Barron's AP Psychology Practice Exam
Mr. Mather's kindergarten class is completely out of control. He can't get the 5-year-olds to sit in their seats long enough to teach them anything. One Monday, Mr. Mather comes in with an enormous container of colored buttons and announces that every time he sees someone doing something good, the student will get a button. At the end of the week, buttons will be able to be exchanged at Mr. Mather's Market. What technique is Mr. Mather using?
A token economy is a system in which generalized reinforcers (tokens) are used to quickly and easily reinforce desired behaviors. The value of these reinforcers comes from being able to trade them in at a later time for objects or privileges of an individual's own choosing
Dr. Shiffrin theorizes that stress in children can be caused by excessive levels of homework. If she were to test this idea, what would be her dependent variable?
According to the hypothesis, the amount of stress children experience depends upon how much homework they are assigned; hence, stress is the dependent variable. The amount of homework assigned is the independent variable.
Alfred's sister Rosie is very serious when she practices her cello and often yells at him for interrupting her, which makes Alfred feel nervous. Alfred has recently started exhibiting signs of anxiety whenever he hears any string instrument. This situation best illustrates
Alfred has generalized his anxiety to the sound of his sister practicing cello to the sound of any string instrument. Generalization in this classical conditioning example is when one exhibits a conditioned response to stimuli that are similar, but not identical to the conditioned stimulus. In this case, the conditioned stimulus is the sound of his sister playing cello, and the response of fear or anxiety has generalized to occur to similar sounds.
Antipsychotic drugs most directly impact which of the following biological systems?
Antipsychotic drugs most directly impact emotions, thinking, and behavior through changing neurotransmitter levels or neurons' abilities to absorb and use neurotransmitters.
You are feeling stressed because you can't decide whether to go to the restaurant in your neighborhood that has great food but is very loud, or drive across town and go to the diner where the food is not as good but which has a nicer atmosphere. What kind of conflict are you experiencing?
Approach-avoidance conflicts occur when choice options involve both attractive and unattractive features.
Changes in our sleep patterns (the amount of time we spend in each stage of sleep during the night) are most commonly caused by which of the following?
As we age, we spend less time in REM sleep and more time in the other stages of sleep
Which of the following best describes the basic idea behind Bandura's triadic reciprocality?
Bandura suggested that personality results from a set of two-way influences between one's behaviors, traits, and the environment. This idea is known as triadic reciprocality or reciprocal determinism.
Most experimental psychology research in the 1940s through 1960s was based on which psychological perspective?
Behaviorist studies, such as operant conditioning studies involving rats or pigeons performing behaviors for positive reinforcement, dominated experimental psychology during this time period.
According to a behaviorist, psychological disorders are largely caused by
Behaviorists believe that the reinforcement contingencies to which one has been exposed shape one's behaviors. A biopsychologist would link the source of the problem to neurochemicals, cognitive psychologists would fault maladaptive ways of thinking, humanistic psychologists would speak of psychological needs, and psychoanalysts would likely blame repressed childhood traumas.
Which of the following two memory-related concepts are most similar?
Both mood-congruent and state dependent memory describe similar phenomena that impact the probability a memory will be recalled.
Ajay tells his therapist that he feels lonely and isolated. His therapist says, "So, you seem to be feeling alone. Tell me more about that." This comment suggests that the therapist is most likely using what type of therapy?
Carl Rogers's person- or client-centered therapy is a nondirective, humanistic, insight therapy that aims to help people identify their own problems. As such, the therapist's job is mainly to listen actively and act as a mirror to reflect back what the client is saying and thereby help him/her recognize the issue.
Jethro frequently feels the need to check and double-check whether he has remembered to turn the oven off in the morning. This checking would best be described as an example of
Compulsions are repetitive, unwanted behaviors designed to relieve the anxiety caused by obsessions. Presumably, Jethro is worried that something bad will happen (for instance, a fire) because he has left the oven on each morning and feels driven to perform then checking behavior in order to alleviate that anxiety.
Deterioration of the stapes (stirrup) bone is likely to cause which of the following?
Conduction deafness refers to an inability to hear because sound is not "conducted" from the outside world to the cochlea and auditory cortex (where sound waves are changed into interpretable neural signals). The stapes is an integral part of the conduction process.
Correlations are typically graphed using a(n)
Correlations are typically graphed using a scatter plot, where one variable is plotted on each axis
Why might a researcher choose to do a cross-sectional study rather than a longitudinal study?
Cross-sectional studies are less time consuming than longitudinal studies, which involve studying one group of people over a long arc of time.
The bystander effect most nearly states that
Darley and Latane were the first to show that the more people who observe someone who needs help, the less likely any one of them is to help; this idea is known as the bystander effect and is usually explained by the idea that there is a diffusion of responsibility amongst the bystanders.
Which of the following is an example of a delusion?
Delusions are false beliefs. Imagining you hold an important government position is a delusion
Many antidepressants work by
Depression has been linked to low levels of both norepinephrine and serotonin. As a result, a number of antidepressants have been designed to elevate levels of these neurotransmitters in the synapse.
Dimitri invents a new way to assess personality that involves describing the images one sees in a carefully selected set of photographs of clouds. Which type of psychologist is most likely to find such an assessment useful?
Dimitri's cloud test is an example of a projective test. Similar to the TAT and Rorshach tests, it is likely based on the idea that what people project onto ambiguous stimuli provide insight into their personalities.
Why might the REM stage be called "paradoxical sleep?"
During REM, we experience high-amplitude and high-frequency brain waves that are sometimes as or more intense than waking brain waves. This phenomenom is paradoxical because it occurs during a stage of sleep.
Electroconvulsive shock therapy is most often employed to treat
Electroconvulsive shock therapy or ECT is most commonly used to treat people suffering from severe depression especially when the depression has not been alleviated by other types of less invasive treatments.
Which developmental stage theorist is most closely associated with Freud?
Erikson's social development theory expands on Freud's theory of unconscious conflicts and desires. Erikson was a neo-Freudian who believed that we mature through stages of social development, and he theorized that the unconscious beliefs and attitudes we develop during early stages (even infancy) influence our later social development and behaviors.
Wolfgang Kohler's research involving problem solving and primates provided valuable empirical evidence supporting which cognitive concept?
Evidence from Kohler's studies support the idea that divergent thinking can occur in non-human primates (such as chimpanzees) and that divergent thinking involves steps such as experimentation and reflection.
Research in the area of evolutionary psychology might rely heavily on research from which of the following psychological schools of thought?
Evolutionary psychology necessarily involves discussions of genetics and how genes are passed from one generation to another. Biological psychologists are also involved in this area of research.
A teratogen is most likely to influence the development of which of the following?
Fetal alcohol syndrome is the only outcome listed that is likely to be influenced by a chemical that passes from the mother to a developing fetus and impacts development (in this case, alcohol).
Which of the following sentences accurately describes a difference between the left and right hemispheres?
Few generalizations can be accurately made about the differences between the hemispheres because both hemispheres are normally active during almost all cognitive tasks. One of the well-established differences between the hemispheres is that the left hemisphere is primarily responsible for spoken language.
According to Freud, during which stage is the superego formed?
Freud asserted that the superego, essentially an individual's conscience, formed during the phallic stage (ages 3-5), largely as the result of the Oedipal crisis.
Cornelius is an average student but a gifted dancer and gymnast. He is well-liked and gets along well with most people. Based on this information, we can conclude that Cornelius has a lot of what types of intelligence?
Given Cornelius's talent as a dancer and gymnast, we can conclude that he has what Gardner terms bodily kinesthetic intelligence. He also seems to possess a high level of interpersonal intelligence, based on the remarks about his ability to get along with others.
Which study would pose the greatest challenge to the ethical guideline that participation in research be voluntary?
Given that sick people need medication and that medication can be very expensive, the use of free medication as a carrot to tempt people into a drug trial may be unethical. People who need the medication may not feel free to refuse enrolling in the drug trial, and being in that drug trial could put them at risk of harm
Mary Ainsworth's research into children's reactions to the strange situation is most directly connected to what other set of research studies?
Harlow researched attachment in primates, and Ainsworth's later research with the strange situation investigated how different kinds of attachment between human babies and caregivers
What is the best definition of a standardization sample?
Ideally, the standardization sample is a group of people similar to the people who will take an actual exam. Because the results of a standardized test are supposed to result in a normal distribution, test makers have to have a good sense of what percentage of people will get each item right.
Ms. Stern is a newly hired English teacher. Which of the following factors would make it most likely that she is embraced and accepted by the rest of the teachers in the department?
If the teachers have a common area in which they spend their free time
If you were interested in getting an inside look at how teenagers behave when they go to the mall, what would be the best type of study to use?
In naturalistic observation, the researcher watches behavior unobtrusively so as not to influence it thus yielding a picture of the behavior that is ideally untainted by participant biases. Experiments, whether they take place in the lab or the field, have many advantages as do surveys but are typically unable to provide as honest a reflection of behavior. Content analysis is not used to study behavior.
Which type of scan would provide a psychiatrist with the most information about whether a stroke damaged communication between the left and right hemispheres?
In order to investigate communication in the brain, the psychiatrist would need to use a scan that provides detailed information about which specific brain areas are active during specific tasks. The fMRI scan is most able to provide this kind of data.
Counterconditioning is a key part of which therapeutic approach?
In using systematic desensitization with a phobic individual, the goal is to replace the anxiety felt in response to the feared object with a feeling of relaxation.
Carl Jung is credited with introducing which of the following ideas?
Jung proposed that people inherit a kind of collective unconscious for the human species that is a repository for common important ideas that he called archetypes. The idea of an inferiority complex is credited to Alfred Adler; womb envy is a term coined by Karen Horney; self-actualization is associated with Abraham Maslow, and factor analysis is a statistical technique first developed by Charles Spearman.
Which of the following drugs would be most likely be prescribed for a patient who suffers from manic episodes?
Lithium is often prescribed to treat bipolar disorder, especially the manic episodes that often occur as part of that disorder. Haldol and chlorpromazine are antipsychotic medications, and benzodiazepines and barbiturates are more often used as anti-anxiety medications.
Which of the following terms is most likely to be used by bio-psychologists when discussing how memories are stored?
Long-term potentiation is the process of the strengthening of neural connections which bio-psychologists theorize result in the phenomenon of memory.
One of the major variables that mitigates the harmful effects of stress is what?
Many studies indicate that animals (including humans) who perceive that they have control over a situation experience fewer harmful effects from stres
Young animals learn many behaviors from watching their mothers and imitating those behaviors. This kind of learning is known as
Modeling is another name for observational learning. Modeling involves exactly what is described in the question - watching another member of one's species perform a behavior and then attempting to copy it.
Modern developmental psychology research indicates that which of the following aspects of Piaget's original cognitive development theory were inaccurate?
Modern developmental psychologists criticize Piaget's original cognitive development theory for emphasizing discrete stages, rather than a more gradual and continual cognitive development.
Which of the following elements of maturation is least affected by environmental influences?
Motor development progresses through a series of predictable stages based on muscle and coordination development, and is not strongly impacted by environmental influences.
Jeffrey often forgets something on his way to school - his glasses, his homework, his trumpet. When Jeffrey turns up without his permission slip for the class trip to the zoo, his teacher, Mr. Perkins, will most likely conclude that
Mr. Perkins is likely to make a person-stable attribution - an attribution that explains Jeffrey's behavior as a logical outgrowth of something internal and fairly consistent within him. The only choices that fall into that category are B and E. It seems more logical that to blame Jeffrey's lack of a permission slip on disorganization than on intelligence.
Which of the following is the best example of negative reinforcement?
Negative reinforcement is when something aversive (in this case a homework assignment) is removed in order to reinforce desired behavior (the strong performance on the test)
Which sentence most accurately describes the process of neural transmission?
Neural transmission is an electro-chemical process, involving an electrical charge that travels within a neuron and chemicals that pass between neurons across synaptic gaps.
What type of personality theorist believes that all people's personalities can be described using the same set of traits?
Nomothetic trait theories like the Big Five suggest that the same set of basic traits can be used to describe everyone's personality. This approach is in contrast to idiographic theorists, such as Gordon Allport, who believed that different sets of traits are needed to describe different people.
A person who suffers a stroke and can no longer see objects in their left field of vision might have suffered damage to which part of their brain?
Objects in our left field of vision are normally detected on the right halves of our retinas. This visual information is carried via the optic nerve to our right occipital lobes, so damage in this area might leave us "blind" to objects in our left field of vision.
Paulene typically experiences feelings of autonomic nervous system arousal. With which type or disorder is this symptom is most closely associated?
Paulene seems to suffer from generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), a type of anxiety disorder. Autonomic arousal causes feelings of anxiety or nervousness.
All of the following are examples of factors that exacerbate the societal problem of prejudice EXCEPT
People from different backgrounds are often attracted to one another
Modern psychologists might criticize Freud's original psychoanalytic theory for which of the following?
Psychoanalytic theories and hypotheses were not falsifiable based on experimental data. Some of Freud's ideas about the connection between personality and human behavior (such as the id, ego, and superego) were difficult to establish or falsify with empirical data.
Why is random assignment important in an experiment?
Random assignment helps ensure that the members of the various experimental groups do not differ in any systematic way such as intelligence, personality, and sociodemographic characteristics. When such differences between groups exist, they are known as confounding variables. Although random assignment can limit the effect of such variables, it cannot eliminate all kinds of bias such as experimenter or participant bias. Choices A and E both refer to random sampling (selecting a sample from a population) rather than random assignment (dividing the sample into experimental and control groups). Random assignment does not impact the validity of the dependent measures
Why are recognition tasks usually easier than recall tasks?
Recognition involves matching current stimuli to what we already have stored in memory, which is an easier process than recall.
Ali became sick with the stomach flu shortly after trying a piece of fried eggplant at a party. Since then, Ali has avoided fried eggplant. What likely explains the rapid acquisition of this behavior?
Research has indicated that people and animals seem predisposed to link certain types of stimuli with certain kinds of consequences. As shown by Garcia and Koelling, novel tastes are easily associated with nausea but not with electric shock while loud noises and flashes of light are more easily associated with shock than with nausea
Researchers find that people with rich fantasy lives tend to be more hypnotizable. This research finding most supports which theory of hypnosis?
Role theory states that hypnotized individuals are acting out the role of a hypnotized person, and people with rich fantasy lives may be more prone to acting these roles in convincing ways.
Which experiment illustrated the power of the self-fulfilling prophecy?
Rosenthal and Jacobson's experiment illustrated that when elementary school teachers were told that some of their students would experience a big year in their academic development, they did, indeed, develop more rapidly than their peers. The power of one person's expectations to cause behavioral confirmation in another person is known as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Enlarged brain ventricles are a symptom of what mental disorder?
Schizophrenia has been shown to be linked to enlarged brain ventricles. Everyone has spaces in their brain called ventricles which are filled with cerebrospinal fluid, but scans have indicated that, in people who suffer from schizophrenia, these spaces are enlarged.
A drastic change in set-point would most affect which human behavior?
Set point theory describes the behavior of the hypothalamus in influencing our eating. This theory predicts that the hypothalamus tries to maintain a specific body weight, a set point, and when we are below that point it triggers hunger impulses and lowers our metabolic rate.
Which of the following perceptual principles is most applicable to the following situation: art students learning to draw objects from different angles.
Shape constancy
Rescorla's contingency model of classical conditioning modifies Pavlov's original model by
Showing how learning can occur in the absence of reinforcement. Rescorla's contingency model theorizes that learning will happen more quickly and effectively when a conditioned stimulus (CS) reliably predicts an unconditioned stimulus (US).
Polly injured her right eye playing basketball and must wear an eye patch for a month. While she's wearing the patch over her right eye, which of the following depth cues will Polly NOT be able to use to judge distance?
Some depth cues rely on binocular (two eye) vision ("binocular depth cues"). Convergence is one of these kinds of depth cues: we know an object is close to our face when both our eyes try to move together (converge) on an object very close to us. Since one of Polly's eyes is injured, she would not be able to rely on this binocular depth cue to judge depth.
Someone who scores two standard deviations above the mean on a standardized exam scored closest to which percentile?
Someone who scores two standard deviations above the mean scores at approximately the 97.5th percentile
Whose theory of intelligence most directly incorporates a sense of "street smarts"?
Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence includes a traditional academic type of intelligence (known as componential or analytic intelligence), experiential or creative intelligence that depends on one's ability to use knowledge in new ways, and a type of contextual or practical intelligence that enables people to apply what they know to real-world challenges. The concept of practical intelligence is related to street smarts.
Alarmed by her penchant for schoolyard fights, Cherry's parents encouraged her interest in Tae Kwon Do. Now a college student, Cherry has a black belt, teaches at the local dojo and hasn't had a fight in over a decade. This story could be seen as an example of
Sublimation is a Freudian defense mechanism that suggests that people take unacceptable feelings and desires (in this case a desire to be violent) and channel them into more socially acceptable pursuits.
Which of the following is a prenatal environmental influence that impacts human development?
Teratogens are chemicals that can harm a developing fetus if ingested or contracted by the mother.
Which of the following is one of the Big Five?
The Big Five personality traits are: openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and neuroticism.
Which psychological perspective best explains the Garcia effect?
The Garcia effect describes a specific classically conditioned reaction that occurs when mammals experience nausea after eating or drinking a substance. This pairing only has to occur once for the organism to experience nausea after seeing, smelling, or even thinking about that substance again
Mr. Cohen wants to encourage his kids to clean up their rooms. Every time they do so, he takes them out for dinner. As times goes on, Mr. Simpson's children clean their rooms increasingly less frequently. What does this situation demonstrate?
The Premack principle essentially explains that one person's reinforcer may be another person's punishment. While Mr. Simpson may view taking his children out for dinner as a treat for them, they may not see it the same way. Reinforcers and punishments are defined by the effects they have on behavior. Given that taking his kids out to dinner results in less of the desired behavior, that consequence is defined as a punishment.
A basketball coach is interested in how excited or relaxed her team should be before a game. She wants their excitement level to be exactly right so that they perform their best during the game. Which psychological concept should this coach research?
The Yerkes-Dodson law describes how physiological arousal impacts performance. Both very low and very high levels of arousal usually negatively impact performance.
A group of researchers selectively breed a group of rats for aggression. Which area of the rats' brains might the researchers likely focus on when examining the relationship between aggressive behavior and brain anatomy?
The amygdala controls basic, primal emotions like aggression, so it is a likely structure for researchers to target for this kind of research.
In Milgram's obedience study, the dependent variable was operationally defined by
The dependent variable in Milgram's obedience study was obedience, and it was measured (OR OPERATIONALLY DEFINED) by looking at how LARGE A SHOCK THE PARTICIPANT WAS WILLING TO DELIVER TO a STRANGER just because he was asked to by the experimenter.
Will, who loves Shakespearean drama, vastly overestimates the number of people who share his love of the Bard. This is an example of
The false consensus effect is the tendency to overestimate the number of people who agree with us. Therefore, Will's fondness for Shakespeare is likely to lead him to overestimate the number of people who share this view.
Reaching down and scratching your kneecap in a dark theater probably relies most on which of the following senses?
The kinesthetic sense enables us to perceive where different parts of our bodies are located without looking at them. Reaching for our kneecap in a dark theater would depend most on this sense.
Which brain structure most directly controls the desire to eat and feelings of fullness?
The lateral and ventromedial hypothalamus control our desire to eat and the feeling of fullness that influences us to stop eating. Rats with lesions in either of these areas either never stop eating or never desire food unless food is removed.
Initially, Joey did not like watching Sesame Street. After his dad put it on repeatedly, Joey came to love it. Joey's change of heart is best explained by
The mere exposure effect says that exposure breeds fondness. Thus, the more Joey watched Sesame Street, the more he came to like it.
Children who do not learn a primary language before adolescence typically have trouble becoming fluent in any language during the rest of their lives. This research finding most supports which theory of language acquisition?
The nativist theory of language acquisition predicts that there is a critical period of maturation during which human brains are "wired" to acquire language. If a child passes through this critical period without acquiring language, it will be difficult for that child to ever acquire language.
What was the major difference between Wilhelm Wundt's ideas about thinking and behavior and the thinking of earlier philosophers?
The primary difference between Wundt and the earlier thinkers who investigated human thought and behavior was that Wundt tried to establish his theories with empirical evidence gathered in a laboratory setting.
Arshia and Alain are assigned to observe a group of nursery school students to see how they negotiate sharing at the block table. Arshia and Alain independently codes the behavior of each student and then they compare their findings to make sure they agree. This process most directly shows a concern for
The reason to have the raters compare their ratings is to get a measure of the extent to which they agree or their inter-rater reliability. Even if the raters do agree, it is possible that their coding reflects a low level of validity or accuracy - in other words, they may agree but in fact be measuring something other than sharing.
At Central High School they ring a bell to end every class period. Sometimes, by mistake, they ring the bell in the middle of a class period and teachers find that many of their students get up to leave not realizing that only about half of the class time has gone by. The students have learned this behavior via
The ringing of the bell is a conditioned stimulus associated with the unconditioned stimulus of being dismissed from class. Leaving class is both the conditioned and unconditioned response.
A researcher investigating the effectiveness of different methods of memorizing lists is likely to be most interested in which of the following memory concepts?
The serial position effect describes the impact of the position of items on a list on recall. Items early in the list are likely to be remembered (primacy effect) and items last on a list or likely to be remembered (recency effect).
Wolfgang quickly grabbed his cell phone as it fell towards the floor. Which part of his nervous system most directly allowed him to perform this behavior?
The somatic nervous system controls our voluntary, skeletal muscles, and is most responsible for this kind of voluntary muscle reaction. The other systems involved may also be activated during this situation, but it is the somatic nervous system that most directly controls this grabbing behavior.
Cynthia has a group of students take a creativity test. What statistical measure would be most useful to her if she wants to describe how the scores in the distribution compare to one another?
The standard deviation is essentially a measure of the average distance of all the scores in a distribution from the mean
Dr. Sturge asks patients to blurt out whatever is on their minds and to describe their dreams. What is the likely purpose of these types of techniques?
The techniques described are commonly used by psychoanalytic and psychodynamic therapists to reveal the threatening thoughts people have repressed into their unconscious. Even though in the long term such techniques may lead to insights that will ultimately relieve anxiety and while the processes may also disclose information about a person's family or friends, the immediate goal is to help the therapist to gain insight into what the client might be repressing.
Which of the following disorders is thought to be the most highly heritable?
The term heritability refers to the percent of the variation in a trait due to genetic influences. Bipolar disorder, formerly known as manic-depression, is thought to be highly heritable based on evidence from twin and other family studies.
In the information processing model, encoding takes place between which steps in the model?
The three box model consists of sensory, short term, and long term memory. Memories are encoded from sensory to short term memory and from short term to long term memory.
Which management theory is most likely to help employees grow toward self-actualization?
The two management theories described by motivation psychologists are theory X and theory Y management theories. Theory X managers use rewards and punishments to coerce employees into working. Theory Y managers assume, like Maslow, that employees are intrinsically motivated and managers should work to inspire and enable employees to work.
What is the major difference between the James-Lange, the Canon-Bard, and the two-factor theories of emotions?
These theories primarily differ in how they describe the sequence of the emotional process. The James-Lange theory holds that physiological reactions occur first, the Canon-Bard theory holds that the emotional experience precedes the physiological reaction, and the two-factor theory explains the interactions between the physiological reaction and the emotional experience as they occur simultaneously.
Within the context of states of consciousness research, what does the term tolerance refer to?
Tolerance within the context of states of consciousness refers to the increased need for a drug in order to produce the same physiological effect.
Hartshorne and May conducted a famous set of experiments in which they tested children's honesty. They found that virtually everyone was honest in some situations and dishonest in others. This type of finding presents the greatest challenge to what type of personality theorist?
Trait theorists describe personality with a set of characteristics that presumably should hold fairly constant across a wide variety of circumstances.
Which structure in the eye is most responsible for the process of transduction?
Transduction is the process of transforming sensations into neural signals. In the eye, this process takes place in the retina, where specialized neurons (rods and cones) changes light waves into neural impulses.
Mr. Lopez wants his kindergarten students to come into class and go directly to the seats. Which type of reinforcement schedule would likely yield the most rapid acquisition of this new behavior?
Typically, continuous reinforcement is most effective in teaching a new behavior because the consistent association of the reinforcer with the behavior will make the link easiest to learn.
Which of the following phenomena are best explained by the opponent-process theory?
color blindness
A drug that acts as an antagonist for acetylcholine would most likely have what effect?
interfere with muscle control
Nassar is taking prescription medication for a heart condition. He notices that his heart rate increases immediately after he takes his medication, and he experiences emotions more intensely while this heart racing symptom persists. Which theory of emotion best explains this phenomenon?
2-factor
Five-year-old Sjoen seems fascinated by the different characteristics of his toy cars. He spends hours rearranging them by size, color, speed, and other physical characteristics. As he gets older, he uses increasingly complex rules to group the cars into different categories. Which developmental theorist would be most interested in this example of development?
A cognitive development theorist like Piaget would be most interested in this example of concept formation. As Sjoen creates new ways to categorize his cars, he is developing new schemes for these existing toys, assimilating and accommodating his experiences.
SAT I scores have a correlation of about .5 with first year grades in college but no clear relationship to performance in college or career overall. From this information, one can conclude that the SAT
A correlation of .5 is considered a moderate correlation. Seeing that SAT I scores moderately predict people's first year performance in college, they can be said to have moderate predictive validity, albeit short-lived. This correlation does not mean that the SAT is (or is not) a measure of intelligence. The existing correlation also does not tell us anything about the exam's concurrent validity - that is, its correlation with current performance. Finally, most people consider this statistic to be an indication that the SAT I should count less (rather than more) in the college admissions process.
Our senses of vision and hearing are similar in a significant way, and different than our senses of taste and smell. What is this significant difference?
Vision and hearing are sometimes called "energy" senses, because they involve our senses "absorbing" energy (light or soundwaves) and converting them to neural impulses. Taste and smell are sometimes called "chemical" senses, because they involve these senses absorbing chemicals and converting them to neural signals
Research has shown that people are more likely to complete a survey if they are given a token incentive along with the survey than a larger incentive that will be given to them upon the survey's completion. Which phenomenon provides an explanation for this finding?
When you give someone a gift - even one of very token value - you engage what seems to be a natural response to reciprocate in kind. This norm of reciprocity explains why the prepayment of an incentive seems to work better than a promised post-payment even of greater value.
Psychologists often disagree about exactly what to include in the DSM. What argument is often made in favor of a more comprehensive listing?
Without a diagnosis, insurance companies will not provide coverage for treatment. Therefore, many psychologists have argued that it is better to be overly broad in what is included in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) than too narrow. Labeling and the stigma associated with having a label are often thought to be reasons against classifying more things as disorders
Writing a science fiction story about the potential applications of a time travel device requires thinking typical of which cognitive stage of development as described by Piaget?
Writing about the possibilities of time travel requires abstract and hypothetical thinking, which are aspects of the formal operational stage as described by Piaget.
Arvind compared the speed of two groups of rats running through a maze using a t test. Which p value would allow Arvind to conclude with the greatest degree of certainty that the groups of rats performed differently?
a p value of .01 allows even greater certainty that the results reveal an actual difference between groups.
