Unit 1- potential test questions

Six different high school students spent $10, $13, $2, $12, $13, and $4, respectively, on entertainment. The mode of this group's entertainment expenditures is

$13

During the past month, Henri and Sylvia each ate 10 candy bars, while Jerry ate 8, Tricia ate 6, and Tahli ate only 1. The mean number of candy bars eaten by these individuals was

7

Why are researchers careful to use large, representative samples in their studies?

Larger, representative sample sizes help ensure reliable and valid results.

The arithmetic average of a distribution of scores is the

mean

an experiment was designed to study the potential impact of alcohol consumption on emotional stability. a specification of the procedures used to measure emotional stability is

operational definition

Mr. Lopez believes that severe depression results primarily from an imbalanced diet and abnormal brain chemistry. Mr. Lopez favors a ________ perspective on depression.

biological

In 1848, Phineas Gage, a railroad construction foreman, survived when an explosion drove an iron rod through his head damaging the functioning of the frontal lobes. This instance provided evidence that the frontal lobe plays a role in personality and behavior. Researchers have continued to study Gage's brain to better understand this link. Which research method is being used?

case study

which research method is typically used to examine one participant in depth, usually because the individuals situation/behavior is rare or unusual

case study

For no apparent reason, Adam has recently begun to feel so tense and anxious that he frequently stays home from work. It would be most beneficial for Adam to contact a(n) ________ psychologist.

clinical

Which of the following is a measure of the degree of variation among a set of events?

standard deviation

Professor Woo noticed that the distribution of students' scores on her last biology test had an extremely small standard deviation. This indicates that the

students' scores tended to be very similar to one another

A researcher interested in investigating the attitudes or opinions of a large sample of people is most likely to use which research method?

survey

Which research method would be most appropriate for investigating the relationship between the religious beliefs of Americans and their attitudes toward abortion?

survey

A hypothesis is a(n)

testable prediction that gives direction to research

Redelmeier and Tversky (1996) followed 18 patients with arthritis for 18 months. Patients were asked to record their pain and joint tenderness, while researchers documented changes in the weather. Nearly all patients believed that their condition was associated with weather changes, when the actual correlation was near zero. These participants need to be reminded that

we are likely to recall instances that confirm our beliefs

Which of the following is the best definition of illusory correlation?

a perceived but nonexistent correlation

Which philosopher was the first to conclude that knowledge results from our memories of our experiences?

Aristotle

Why is Wilhelm Wundt often considered the first scientific psychological researcher?

He gathered data through experiments in his lab

Dr. DeVries is interested in measuring how practice in problem solving affects this ability. The population of interest is high school seniors, and the sample consists of students who attend an exclusive college preparatory school. Half of the sample receives practice in solving particular MSCs of problems, while the other half does not. Both groups take the same problem-solving test. Which of the following might best explain why Dr. DeVries may not be able to generalize his findings?

His sample is not representative of the population.

Who would have been most likely to ignore mental processes and to define psychology as "the scientific study of observable behavior"?

John B. Watson

The ideas that most directly helped form modern empiricism were proposed by

John Locke and Francis Bacon

Why would the median, rather than the mean, be the appropriate measure of central tendency in determining housing values in a particular community?

The median is minimally affected by extreme scores

The hindsight bias refers to people's tendency to

exaggerate their ability to have foreseen the outcome of past events

Margaret has difficulty speaking in front of her classmates and explains to a friend, "Everybody in my family is shy, so it must be genetic." Using the biopsychosocial approach to understanding her behavior, Margaret should

examine additional psychological and social-cultural influences on shyness.

Behaviorists dismissed the value of

introspection

The self-reflective observation of one's own sensations and feelings is called

introspection

The survival of organisms best suited to a particular environment is known as

natural selection

If psychologists discovered that wealthy people are less satisfied with their marriages than poor people are, this would indicate that wealth and marital satisfaction are

negatively correlated

Stanley Milgram designed his influential studies on obedience in response to thinking about the Holocaust. In their defense, Nazi war criminals said they had committed such atrocities against the Jews and others because they were "just following orders." Milgram's motivation to study obedience to authority illustrates that

psychology is not value free; it affects what psychologists study.