praise functions as a positive reinforcer.

If mice lack an enzyme essential to the process of long-term potentiation, which of the following will be the most likely consequence?

They will be unable to learn a maze.

A man who experiences sudden blindness on witnessing the death of his wife is probably suffering from a

conversion disorder

Which of the following is the best example of fluid intelligence?

Using cubes to figure out the solution to a previously unseen puzzle

One-year-old Marcus turns away in disgust if a bitter substance is placed on his tongue. The reason for such a reaction is most likely

an inborn distaste for bitter that protects us from potential poisons in the environment

Thomas is thirty years old and is very shy. He becomes anxious in social situations, so he avoids them. Thomas does not have close friends and rarely leaves his apartment. However, he writes a very successful and popular Internet blog, is usually content and calm while working at home, and has a positive relationship with his family. Psychologists would be hesitant to label Thomas as psychologically disordered because his behavior

does not appear to cause distress or impair his day-to-day functioning

When people consume large amounts of alcohol, they are often unable to recall what they did and said while they were drinking. This occurs because alcohol interferes with the brain's ability to form new memories in the

hippocampus

In the first part of an experiment, one group of rats received reinforcement after correctly navigating a maze. A second group received no reinforcement after wandering around the maze. In the next part, both groups received reinforcement after navigating the maze. Despite not receiving reinforcement at the beginning of the experiment, the second group performed as well as the first. The learning that occurred in the second group in the absence of reinforcement is called

latent learning

In Sigmund Freud's view, the role of the ego is to

mediate among the id, the superego, and reality

Yun was learning English as an adult. She found that she had trouble with some of the sounds in English because those sounds were not part of her native Chinese. The difficulty she was having involved

phonemes

Punishment is most effective in eliminating undesired behavior when the

punishment is delivered soon after the behavior

Henry took an intelligence test and scored lower than he thought he should. He kept retaking the test, but he kept getting about the same score each time. This series of events indicates that the test was

reliable

Research shows that women who are referred by a physician to participate in a study of eating disorders have more severe problems than women who volunteer on their own to participate in the study. If research on eating disorders regularly involves only women referred by physicians, the results of the studies might be limited because of the presence of

sampling bias

Jeff always tells his children not to use bad language when something does not go the way they want. Unfortunately, Jeff uses bad language occasionally and his children have observed him do so. Now Jeff's children use bad language. This can be explained by

social learning theory

An evolutionary psychologist would explain that humans desire social interaction, social acceptance, and social affiliation due to a need for

survival

Research has shown that a major reason for poor performance while multitasking is that while multitasking, people

switch their attention rapidly from task to task, so they miss critical information associated with a task that is not receiving their attention

Ben was enjoying a walk in the woods on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. As he went around a curve, he noticed a bear walking toward him. Immediately his pupils dilated, he began to perspire, and his heart accelerated. These changes are most closely related to the function of the

sympathetic nervous system

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

Tina is reading an important letter when she accidentally splashes water on the paper. The water has smudged a few words, but she is still able to understand what the letter says. This can be explained by

top-down processing

Scott lost his vision at a young age. When he was much older, he received a corneal transplant that allowed him to see again. After so many years of not being able to see, he had a very difficult time interpreting visual information such as faces and expressions. His visual problems most likely came from processing difficulties in the

visual cortex

Research studies indicate that people who are intrinsically motivated as compared to people who are extrinsically motivated tend to

work harder and enjoy their work more