Unit 1 Part 2 AP Psych Study Guide

Esteban refuses to be persuaded by an advertiser's claim that people using their brand of gasoline average 50 miles per gallon. His decision probably is based on:

all of the above

n generalizing from a sample to the population, it is important that:

all of the above are observed

Psychologists' personal values:

can bias both scientific observation and interpretation of data

Bob scored 43 out of 70 points on his psychology exam. He was worried until he discovered that most of the class earned the same score. Bob's score was equal to the:

mode

A psychologist studies the play behavior of third-grade children by watching groups during recess at school. Which research strategy is being used?

naturalistic observation

To ensure that other researchers can repeat their work, psychologists use:

operational definitions

Juwan eagerly opened an online trading account, believing that his market savvy would allow him to pick stocks that would make him a rich day trader. This belief best illustrates

overconfidence

One reason researchers base their findings on representative samples is to avoid the false consensus effect, which refers to our tendency to:

overestimate the extent to which others share our belief

The strength of the relationship between two vivid events will most likely be:

overestimated

Theories are defined as

principles that help to organize, predict, and explain facts

Your best friend criticizes psychological research for being artificial and having no relevance to behavior in real life. In defense of psychology's use of laboratory experiments you point out that:

psychologists intentionally study behavior in simplified environments in order to gain greater control over variables and to test general principles that help to explain many behaviors

To say that "psychology is a science" means that:

psychologists study thoughts and actions with an attitude of skepticism and derive their conclusions from direct observations

The procedure designed to ensure that the experimental and control groups do not differ in any way that might affect the experiment's results is called:

random assignment

Well-done surveys measure attitudes in a representative subset, or ________, of an entire group, or ________.

random sample; population

What is the mode of the following distribution: 8, 2, 1, 1, 3, 7, 6, 2, 0, 2?

2

What is the median of the following distribution of scores: 1, 3, 7, 7, 2, 8, 4?

4

What is the mean of the following distribution of scores: 2, 3, 7, 6, 1, 4, 9, 5, 8, 2?

4.7

What is the mean of the following distribution of scores: 2, 5, 8, 10, 11, 4, 6, 9, 1, 4?

6

A professor constructs a questionnaire to determine how students at the university feel about nuclear disarmament. Which of the following techniques should be used in order to survey a random sample of the student body

From an alphabetical listing of all students, every tenth (or fifteenth, e.g.) student should be asked to complete the questionnaire

Which of the following procedures is an example of the use of a placebo?

In a test of the effects of a drug on memory, a participant is led to believe that a harmless pill actually contains an active drug

If height and body weight are positively correlated, which of the following is true?

Knowing a person's height, one can predict his or her weight

Which of the following is true, according to the text?

No psychological theory can be considered true until tested

If eating saturated fat and the likelihood of contracting cancer are positively correlated, which of the following is true?

None of the above is necessarily true

If shoe size and IQ are negatively correlated, which of the following is true?

People with small feet tend to have high IQs

Dr. Salazar recently completed an experiment in which she compared reasoning ability in a sample of females and a sample of males. The means of the female and male samples equaled 21 and 19, respectively, on a 25-point scale. A statistical test revealed that her results were not statistically significant. What can Dr. Salazar conclude?

The difference in the means of the two samples is probably due to chance variation

Which of the following is the measure of variation that is most affected by extreme scores?

range

Which of the following is not a basic research strategy used by psychologists?

replication

The scientific attitude of humility is based on the idea that:

researchers must be prepared to reject their own ideas in the face of conflicting evidence

A lopsided set of scores that includes a number of extreme or unusual values is said to be:

skewed

The set of scores that would likely be most representative of the population from which it was drawn would be a sample with a relatively:

small standard deviation

The football team's punter wants to determine how consistent his punting distances have been during the past season. He should compute the:

standard deviation

In the experiment on subliminal perception, students listened for five weeks to tapes they thought would enhance their memory or self-esteem. At the end of the experiment:

students who thought they had a memory tape believed their memories had improved; but, in fact, there was no improvement

After detailed study of a gunshot wound victim, a psychologist concludes that the brain region destroyed is likely to be important for memory functions. Which research strategy did the psychologist use to deduce this?

the case study

You decide to test your belief that men drink more soft drinks than women by finding out whether more soft drinks are consumed per day in the men's dorm than in the women's dorm. Your belief is a(n) ________, and your research prediction is a(n) ________

theory; hypothesis

The concept of control is important in psychological research because:

experimental control allows researchers to study the influence of one or two independent variables on a dependent variable while holding other potential influences constant

In order to study the effects of lighting on mood, Dr. Cooper had students fill out questionnaires in brightly lit or dimly lit rooms. In this study, the independent variable consisted of:

the room lighting

In generalizing from a sample to the population, it is important that:

the sample be representative

Your roommate is conducting a survey to learn how many hours the typical college student studies each day. She plans to pass out her questionnaire to the members of her sorority. You point out that her findings will be flawed because:

the sample will probably not be representative of the population of interest

Which of the following research strategies would be best for determining whether alcohol impairs memory?

experiment

If a difference between two samples is not statistically significant, which of the following can be concluded?

All of the above can be concluded

Which statement about the ethics of experimentation with people and animals is false?

Animals are used as subjects in almost 25 percent of all psychology experiments

Rashad, who is participating in a psychology experiment on the effects of alcohol on perception, is truthfully told by the experimenter that he has been assigned to the "high-dose condition." What is wrong with this experiment?

Both b. and c. are correct

Which of the following research methods does not belong with the others?

experiment

Martina believes that high doses of caffeine slow a person's reaction time. In order to test this belief, she has five friends each drink three 8-ounce cups of coffee and then measures their reaction time on a learning task. What is wrong with Martina's research strategy?

There is no control condition

In a test of the effects of air pollution, groups of students performed a reaction-time task in a polluted or an unpolluted room. To what condition were students in the unpolluted room exposed?

control

In order to determine the effects of a new drug on memory, one group of people is given a pill that contains the drug. A second group is given a sugar pill that does not contain the drug. This second group constitutes the:

control group

Which type of research strategy would allow you to determine whether students' college grades accurately predict later income?

correlation

A researcher was interested in determining whether her students' test performance could be predicted from their proximity to the front of the classroom. So she matched her students' scores on a math test with their seating position. This study is an example of:

correlational research

In an experiment to determine the effects of attention on memory, memory is the:

dependent variable Submit

A friend majoring in anthropology is critical of psychological research because it often ignores the influence of culture on thoughts and actions. You point out that

even when specific thoughts and actions vary across cultures, as they often do, the underlying processes are much the same

Which of the following best describes the hindsight bias?

events seem more predictable after they have occurred

The scientific attitude of skepticism is based on the belief that:

ideas need to be tested against observable evidence

Joe believes that his basketball game is always best when he wears his old gray athletic socks. Joe is a victim of the phenomenon called:

illusory correlation

In an experiment to determine the effects of exercise on motivation, exercise is the:

independent variable

When a difference between two groups is "statistically significant," this means that:

the difference is not likely to be due to chance variation

Illusory correlation refers to

the perception of a correlation between two unrelated variables