AP Psych Unit 1

In the 1800s, the activist Dorothea Dix led a movement in support of

improving the treatment of patients with mental disorders who were housed in asylums

cognitive psychologists are most likely to study

the acquisition of knowledge, planning and problem solving

While reviewing scores from a chapter test, a teacher discovered that the mean score was higher than the median. Which of the following statements is most likely correct? the range of the set of scores is the difference between the mean and the median the standard deviation is equal the the mean the distribution of scores for the test is normal the distribution of scores for the test is positively skewed the distribution of scores is multimodal

the distribution of scores for the test is positively skewed

2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16 What is the range?

14

7, 5, 10 , 4, 4 What is the median?

5

Ten participants in a treatment group were asked to rate their feelings of self worth on a scale of one to ten, with a value indicating a very positive feeling of self-worth. 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 10

6.4

A test has a mean of 80 with a standard deviation of 4. Which of the following scores is within one standard deviation of the mean? 75 77 86 90 99

77

Which of the following psychologists would have been likely to say "I do not care about the unconscious or hidden motives - I want to study behavior directly"? Carl Rogers Sigmund Freud Wilhelm Wundt William James John Watson

John Watson

Mr. Gregg wants to help his second-grade students improve their reading skills. He tests the students with 20 reading comprehension questions at the beginning of the year. Every week throughout the year he gives the students 30 minutes of reading comprehension tips. He tests the students at the end of the year with 20 reading comprehension questions that are similar in difficulty to those on the original test. He finds that the students' reading comprehension has increased and concludes that his tips worked. Which of the following describes the most significant problem with Mr. Gregg's study?

Mr. Gregg failed to account for changes in the students' maturity

According to Wilhelm Wundt, the focus of scientific psychology should be the study of

conscious experience

Psychodynamic therapy has its roots in the theories of Sigmund Freud B F Skinner Abraham Maslow Carl Rogers John B Watson

Sigmund Freud

A person displays a set of rare behaviors that psychologists had not known about previously, because nobody had ever shown them before. The best strategy to investigate the nature of those behaviors is

a case study

Samantha experienced a traumatic brain injury and afterward began to exhibit bizarre symptoms that no one had ever documented before. The best research method to study Samantha would be

a case study

Dr. Rodriguez is interested in finding out if stress levels throughout the year have a relationship with students' grades. The research method she most likely used is

a correlation study

A psychologist designed a study to test the effects of cell phone use on driving safety. Participants were randomly assigned either to drive an automobile simulator while talking to a friend on a cell phone or to drive a simulator without talking on a phone. In the study, cell phone use can be described as

an independent variable

When seeking approval to conduct an experiment using participants from her college psychology course, a student researcher should

apply to the institutional review board at the university

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 decrease

Participants were asked to rate the importance of achieving honor-roll status. Researchers found that students from smaller families rated the importance more highly than students from larger families. The research team concluded that a student's attitude toward school achievement is the result of family size. Which of the following is the most important error made by the research team? perceiving order in random events generalizing from extreme examples using self-report data failing to randomly assign participants to conditions assuming that correlation proves causation

assuming that correlation proves causation

Clinical researchers are interested in gaining insight into the causes of abnormal behavior. One way that they do this is to delve deeply into the histories of patients with a common diagnosis, interviewing family, friends, teachers, therapists, physicians, babysitters, and others who can provide rich details about the patients;' lives.. Then, researchers try to see if there are any common themes in the information gathered. What research method does this strategy represent?

case study

What theoretical perspective in psychology attempts to characterize the way in which humans store and process sensory information?

cognitive

Which procedure can reduce problems associated with the use of deception by a researcher? debriefing random sampling random assignment using only single-blind studies using only double-blind studies

debriefing

In an experiment to test the effects of hunger on aggressive behavior, aggressive behavior would be the

dependent variable

Introspection as practiced by early structuralists is best illustrated by which of the following behaviors? describing one's immediate sensations while looking at a rose determining the best way for children to learn in school conditioning an infant to fear rabbits recalling one's unconscious desires creating intelligence tests for use in the military

describing one's immediate sensations while looking at a rose

A researcher is studying the effect of caffeinated drinks on the activity level of ten-year-old children. Half the children in the study drank caffeinated soda and half drank noncaffeinated soda. neither the research team nor the children knew which drinks had caffeine and which drinks did not. The researchers were using

double-blind design

Which of the following psychological approaches suggests that jealousy might serve an adaptive function in protecting a sexual relationship from threats? cognitive behavioral psychodynamic evolutionary humanistic

evolutionary

A psychologist designed a study to test the effects of cell phone use on driving safety. Participants were randomly assigned either to drive an automobile simulator while talking to a friend on a cell phone or to drive a simulator without talking on a phone. What type of research does the scenario describe?

experimental

A researcher randomly assigned boys and girls to each of two groups. One group watched a violent television program while the other group watched a nonviolent program. The children were then observed during a period of free play, and the incidence of aggressive behavior was recorded for each group. This research method is best characterized as experimental correlational longitudinal naturalistic observation case study

experimental

Kara works as a dog trainer. She reads a new book that describes some unusual training methods, and she wants to test them out on the dogs she works with. She assigns each dog to one of two groups by picking a number out of a hat. Half the dogs are assigned to one group, and half the dogs are assigned to the other group. For a month, she trains one group using her old methods and the other group using the unusual methods. At the end of the month, Kara records that the dogs that were trained with her old methods obey her 80 percent of the time and those that were trained with the unique methods obey her 90 percent of the time. Kara concludes that the unique methods work better. Kara can best improve her experimental design by

having someone else test the dogs

Rocio is continually learning new skills and gaining insight into herself. Although she is not experiencing any distress, she chooses to see a therapist. This primary emphasis in grown is most reflective of what perspective?

humanistic

Which of the following perspectives argues that every person ahs the potential to become self-actualized? humanistic behavioral gestalt cognitive psychodynamic

humanistic

Research participants are randomly assigned to one of three groups. One group listens to a list of words, another group reads a list of words printed on paper, and the remaining groups hears and reads the words. The researcher then tests the participant's memories to see how many words the members of each group can recall. The modality in which the words are presented is which type of variable?

independent

The advantage of an experiment is that it allows a researcher to

infer cause and affect

In the early years of psychology, a research participant might have been asked to observe carefully and systematically his conscious experiences. What method would the participant be using?

introspection

Which of the following is true of the American Psychological Association? it addresses a number of ethical guidelines for the practice of psychology it determines whether studies that are going to be conducted at an institution are ethical it regulates animal welfare in research it regulates laws about psychological issues it is home to one of the largest medical research centers

it addresses a number of ethical guidelines for the practice of psychology

Which of the following statements best describes the placebo effect? it can be brought about by the individual's expectations it can be induced by antipsychotic drugs it is found only among individuals in psychoanalysis it is considered an invalid concept in research on client-centered therapy it is typically experienced by individuals in long-term therapy

it can be brought about by the individual's expections

In a normal distribution, which of the following statements is true about the area that falls between one standard deviation above and one standard deviation below the mean?

it contains the middle 68% of the distribution

Deception can be used in research when

it is appropriate for what is being studied

Which of the following is a strength of naturalistic observation? it makes data collection easy which saves time and money it allows researchers to draw conclusions about cause and effect it produces data that are easily quantified for statistical analysis it allows researchers to easily control many variables at once it minimizes artificiality which can be a problem in laboratory studies

it minimizes artificiality which can be a problem in laboratory studies

The benefit of using inferential statistics is that it allows a researcher to

make generalizations about a population

Which of the following measures can be precisely located on the graph of a skewed distribution without doing any calculations? mode median mean standard deviation variance

mode

A disadvantage of longitudinal studies is that

participants who drop out during the course of the study may be different in important ways from ones who do not drop out

Which of the following approaches to psychology focuses on adaptive, creative, and fulfilling aspects of human experiences? behavioral positive functional psychodynamic motivational

positive

Dr. Sampson follows the structuralist school of thought. Her techniques would most likely include:

presenting a participant with an object, such as a can of soda, and having the subject report his or her perceptions or experiences of the can

The notion that human behavior is greatly influenced by unconscious thoughts and desire is most consistent with which of the following psychological approaches? cognitive biological behavioral sociocultural psychodynamic

pscyhodynamic

Julie is interested in developing a test to measure achievement levels of middle school students. Which of the following domains of psychology is most applicable to Julie's interest? personality counseling biological industrial-organizational psychometric

psychometric

Which of the following methods best limits the influence of unknown variables in an experiment? random assignment correlational study debriefing stratified sampling subject matching

random assignment

Which of the following procedures is intended to control for preexisting differences between the groups of participants in an experiment? a double-blind design random sampling random assignment employing a confederate running one participant at a time

random assignment

A psychologist gives the same test to a class of students at the beginning of the day and again at the end of the school day. The extent to which test scores are similar across the two administrations demonstrates which of the following test principles? validity reliability standardization statistical significance utility

reliability

All of the following are American Psychological Association ethical guidelines for researchers EXCEPT: research may not involve deception participation must be voluntary participants must be informed of potential risks participants must be offered alternative activities if research participation is a course requirement participants' right to privacy must be protected

research may not involve deception

Students from a journalism class ask their friends to participate in a school newspaper survey and neglect to ask the rest of the student body. The journalism students' data may not be generalized due to

sampling bias

In a result report, a developmental psychologist who studied peer pressure in middle schools obtained data from a large, representative sample of adolescents across the United States. This research most likely involved a

survey

Dr. Wilson, who teaches engineering classes, is interested in learning about how lack of sleep affects performance. What would be the best way to ensure that her findings are generalizable to all the students at her university?

surveying every tenth student listed in the university directory about their sleep habits

What is the primary advantage of conducting a survey rather than using other types of research methods?

surveys can gather information from a diverse representation of a large number of people

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

survival

A researcher was interested in studying the effects of a new medication on depression. One group received the new medication and another group received a standard medication for depression. The researchers asked participants to answer a series of questions rating their mood levels before and after 6 weeks of taking the medications. What is the control condition in this study?

the group receiving the standard medication

Ms. Li, a principal, is interested in the differences in student behavior between two of the third-grade classrooms at her school. She asks the teachers, Mr. Williams, whose class meets at 9:00, and Ms. Walsh, whose class meets at 1:00, to record over a week the number of times students in their classrooms act out. Mr. Williams' class has 31 students, and Ms. Walsh's class has 32 students. "Acting out" is defined as students speaking without raising their hand or getting out of their seats without being given permission. At the end of the week, Mr. Williams reports that on average, his students acted out 73 times a day, and Ms. Walsh reports that, on average, her students acted out 27 times a day. Ms. Li decides that the students in Ms. Walsh's classroom act out more often than those in Mr. William's class. The results of this study are inconclusive because

the time of day was a confounding variable

It is important for researchers to use precise operational definitions when

they want to be able to replicate the experiment

A research group involved with advertising is conducting a study to investigate whether shoppers are more likely to engage in impulse buying at the checkout than at any other place in the store. For the results of the study to be generalized, the researchers should

use a representative sample

A psychologist researcher designs a study to determine whether positive feedback affects self-esteem. The researcher requires each participant to toss twenty coins into a coffee can that is three feet away. Half the participants were told that their performance is superior and the other half are told that their performance is well below average. Although some of the participants want to quit tossing coins after a few attempts, they are told that once they begin the study they have to complete it. After the coin toss, participants take a test measuring self-esteem. Following the test, ally participants are debriefed and told that information about their performance was false. . Results of the study indicate that participants who are told their performance is well below average report lower levels of self-esteem than do those who are told their performance is superior. What violation of ethical guidelines occurs in this study?

violation of the right to withdraw