psych post test

___ is the rule of thumb stating that if there are two explanations for a phenomenon, the simplest explanation is more often the best one.

The law of parsimony

The idea that sexual orientation may be related to the birth order of male children was posited by researchers in the field of

biopsychology

Today, Gestalt psychology ideas are part of which branch of psychology?

cognitive

Pavlov's work with learning in dogs focused on the concept of

conditioning

Dr. Edwards wants to show a causal relationship between tobacco smoking and cancer. Dr. Edwards should:

conduct an experiment using animal participants.

Mrs. Lewis participated in a study in which she was given no treatment for her condition. Mrs. Lewis was in the ________ group.

control

What is the main advantage of laboratory observation?

control

Mrs. O'Connor participated in a study in which she was told she would try out a new allergy medicine. She was in the group that received a sugar pill but she believed that the pill did indeed help control her allergy symptoms. This phenomenon is known as:

placebo

If there is _________ in a medical experiment, the control group will show changes in the dependent variable even if they are given a harmless substitute rather than a real drug.

placebo effect

Experimenters control the effects of extraneous or confounding variables upon members of experimental and control groups by using

random assignment.

The four goals of psychology are accomplished through

scientific method

A drug company conducts a study in which the experimenter gives half of the participants the drug being tested and the other half a placebo. This is an example of:

single blind

What did Watson believe about behavior?

that it is learned

Sasha sat in the preschool classroom and watched the children play, writing down how well they interacted with each other. The children could see that Sasha was watching them, so they made an attempt to be extra well-behaved for her. Sasha's research will be impacted by:

the observer effect.

Who was the first female president of the American Psychological Association?

Mary Calkins

In testing whether viewing violence on television causes children to behave in increasingly violent ways, the best method would be:

experiment

Which research method will allow researchers to determine the cause of a behavior?

experiment

When Mary took the survey in the mall, she noticed that the interviewer was wearing an Obama button. She answered the questions more favorably toward Obama than she might otherwise have, probably because:

courtesy bias

are defined in the text as standards upon which a judgment or decision may be based.

criteria

Dr. Mason observes that the students in her class who read both the text and PowerPoints tend to do better on her exams than the students who simply read the text or PowerPoints alone. Dr. Mason's observation best depicts which goal of psychology?

description

A drug company is determining the effects of a treatment for depression. Neither the researcher nor the participants know who is getting the treatment and who is being given a sugar pill. This type of study is:

double blind

The psychological perspective that is associated with William James is

functionalism

How does humanism differ from psychodynamic theory and behaviorism

humanism is your in control

Freud's theory of psychoanalysis:

is still in use by professionals today, with less emphasis on sex and sexual motivations

Wundt referred to the process of examining and measuring one's own thoughts and mental activities as:

objective introspection

What type of table or graph represents the data in a frequency distribution in much the same way as a bar graph but allows the shape of the data set to be easily viewed?

polygon

Dr. Jonas wanted to determine what would happen if rats were given food every time they completed a maze. He believed they would learn to complete the maze faster. This belief is called

prediction

A doctor informs the parents of a 14-year-old that, without hospitalization, her anorexia nervosa will worsen and cause grave medical conditions. The doctor is making a(n)

prediction.

Mary is a psychologist who focuses on the role of the conscious and unconscious minds. To which perspective does Mary ascribe?

psychodynamic

Which of the following illustrates psychology's goal of control?

using rewards to help a smoker give up cigarettes.