Released 2012 AP PSYCH EXAM w/ answers
Which of the following provides information regarding brain function by monitoring the brain at work through metabolism of glucose?
(positron emission tomography) PET
The concept of habituation is best exemplified by which of the following situations?
A college student is no longer kept awake by her roommate's late-night typing.
A stereotype is defined as which of the following?
A generalization about a social group
Which of the following is the best example of shaping?
A teacher rewards a student for sitting quietly for ten minutes on Monday, fifteen minutes on Tuesday, twenty minutes on Wednesday, and thirty minutes on Thursday.
Which of the following is true of the frequency distributions shown in the graphs above?
Distribution B has more variation than distributions A or C
Which of the following systems produces, circulates, and regulates levels of hormones in the body?
Endocrine system
Which of the following statements best depicts the concept of incentive theory?
Jennifer studies hard because her parents reward her by paying $20 for each superior grade that she brings home.
Rafael has a sleep disorder for which he takes medically prescribed amphetamines. For which of the following sleep disorders is Rafael most likely being treated?
Narcolepsy
Egocentrism, animism, and artificialism are characteristic of which of Jean Piaget's stages of cognitive development?
Preoperational
A stubborn individual who accuses peers of being uncooperative is exhibiting which of the following defense mechanisms?
Projection
Which of the following is the correct sequence of the neural chain of events set in motion by an environmental stimulus?
Receptors, afferent neurons, interneurons, efferent neurons, effectors
Which of the following most accurately describes a dependent variable?
Some aspect of a participant's response that is measured in an experiment
The linguistic relativity hypothesis of Benjamin Whorf suggests which of the following?
Speakers of different languages think differently due to the differences in their languages
Which of the following behaviors is most closely associated with the foot-in-the-door phenomenon?
Sutan asks his father for $5, and when he agrees, Sutan asks him for $15 more
For extinction to occur, which of the following must be true of the conditioned response (CR), the conditioned stimulus (CS), and the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) ?
The CS is repeatedly presented in the absence of the UCS, and the CR loses strength
Harry Harlow's experiments with rhesus monkeys suggest which of the following as most important for infants when establishing an attachment to their mothers?
The tactile characteristics of the mother
Neurotransmitters are typically stored in which of the following parts of a neuron?
The terminal buttons
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
Which of the following best describes the response of members of the American Psychological Association to ethical issues in research?
They have developed codes of ethics for research with both human participants and animal subjects
Rational-emotive behavior therapy assumes that abnormal functioning results from which of the following?
Unreasonable beliefs or assumptions
When is it permissible for a psychologist to share a client's test scores with another person?
When the client provides written permission to share results
An individual diagnosed as having a somatoform disorder would be most likely to show
a biologically unfounded loss of bodily functioning
The biological clock that operates in human beings to adjust their functioning to night-and-day periodicity is referred to as
a circadian rhythm
Vic has unpredictable and repeated attacks of overwhelming anxiety that frequently leave him dizzy, nauseous, short of breath, and in tears. A psychologist is likely to view Vic's behavior as indicative of
a panic disorder
The sequence of shifts in the electrical charge of a neuron is called
action potential
Gender differences have most often been found in which of the following?
aggression
An individual who drinks alcohol daily finds it necessary to drink increasing amounts to achieve the state of well-being attained in the past. This individual is showing
alcohol tolerance
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
Judy believes that her fate is determined by her own actions. Judy's belief best illustrates
an internal locus of control
Which of the following is an example of a prelinguistic event?
babbling
A technique that enables a person to control physiological responses that are normally involuntary, such as level of blood pressure, is known as
biofeedback
A psychotherapist who believes that deviant behavior can be traced either to genetic anomalies or to problems in the physical structure of the brain most likely subscribes to which of the following views of abnormality
biomedical
Photoreceptors relay visual information to the brain through which of the following cells?
bipolar and ganglion
Lithium carbonate has been useful in some instances in the treatment of
bipolar disorder
Individuals exhibiting a hostile type A personality pattern are at an increased risk for
cardiovascular disease
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory is used primarily to provide information about which of the following?
clinical disorders
"It belongs to human nature to hate those you have injured." This belief is best explained by
cognitive dissonance theory
Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer view emotion as resulting from
cognitive labels of psychological changes
Which of the following results of correlational studies implies that environment contributes to the determination of IQ?
correlations for children and their adoptive parents are statistically significant and positive
All of the following are reasons for requiring clearly specified procedures for the administration and scoring of assessment measures, such as standardized tests, EXCEPT to
decrease the amount of time needed to administer the test
Community psychologists intervene at the primary level when they
design prevention programs for potential problems before the problems actually occur
Vance is a popular honors student who, unlike his reference group, writes his best papers sitting on his motorcycle in the basement of his college dormitory. His behavior can be considered abnormal only if abnormality is defined as
deviation from cultural norms
Carol Gilligan's critique of Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development focuses primarily on
differences between males and females in the course of moral development
Failure to recognize that an object typically not used for a particular purpose can, in fact, serve that purpose illustrates which of the following?
disinterest in the opinion of others
An advantage of group therapy over individual therapy is that group therapy
enables clients to realize that their problems are not unique
According to Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the need to have respect for ourselves and to be valued by others is classified within the category of
esteem needs
In a research study, informed consent is a concern of
ethics
The reversible figure above illustrates the Gestalt organizing principle of
figure-ground
Visual acuity is best in the
fovea
The perceived pitch of a tone is largely determined by its
frequency
The tendency to believe that another person's behavior is caused by dispositional factors rather than by environmental factors is called
fundamental attribution error
After discussing a topic, a group makes a decision that is more extreme than the average position of all of the group members prior to discussion. The group's action is an example of
group polarization
Mental shortcuts or rules of thumb that help solve problems and reduce mental effort are called
heuristics
The brain scans of people with amnesia are most likely to show damage to the
hippocampus
Which of the following concepts provides the best explanation for why people seek to put on warmer clothing when they start to feel cold?
homeostasis
According to Freudian theory, the component of the personality that is "blind, impulsive, and irrational" is the
id
Humanistic psychologists believe that the drive toward self-actualization is
innate
A study can be regarded as scientific only if
its conclusions can be verified or refuted by subsequent studies
Individuals who believe that an unpleasant experience is unavoidable and therefore do nothing to change the course of events are exhibiting
learned helplessness
In a memory study, the experimenter reads the same list of words to two groups. She asks group A to count the letters in each word, and she asks group B to focus on the meaning of each word for a later memory quiz. During a recall test, participants in group B recall significantly more words than participants in group A. Memory researchers attribute this effect to differences in
levels of processing
David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel's research on responses of the brain to visual stimuli showed that
many cortical cells respond most strongly to specific visual information
The area of the brain stem that is important in controlling breathing is the
medulla
Understanding that things continue to exist even when they are not within view is called
object permanence
To score high on a test of creativity, a person's answers should be
original and valuable
A person with obsessive-compulsive disorder is best described as an individual who experiences
persistent anxiety-provoking thoughts
All human languages have several basic sounds in common called
phonemes
Alfred Binet's efforts to measure intelligence were directed at
predicting children's success in school
Which of the following types of validity is established by demonstrating that there is a correlation between scores on a test and later academic performance?
predictive
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
Memory for automatic activities, such as bike riding and handwriting, is known as
procedural
The factors chiefly responsible for interpersonal attraction include
proximity and similarity
Hallucinations are characteristic of
psychotic disorders
The correlation between scores obtained on two halves of a single test yields information about the test's
reliability
In order to yield information that is generalizable to the population from which it was drawn, a sample must be
representative of the population
The rationale underlying the use of projective personality tests, such as the Rorschach Test and the Thematic Apperception Test, is that they
reveal the subjects' personalities by eliciting responses to vague, ambiguous stimuli
When a newborn infant is touched on the cheek, the infant will turn its head toward the source of stimulation. This behavior is known as
rooting
The correlation between two measures obtained on a group of individuals is graphically represented as a
scatterplot
On individual intelligence tests such as the Stanford-Binet and Wechsler scales, an IQ of 100 indicates that the test taker
scored at the average level for test takers of the same age
A student's test score of 86 is at the 42nd percentile. This means that this student has
scored the same as or higher than 42 percent of her fellow students
Alicia has started a new and very different job but believes in her skills and ability to carry out the tasks required of her. Albert Bandura would refer to Alicia's sense of confidence as which of the following?
self-efficacy
A supervisor who doubts the competence of a new employee unwittingly criticizes everything the new employee does. If the new employee consequently performs poorly, which of the following will most likely have occurred?
self-fulfilling prophecy
Balance is influenced by the
semicircular canals
A person assembling a tool one week after reading the instructions can remember the first and last steps of the procedure but not the middle ones. This best illustrates which of the following?
serial position effect
As you watch a friend walk away from you, your retinal image of your friend gets smaller. Despite this, you do not perceive him to be shrinking. This is an example of
size constancy
Developmental research on the formation of attachment indicates that a child's secure attachment to its mother during infancy is predictive of which of the following during its toddler years?
social competence
Training in the construction of an anxiety hierarchy and in relaxation techniques is likely to be part of the treatment for which of the following?
specific phobia
A child who learns that spoons are tableware and then correctly calls forks and knives tableware is demonstrating
stimulus generalization
Which part of the nervous system is most immediately activated by sudden fear?
sympathetic
The tendency to develop a positive attitude toward a product that has been advertised repeatedly in the media is referred to as
the mere-exposure effect
Which of the following is a partial reinforcement schedule that is most resistant to extinction?
variable ratio
A young child shown a nine-inch round bowl and a six-inch round bowl containing equal amounts of popcorn says he is certain the smaller bowl has more popcorn than the larger bowl. This child has yet to acquire what Jean Piaget called
Conservation
Which of the following would an industrial- organizational psychologist be LEAST likely to study?
Corporate profitability
Which of the following best supports the hypothesis that basic human emotions, such as sadness, are innate?
Basic emotions are understood and expressed in a similar fashion by individuals from diverse cultures.
Staff members at a mental health hospital do not respond to patients who use threats, but praise patients who are courteous. Which of the following psychotherapeutic approaches is being used?
Behavioral therapy
John B. Watson is best known as the founder of
Behaviorism
Which of the following is LEAST likely to affect the immune system's ability to ward off illness?
Being around someone who has a serious case of the flu
Brain damage that leaves a person capable of understanding speech but with an impaired ability to produce speech most likely indicates injury to which of the following?
Broca's area
In treating a patient for depression, Dr. Pratt focuses on changing the ways in which the patient interprets events. Which type of therapy is Dr. Pratt using?
Cognitive
Robert Rescorla's contingency model of classical conditioning states that
Conditioning only occurs when one event reliably predicts another
Which of the following is the best interpretation of Solomon Asch's findings, pictured above, concerning conformity in perceptual judgments?
Conformity increases as group size increases to about four persons
