AP Psych- Research

In a research study, informed consent is a concern of

ethics

Which of the following studies has had the most profound impact on ethical issues in psychological research?

Stanley Milgram's study of obedience

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.

Although Paul seems bright and capable to his parents and friends, he has been failing in school. Paul agrees to speak with a psychologist, who suggests that his problems stem from internal processes such as unrealistic expectations and negative thinking. The psychologist's view is typical of which of the following models of behavior?

cognitive

Which of the following would an industrial-organizational psychologist be LEAST likely to study?

corporate profitability

Dorothea Dix was known for

documenting the poor conditions of mental asylums, which eventually led to their reform

A study can be regarded as scientific only if

its conclusions can be verified or refuted by subsequent studies

Ivan Pavlov was most well known for which of the following?

Conditioning dogs to salivate to the sound of a bell

Which of the following is a term for a variable that researchers do not control and that can affect the results of a study?

Confounding variable

Introspection, a research tool used by early psychologists, is a technique which involves

self-examination of mental processes

In order to yield information that is generalizable to the population from which it was drawn, a sample must be

representative of the population

12, 3, 3, 4, 8 What is the mean of the set of numbers above?

6

−3, 3, 0, 3, −3 What is the standard deviation of the numbers above?

3

In an experiment designed to determine whether watching violent scenes on television increases the frequency of aggressive behavior in children, one group of subjects saw a nonviolent cartoon and another group saw a violent cartoon. In the play period that followed the viewing of the cartoons, researchers observed the two groups of children together and counted instances of aggressive behavior. The control group in the experiment is the group that

watched the nonviolent cartoon

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

2, 11, 2, 3, 3, 4, 2, 5 What is the mode of the number set above?

2

Which of the following accurately describes a major change in perspective in the field of developmental psychology over the past twenty-five years?

A shift from an emphasis on childhood and adolescence to an interest in development over the life span

Which of the following studies is from an evolutionary perspective?

A study to see if women were more attracted to men who liked children than men who did not like children

A double-blind control is essential for which of the following?

Assessment of a treatment designed to reduce schizophrenic symptoms.

What is the best way to ensure that results of a study are generalizable to a population?

By using a random selection of people in that population

Dr. Patel is conducting a study to test a hair-growth shampoo she is developing. She instructs fifty participants to use the hair-growth shampoo once daily for a month and another fifty to use a regular shampoo once a day for a month. Dr. Patel measures the participants' hair length at the beginning and the end of the thirty days. Which of the following is the dependent variable?

Change in hair length

Which of the following scattergrams represents the data above?

D

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 scenarios is regulated by federal law?

Dr. Mast, a psychologist, has a client, Tim, who threatens to seriously harm his brother, Carl. Tim has a history of serious violence and the means to carry out the threat; therefore, Dr. Mast must inform Carl.

There is a strong positive correlation between ice cream sales and instances of snakebites. Which of the following is the most likely explanation for this correlation?

Hot weather is related to both ice cream sales and snake activity

Leadership, job satisfaction, and employee motivation are all studied in which of the following psychological disciplines?

Industrial-organizational psychology

A survey shows that children who have encyclopedias in their homes earn better grades in school than children whose homes lack encyclopedias. The researcher concludes that having encyclopedias at home improves grades. This conclusion is erroneous primarily because the researcher has incorrectly

Inferred causation from correlation.

Which of the following statements is true of behaviorism?

It holds that development is largely a product of learning

According to the ethical guidelines set by the American Psychological Association (APA), which of the following is true of psychological research in which animals are used as subjects?

It should conform to all APA ethical guidelines for animal research

In their discussions of the process of development, the advocates of nature in the nature-nurture controversy emphasize which of the following?

Maturation

Which of the following best describes the graph above?

Negatively skewed distribution

In studying the behavior of five year olds in freeplay situations, a cognitive psychologist would be most interested in the children's

Problem-solving strategies

The correlation between two measures obtained on a group of individuals is graphically represented as a

Scatterplot

Which of the following most accurately describes a dependent variable?

Some aspect of a participants response that is measured in an experiment

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.

Marjorie's little brother tends to bother her when he is bored. Marjorie wants to figure out which toy will keep her brother occupied the longest so he will not bother her. She conducts a study where each day at 6P.M. for a week she gives her brother a different toy and on one of the days she gives him no toys to play with. She measures the amount of time he spends playing with each toy before he comes to bother her. Which of the following is the independent variable in this example?

Type of toy

In an experiment designed to determine whether watching violent scenes on television increases the frequency of aggressive behavior in children, one group of subjects saw a nonviolent cartoon and another group saw a violent cartoon. In the play period that followed the viewing of the cartoons, researchers observed the two groups of children together and counted instances of aggressive behavior. The dependent variable in the experiment is the

amount of aggressive behavior exhibited by the children

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

Dr. Larson was interested in whether classical music helps students perform better on a test. Dr. Larson randomly assigned half of the study's participants to a group that listened to classical music while taking a test. The other half of the participants did not listen to music while taking a test. The research design Dr. Larson used is

an experiment

To determine whether a cause-effect relationship exists between two variables, a researcher must use

an experimental approach

According to one theory of psychology, many people have mental illnesses because their maladaptive behaviors have proven rewarding for them in the past and thus have been continued. This belief is consistent with which of the following models?

behavioral

John B. Watson is best known as the founder of

behaviorism

Which of the following approaches to psychology emphasizes observable responses over inner experiences when accounting for behavior?

behaviorist

The debate over whether development occurs gradually, without discernible shifts, or through a series of distinct stages is termed

continuity vs. discontinuity

In an experiment, which of the following variables refers to the outcome that is measured by the experimenter?

dependent

One major objection to the early Skinnerian approach to psychology is that it

did not take into account internal thoughts and feelings

In experimental psychology, a significant difference refers to a

difference not likely due to chance

Drawing a random sample of people from a town for an interview study of social attitudes ensures that

each person in the town has the same probability of being chosen for the study

A researcher uses debriefing when he

explains the true purpose of a study immediately after the study is complete

Cognitive theorists emphasize the

formation and modification of schemas

An important difference between humanistic and psychoanalytic approaches is that humanistic psychologists believe in the importance of

free will

The most important reason to use operational definitions in psychological research is it

helps everyone involved with the research understand and collect data in the same manner

The mean will be higher than the median in any distribution that

is positively skewed

In which of the following types of research are the same children tested periodically at different points in their development?

longitudinal

Which of the following research methods is being used if the same subjects are tested at two, four, and six years of age?

longitudinal

Jane Goodall lived among wild chimpanzees intermittently for decades, studying their social and family systems while keeping her interaction with the chimpanzees to a minimum. Her research method can most accurately be described as

naturalistic observation

In psychology, Gestalt principles are used to explain

perceptual organization

The first area of psychology to be studied as a science is known as

psychophysics

The most distinctive characteristic of the experimental method is that it

seeks to establish cause-effect relationships

The generalizability of a study increases when

the sample is more representative of the population

Professor Ahad has forty-three students in section one of the psychology classes she teaches and fifty-two students in section two. Section one meets at eight a.m. and, section two meets at one p.m. Professor Ahad gives all of her students the same final exam, and those in section two score significantly higher than those in section one. Professor Ahad concludes that her section one students are academically inferior to students in section two. The biggest problem with Professor Ahad's conclusion is that

time of day is a confounding variable in this scenario