Psych Midterm 1

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 response should be:

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

Chapt 2

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Chapter 3

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Chapter 4

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Chapter 5

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Of the following people, whose brain would be most plastic?

5-year-old child

Which statement is most consistent with the concept of heritability of alcoholism?

Alcoholism is heritable, but this does not mean that a person with alcoholism in his or her family is destined to also have the condition

Which function is most directly controlled by the brainstem?

Breathing

Which environmental influence is most closely linked with the development of schizophrenia in children who inherit genes for the disorder?

Complications during birth

_______ psychologists study how the mind and behavior progress as people age.

Developmental

What conclusion is consistent with the results of twin studies of schizophrenia?

Differences in genes account for about 50 percent of the differences between people, in cases of schizophrenia.

Which side effect is most likely following the removal of a large tumor from a patient's cerebellum?

Difficulty with balance and motor coordination

Which of the following conditions affects the appearance of the child's face and causes significant damage to the developing brain?

Fetal alcohol syndrome

_______ intelligence is the ability to reason abstractly and solve novel problems, and _______ intelligence is the accumulation of facts, experience, and historical references

Fluid; crystallized

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

Freudian theory is untestable and not grounded in science.

On an intelligence test, Group 1 has a mean score of 96 with a standard deviation of 13. Group 2 has a mean score of 105 with a standard deviation of 8. On this test, _______ scores were higher on average and _______ spread out than _______ scores

Group 2; less; Group 1

Which of the following samples would produce a nearly normal distribution?

Heights of all adult men in America

A researcher claims that the same area of the brain is active when we feel physical pain as when we feel hurt by social rejection. Which of the following would support her claims?

Images from fMRI scans that look similar for subjects experiencing physical pain and subjects experiencing social rejection

Which statement about information transmission between neurons is correct?

Information between two neurons passes in only one direction at the synapse

Which type of neuron is most common in the brain?

Interneuron

Which scenario describes a child who has mastered the concept of conservation of mass?

Jane knows that she has the same amount of clay in her round ball as Rico has in his flat disk.

Which is most consistent with the textbook's characterization of how nurture influences behavior?

Learning experiences and social interactions affect how we use the genes that we inherited.

Which option shows four motor milestones in the order in which they normally occur?

Lifting the head → rolling over → sitting upright → standing without support

This mean difference image shows the most active brain areas across participants when they are completing a specific (back of brain)

Looking at an image

scientist is interested in understanding how the size of the prefrontal cortex changes between the ages of 9 and 13. Which of the following brain imaging techniques would she be most likely to use?

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

_______ twins share 100 percent of their DNA

Monozygotic

Juan is thirteen months old and is no longer surprised when his mother hides his toy train, only to reveal it again in a different position in front of him. What cognitive milestone is Juan displaying?

Object permanence

Which of the following is most consistent with psychologists' understanding of infantile amnesia?

Older children and adults more effectively establish concrete and lasting memories because verbal skills facilitate encoding

What does it mean to say that schizophrenia is heritable?

People with close blood relatives with schizophrenia are more likely to develop symptoms than the general population

The foundations of psychology are most closely related to which of the following disciplines?

Philosophy

A meta-analysis of published and unpublished tests of SSRI medications revealed that

SSRIs beat placebos only for severe levels of depression

Children's theory of mind can be assessed with the

Sally and Anne test

Which of the following shows Piaget's stages of development in the correct order?

Sensorimotor → preoperational → concrete operational → formal operational

Which pair represents two distinct functional classes of neurons in the human nervous system?

Sensory neurons and interneurons

Which is the most likely reason that Hester was the first of the Genain quadruplets to develop schizophrenic symptoms?

She had the lowest birth weight of the quadruplets

Which statement best captures the concept of a sensitive period?

Some abilities, such as 3-D vision, will not develop if a child does not have proper sensory input early in life.

Which reflex helps the infant feed on breast milk?

Sucking

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

Survey research

During which stage of neural development do the neurons begin to branch out to form connections with one another?

Synaptogenesis

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

The closer a correlation is to 0.00, the weaker the relationship

In which of the following distributions would the mean, median, and mode be most alike?

The heights of all adult women in America

What was Kohlberg most interested in when examining people's responses to the fictional story of Heinz stealing a drug for his ailing wife?

The nature of their reasoning about their choice

Which variable plays the most significant role in gene-environment interaction leading to the development of schizophrenia?

The occurrence of stressful events

When one identical twin has schizophrenia, the other develops it only about half of the time. What is the most likely explanation for this?

There is an environmental component involved in developing schizophrenia.

_______ temporarily disrupts brain activity

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)

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?

Which article the women read

Why did women make few contributions to psychology in the first part of the 20th century?

Widespread sexism limited women's participation in science

In general, it is easier for psychologists and biologists to determine the influence of genes on behavior when the underlying cause of that behavior can be attributed to

a single gene rather than multiple genes.

Adolescents are in the fifth stage of psychosocial development, and according to Erikson, are most concerned with developing

an identity.

Gestalt psychologists such as Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Köhler

argue that the overall experience of human perception is greater than the sum of its parts.

According to Piaget's theory, the two processes that drive children's mental development are called

assimilation and accommodation

Axons differ from dendrites in that

axons transmit information and dendrites receive information

A classmate tells you that she has over 700 Facebook friends. As a proponent of the social brain hypothesis, you will most likely

be skeptical of her ability to interact meaningfully with so many people.

In order to fit a growing number of synapses into the skull, a human brain

becomes increasingly wrinkled

The hallmarks of psychology as a science are

careful experimentation and the application of critical thinking

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

changeable.

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

collecting blood and tissue samples from research animals

When scientists study a phenomenon like schizophrenia, two variables often change together, making it difficult to know which one is at work. These variables are called

confounding variables

Kohlberg described the type of moral reasoning used by most adults as

conventional.

In older people, a decline in cognitive functioning as a result of damage or disease, rather than aging, is called

dementia.

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

dependent variable

A study that looked at hiring of male and female musicians who sat behind a screen when auditioning for an orchestra is an example of _______ research and revealed _______.

descriptive; an increase in hiring rates for women

You are trying to overcome your fear of snakes. Inspired by the work of Mary Cover Jones, your therapist first shows you some pictures of snakes. Then she tells you that there is a small snake in a cage in the next room. She asks you to observe the live snake from a distance, and continues this process until your fear is conquered. Your therapist is using the technique called

desensitization.

Both parents of twins Mary and Shelly have schizophrenia. However, only Mary developed the disorder. This means that the twins are _______ for schizophrenia

discordant

Your friend has a twin brother who bears very little resemblance to her. They are most likely _______ twins

dizygotic`

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

double-blind trial

The technique that detects voltage changes in the brain is

electroencephalography (EEG).

A research team wants to know if sugar consumption is related to hyperactivity. Researchers give fifty children cupcakes made with real sugar and another fifty children cupcakes made with zero-calorie sugar substitutes. They then observe each child individually to assess his or her level of activity after eating the cupcakes. This is an example of

experimental research.

In taste tests, people prefer Coke to Pepsi when they drink labeled samples but prefer Pepsi to Coke when they drink unlabeled samples. This is an example of

explicit bias.

Though our brains are almost fully developed by the time we reach adolescence, enormous changes continue in the brain region called the _______ lobe.

frontal

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

genetic determinism.

The _______ technique is used to determine whether infants can tell the difference between two visual stimuli

habituation

Psychologists now believe that subliminal advertising

has a weak effect on consumers, if any at all

researcher would be most likely to find a positive correlation between

height and weight

Scientific investigation of Clever Hans revealed that

horses respond to unintended cues from their owners

The key difference between twin studies and adoption studies is that in adoption studies

identical twins are separated at birth and raised apart

Many research findings indicate that disease, malnutrition, and neglect _______ the probability that a person will develop schizophrenia.

increase

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

introspection.

A heritable trait is one that

is influenced by genes inherited from one's parents

Deception in psychological research

is occasionally allowed but must be followed by a thorough debriefing.

A recent study found that married people are less likely to have personality disorders than unmarried people. The news reporter covering the study advised people to get married to improve their personalities. You know this recommendation is not warranted because

it is possible that personality disorders keep people from marrying

Students of introductory psychology may be surprised to learn that

many of their beliefs about the causes of thoughts and behaviors are incorrect

The hippocampus plays the most significant role in

memory.

Identical twins are called _______, while non-identical twins are called _______.

monozygotic; dizygotic

The difference between a zygote and an embryo is that the embryo is

more complex.

Complex behavior is controlled by

neural networks.

Both the spinal cord and the brain develop from the fetal structure called the

neural tube

The brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease are typically littered with clumps of dead and dying neurons, called

neuritic plaques.

The first stage of neural development is _______, the continuous division of cells at a rate of up to 250,000 a minute

neurogenesis

An infant's vision improves from about 20/120 to about 20/30 by approximately eight months of age because the

neurons connecting the retinas and the brain mature

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

not substantiated through research

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

occipital lobe.

In case study research,

one or more individuals are studied in great detail.

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

our genes and strictly biological influences

The _______, formed when the cells in the outer layer of the embryo divide, provides oxygen and nutrients to the embryo.

placenta

To learn more about the gaming habits of teenage boys, a professor randomly selected fifty boys from various high schools for a video game study. In this study, "all teenage boys" make up the

population.

A technique that tracks blood flow to measure brain activity is

positron emission tomography (PET).

When asked if she would steal food for a homeless person, Samantha balked, stating that she did not want to go to jail. According to Kohlberg's theory, Samantha's moral reasoning is consistent with the stage known as

preconventional.

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.

Reliability refers to whether your measurement tool _______ and validity to whether it _______.

produces repeatable results; measures what it is supposed to measure

Ethical principles require researchers to

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

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

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

All of the following are secondary sex characteristics except

reproductive organs in females.

The Tuskegee syphilis study is famous because

researchers failed to inform participants that they had a treatable disease

All of the following activities have been shown to prevent the development of Alzheimer's disease except

resting the brain by avoiding complex cognitive tasks

When a touch to the cheek elicits a turn of an infant's head, the infant is displaying a simple reflex called

rooting.

A friend is concerned because her brother has started to tell the family that he believes he talks directly to God. He is also becoming emotionally withdrawn. You recommend sending him to a psychiatrist because he might be showing signs of

schizophrenia.

An empiricist believes that the only source of knowledge about the external world is

sensory experience

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

should retain her hypothesis for now.

Damage to the left cerebral hemisphere would most likely affect a man's ability to

speak and understand language

A meta-analysis most typically focuses on a multitude of

studies.

Any substance that disrupts the flow of nutrients to the brain, or in any way harms the fetus, is called

teratogen.

Scientists use laboratory experiments primarily to

test cause-and-effect relationships

A hypothesis is

testable prediction about the relationship between variables

Menopause is characterized by

the end of monthly menstrual cycles

The discipline of psychology can most accurately be defined as the study of

the mind and behavior

Synapses are

tiny gaps between cells that are important for neural communication.

Random assignment to experimental and control conditions involves being assigned

to your condition by pure chance

Sensory information of the _______ modality must first pass directly into the spinal cord before reaching the brain.

touch

Researchers can tell if an infant prefers a visual stimulus, such as a face, to another stimulus by

tracking how long an infant looks at each stimulus

The corpus callosum is directly responsible for

transferring information between the left and right hemispheres

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 résumés. This is an example of

unconscious bias.

Plato's cave analogy illustrates that

we cannot necessarily rely on our senses to learn the truth.

Dogs that release less corticosterone in response to stress may have had mothers that

were attentive to their puppies.

A fertilized human egg cell is called a

zygote.