PSY2012 Chapter 1

The idea of placing a third brake light at the base of a car's back windshield and changing the color of fire engines from red to yellow are examples of _____.

Applied psychological research

Georgio does not want to take the SAT of ACT exams because he thinks they will not accurately reflect his ability to succeed in college and are no more useful than flipping a coin. His guidance counselor explains that psychologists have determined that, although not perfect, these tests are significantly better than chance are predicting college success. These psychologists are sharing some _____ with Georgio

Applied research

Twin and adoption studies addressing the nature-nurture debate are typically conducted by _____.

Behavior geneticists

You meet a psychologist who tells you that she conducts research on children to determine how their cognitive processes differ as the child gets older. You recognize that this person is most likely a(n) _____.

Developmental psychologist

Research has shown that people are especially prone to find patterns of meaning in meaningless stimuli when they ______.

Do not feel a sense of control

A friend says he will not have his new baby inoculated against any childhood diseases because he is afraid the shots will cause autism. You point out that there is NO scientific evidence to support that idea. He says he knows that, but he just FEELS that it is true. What logical fallacy is at work?

Emotional reasoning fallacy

An important principle of scientific thinking states that if two explanations account well for a phenomenon, we should generall select the simpler one. This principle is known as _____.

Occam's Razor

According to David Hume, an eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher, the more a claim contradicts what we already know, the more _____ must be the evidence for the claim.

Persuasive

Darwin's evolutionary model explains the changes in species over time. Theory or Hypothesis?

Theory

The universe began in a gigantic explosion about 14 billion years ago. Theory or Hypothesis?

Theory

Dr. Frohardt is a psychology professor who has been asked to explain what all people will look at first when the view photographs of dangerous animals. Dr. Frohardt will find that this task difficult because _____.

eye-tracking studies show differences between cultures when inspecting visual materials

Laurie told her friend Sandi, "I had a headache this morning so I used an old family cure: Three sips of ginger ale, and an hour later my head felt better." Sandi replied, "I am glad you are feeling more comfortable now, but maybe the sheer passage of time made you headache of away." Sandi is offering a(n) _____ in response to Laurie's explanation.

rival hypothesis

The police have arrested a suspect in an assault case and the victim has agreed to look at a lineup to see if he can identify the person who attacked him. Gary, a police psychologist is advising the detectives on the most accurate way to put together a lineup. What should he recommend they use?

sequential lineup

According to astronomer Carl Sagan, scientific skepticism includes (1) a willingness to keep an open mind to all claims, and (2) a willingness to _____.

Accept claims only after researchers have subjected them to careful scientific tests

E.B. Titchener was a leading figure in which framework of psychology, which advocated the use of introspection to identify the basic elements of experience?

Structuralism

Your friend is an emergency room nurse. He tells you the ER is always busier when there is a full moos; he claims it is because unstable people are more affected by the moon's gravitational pull. To evaluate his claim, you should understand that _____.

correlation is not causation

All effective psychotherapies require clients to get to the root of their problems in childhood. True or False?

False. Some psychotherapies focus on root issues in childhood, but not all do. For example some therapies focus more on striving to improve one's future self and to reach their full potential and they do this by focusing on the current and future positives, not the negatives of the past.

Which type of psychologist is most likely to work with patients who have serious mental disorders such as major depression?

Clinical psychologist

In the 1950s and 1960s, many psychologists were disillusioned with behaviorism's neglect of the mental processes involved in different aspects of thinking. Arguing that thinking has a powerful effect on behavior, psychologists such a jean Piaget began to develop the field of _____.

Cognitivism

One reason that intuition and common sense are not a good basis for scientific psychology is that we often do not notice _____.

Contradictions between our views

Behavior theory suggests that animals and people are driven primarily by their past reinforcement history when engaging in behavior. Which sid or the Free Will-Determinism debate does this theory adopt?

Determinism

One reason people are drawn to believing in pseudoscience is that we use our emotions as guides to evaluate the validity of claims. This is known as the affect heuristic or the _____.

Emotional reasoning fallacy

Science begins with the premise that knowledge should first be acquired through observation. This premise is called _____.

Empiricism

Academic psychologists are more skeptical of many weakly supported claims, such as extrasensory perception, than are their colleagues in more traditional sciences, such as physics and chemistry. Fact or Fiction?

Fact. Compared with physicists, chemists, and biologists, psychologists are considerably less likely to believe that extrasensory perception is an established scientific phenomenon. That may be because psychologist are more aware than most other scientists of how biases can affect the interpretation of ambiguous data.

Conspiracy theories can lead us to believe two logically inconsistent things at the same time. Fact or Fiction?

Fact. Research shows that many of the same people who are convinced that Princess Diana (who died in a car accident in Paris in 1997) was the victim of an intentional murder plot are also certain that she faked her own death and is still alive.

The more people present at an emergency, the more likely it is that at least one of them will help. True or False?

False. Classic psychology research has found that the more people present when there is a person in need of help, the less likely someone will step in and actually help. This occurs often because of a sense of diffused responsibility to step up.

Hypnosis enhances the accuracy of our memories. True or False?

False. Hypnosis techniques are not a magic wand for memory. Hypnosis is a state when people are more suggestible. Research has found that recollections under hypnosis can sometimes be less accurate then when not under hypnosis.

Newborn babies are virtually blind and deaf. True or False?

False. Infants are able to hear before they are born (around 24 weeks gestation). Though infants are quite nearsighted at birth, they are able to see.

The lie-dectector (polygraph) test is 90-95% accurate at detecting falsehoods. True or False?

False. Lie detector tests are notorious for giving false positives (a person is not lying but the machine says it is). Some research has found that 40% of the time a polygraph can give a false positive result, thus, not very accurate at all.

In general, it's better to express anger than to hold it in. True or False?

False. Research has suggested that though there may be a short-term 'cathartic' feeling when expressing anger; this does not translate into longer term ability to manage anger and aggression. In reality, expressing anger does not decrease aggression significantly.

People tend to be romantically attracted to individuals who are opposite from them in personality and attitudes. True or False?

False. Research investigating romantic attraction and relationships finds that successful partners are often much more alike in personality and attitudes than they are different from one another.

People with schizophrenia have more than one personality. True or False?

False. This confuses two separate disorders. Multiple Personality Disorder (now referred to as Dissociative Personality Disorder) and schizophrenia are two distinct disorders.

All people with dyslexia see words backwards. True or False?

False. Though letter reversals are common, whole word reversals are not the norm for individuals with dyslexia.

Most people only use about 10% of their brain capacity. True or False?

False. We use all of our brain though not necessarily all the time. Additionally, obtaining damage to large portions of the brain often leads to significant disability. If we only used 10% of our brain then this damage should not be significant.

Humanistic theory and therapies often refer to people's abilities to control their own destiny regardless of their past difficulties. Which side of the Free Will-Determinism debate does this theory adopt?

Free Will

One of the great debates that has shaped the field of psychology is the question of whether people choose their behaviors or are obliged to act in certain ways by factors beyond their control. This is known as the _____ debate.

Free Will - Determinism

Crime rates in Nashville increase as the temperature rises. Theory or Hypothesis?

Hypothesis

Our motivation to help a stranger in need is influence by the number of people present. Theory or hypothesis?

Hypothesis

Sarah's motivation for cheating was fear of failure. Theory or Hypothesis?

Hypothesis

The theoretical framework of psychology known as structuralism has two major problems. One was that highly trained introspectionism often disagreed on subjective reports. The other was the discovery of _____.

Imageless thought

Wilhelm Wundt developed the first full-fledged psychological laboratory in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany. He pioneered the technique of _____, in which trained observers reflected on and reported their own mental experiences

Introspection

According to philosopher of science Sir Karl Popper, for a scientific claim to be meaningful, it must be falsifiable, which means _____.

It can be tested to determine if it is false

Ways of thinking that appear to make intuitive sense but are actually traps that lead to mistaken conclusions are called _____.

Logical fallacies

Sigmund Freud believed that humans are born with an innate sense of aggression that must later reined in by the ego and superego. In short, all humans are born with these negative characteristics. In making the claim that we're born with a propensity toward aggression, which side of the Nature- Nurture debate did Freud adopt?

Nature

Social psychologists believe that humans learn their behavioral customs (such as how to interact with authority figures and even how and when to express emotion) through their socialization and from parents and important adult figures. Which side of the Nature-Nurture debate does this reflect?

Nurture

The idea that we can dismiss scientific theories (such as Darwinian evolution) from serious consideration because a theory "is just an educated guess" is _____

a misconception

Alice is looking for an effective diet program. She is able to evaluate the claims of competing programs in an open minded and careful fashion by _____ the hallmark of scientific skepticism

using her critical thinking skills

In thinking of the multiple levels of analysis in psychology, the neurochemical level is considered to be _____ because this level is more closely tied to biological influences.

Toward the lower end of the ladder

Many choices that we make are influenced by our past experiences. True or False?

True

People generally make choices that are completely under own own control and not influenced by past rewards or experiences. True or False?

True

The family, city, neighborhood, and other social influences are a large contributor of the type of person someone will grow up to be. True or False?

True

The genes that a person is born with are a large determiner of their personality, intelligence, and psychological health. True or False?

True

Some main warning signs of pseudoscientific claims include over reliance on anecdotes, exaggerated claims, absence of connectivity to other research, lack of peer review, and _____.

Use of scientific-sounding terms that make little sense

Of the 3,500 of so self-help books published every year, what percentage are scientifically tested?

about 5 percent

Psychological researchers have become more aware of the importance of replicating research results. Part of this awareness is driven by the observation that the size of certain psychological findings appears to be shrinking over time. This phenomenon is known as the _____.

decline effect

Evolutionary psychology has been criticized because _____.

its predictions are difficult to falsify

As a discipline, psychology spans multiple ______, which can be thought of as rungs on a ladder.

levels of analysis

Bud and Sandy are discussing the merits of new automobiles. Bud noted, "This car model has been tested by four different consumer agencies in hundreds of tests with virtually the same outcomes each time; it is very reliable." Sandy countered, "Yeah, but my neighbor dow the street brought that car, and he has had nothing but problems. I would stay away from it." Which hallmark of pseudoscience has Sandy fallen prey to?

over reliance on anecdotes

Psychics who perform poorly in laboratory tests and then blame their poor performance on "bad vibes" from skeptical researchers are displaying which sign of pseudoscience?

Ad hoc immunizing hypotheses

The phrase "don't confuse me with the facts" would best describe which self-deception trap?

Belief perseverance

Just as behaviorism was gaining popularity in the US, Sigmund Freud was founding a new field of psychology, one that focused on internal psychological processes such as unconscious impulses, thoughts, and memories. This approach is called _____.

Psychoanalysis

The outgoing behavior of other people can make an extraverted person act even more extraverted. Bandura called this mutual influence on one another's behavior ______.

Reciprocal determinism

Because religious concepts cannot be tested scientifically, we should consider that _____.

Science and religion are nonoverlapping realms of understanding the world

An approach to psychology that relied heavily on dream interpretation, symbolism, unconscious motive, and the suppression of sexual and aggressive urges was developed by _____.

Sigmund Freud

People have a tendency to continue holding on to their beliefs even when those beliefs have been shown to be wrong. This phenomenon is known as _____.

belief perseverance

The "third variable problem" is associated with which scientific thinking principle?

correlation is not causation

Ten-year-old Candace Newmaker died as a result of a pseudoscientific treatment called "rebirthing therapy." This is an example of pseudoscience causing _____.

direct harm

Which term describes the common sense belief that we see the world as it really is?

naive realism

British philosopher John Locke stood on the nurture side of the nature-nurture debate, comparing the mind of a newborn to a sheet of paper that had yet to be written on. Others later used which term to describe the same idea?

tabula rasa

Science writer Michael Shermer coined the termed "patternicity" to refer to _____.

the human tendency to see patterns in meaningless data