Psych Midterm

Name 2 ethical safeguards in place when working with animals

1) Ensuring their health and protection at all times 2) Ensuring care, food, and shelter at all times

Name 2 ethical safeguards in place when working with humans

1) Prevent any emotional, physical, and mental harm at all times 2) Ensure trust with participant

Which of the following is a neurotransmitter released in the brain that controls muscle movement and plays a role in mental processes such as learning, memory, attention, sleeping, and dreaming?

Acetylcholine

In the context of how neurons fire, which of the following is defined as an impulse of positive charge that runs one way down an axon?

An action potential

_________ proposes that psychology can be a science only if it examines observable behavior, and not ideas, thoughts, feelings, or motives.

Behaviorism

In the context of the subdisciplines of psychology, which of the following is the study of how people perceive information, how they learn and remember, how they acquire and use language, and how they solve problems?

Cognitive psychology

_________ focuses on changing a person's maladaptive thought and behavior patterns by discussing and rewarding more appropriate ways of thinking and behaving

Cognitive-behavioral therapy

________ are fingerlike projections from a neuron's soma that receive incoming messages from other neurons

Dendrites

Psychologists use a standardized reference when diagnosing psychological disorders called

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5)

Which of the following is a neurotransmitter that is involved in voluntarily controlling one's muscles and is released during feelings of pleasure or reward?

Dopamine

In the United States, the pioneer of moral treatment of the mentally ill was

Dorothea Dix

Which of the following is a method for measuring brain activity in which the electrical activity of the brain is recorded by placing metal disks attached to wires on a person's scalp?

Electroencephalography (EEG)

_________ was the first to distinguish thought disorders (schizophrenia) from the mood disorders of melancholia (depression) and manic depression (bipolar disorder). His views were a major influence on diagnostic categories formulated during the 20th century.

Emil Kraepelin

Which of the following is defined as the branch of psychology that studies human behavior by asking what adaptive problems it may have solved for the early ancestors of human beings?

Evolutionary psychology

Which of the following are sets of bones from the middle ear that vibrate and amplify sound waves from the tympanic membrane?

Hammer, anvil, and stirrup

In the context of the field of psychology, which of the following statements is true of the contribution of Wilhelm Wundt?

He gave psychology its independence from philosophy and physiology

________ is the extent to which a characteristic is influenced by genetics

Heritability

Which of the following statements is true of the practice of trephination?

It involved drilling a small hole in a person's skull to release spirits or demons responsible for psychological disturbances

Which of the following statements is true of scientific thinking?

It involves the reasoning skills required to generate, test, and revise theories.

Which of the following statements is true of psychology?

It is a core science, along with medicine, physics, and math

Which of the following psychologists proposed that psychology can be a science only if it examines observable behavior, not ideas, thoughts, feelings, or motives?

John Watson

Which of the following terms is defined as the position that the environment constantly interacts with biology to shape who people are and what they do?

Nature through nurture

Which of the following is a type of cell that processes and transmits information throughout the nervous system?

Neurons

Which of the following is a drawback of behavioral measures in psychological research?

People may modify their behavior if they know they are being observed or measured

In the context of psychological perspectives, which of the following is an assumption made by the humanistic-positive perspective?

People strive toward meaning, growth, well-being, happiness, and psychological health

________ is the act of organizing and interpreting sensory experience

Perception

What modern view of psychological disorders developed at the end of the 1800s?

Psychological disorders are a form of illness that should be diagnosed and treated

________ is defined as the procedures, consisting of five basic processes, by which scientists conduct research.

Scientific method

________ is the stimulation of our sense organs by the outer world

Sensation

________ plays a role in dreaming and in controlling emotional states, such as, anger, anxiety, and depression

Serotonin

The assumption that dreams have meaning and are the most direct route to the unconscious mind was put forth by

Sigmund Freud

________ takes into account both stimulus intensity and the decision-making processes people use in detecting a stimulus

Signal detection theory

Which of the following is most likely to be the focus of educational psychology?

The effectiveness of particular teaching techniques

In terms of evolution, which of the following human brain regions was the first to emerge?

The hindbrain

Which part of the eye is responsible for bending light rays so that light can be focused on the retina?

The lens

Which of the following is true about theories?

Theories organize and explain what we have observed.

In the context of photoreceptors, identify a true statement about rods

They are most responsive to dark-and-light contrast

Which of the following statements is true about absolute thresholds?

They refer to the smallest amount of change between two stimuli that a person can detect half of the time

________ is defined as the degree to which a test accurately measures what it purports to measure, such as intelligence, and not something else, and the degree to which it predicts real-world outcomes.

Validity

In the context of the key issues in psychology, which of the following is true according to the nature-only view?

Who people are comes from inborn tendencies and genetically based traits

The lowest intensity levels of a stimulus a person can detect half of the time is known as

absolute threshold

Our perception of loudness is determined by the ________ of a sound wave

amplitude

By virtue of its prime location, the ________ plays a key role in determining the emotional significance of stimuli, especially when they evoke fear

amygdala

A variable can be defined as

anything that changes, or differs, within or between individuals

The ________ serves the involuntary systems of the body, such as the internal organs and glands

autonomic nervous system

The ________ transmits electrical impulses toward the adjacent neuron

axon

Benjamin studies the relationship between bodily systems and chemicals and how they influence behavior and thought. This implies that Benjamin is most likely a(n)

biological psychologist

The point at which the optic nerve exits the eye is the ________ of the retina

blind spot

The medulla, the pons, and the cerebellum are three main parts of the

brainstem

A(n) ________ can be defined as a study design in which a psychologist, often a therapist, observes one person over a long period of time.

case study

The _________________________ contains more neurons than any other single part of the brain

cerebral cortex

The Gestalt law of ________ occurs when we perceive a whole object in the absence of complete information

closure

Replication of a study is important to

confirm the results of the study

The ________ is a thick band of nerve fibers that connects the two hemispheres of the brain

corpus callosum

The ability to see things in three dimensions and to discriminate what is near from what is far is termed as

depth perception

The major limitation of the correlational approach is that it

does not establish whether one variable actually causes the other

A control group differs from an experimental group in that the control group

does not receive the independent variable, or treatment

In the context of scientific psychology, the view that knowledge and thoughts come from experience and observations is known as

empiricism

The human body has natural painkillers called

endorphins

The brains of people and animals reared in richly stimulating environments differ from the brains of people reared in understimulating, neglectful, or abusive environments. This happens because

environmental forces work along with genetic forces to shape who we are

The term ________ can be defined as the study of changes in the way genes are activated or deactivated without changing the sequence of DNA

epigenetics

Both ________ and ________ are produced in the brain and by the adrenal glands that rest atop the kidneys

epinephrine; norepinephrine

A(n) ________ is defined as a research design that includes in-dependent and dependent variables and random assignment of partici-pants to control and experimental groups or conditions.

experiment

Norman is asked to evaluate and provide evidence against allegations of child abuse. This indicates that Norman is most likely a

forensic psychologist

Children and teenagers act more impulsively than adults partially because their ________ are not fully developed

frontal lobes

The ________ theory of pain proposes that the spinal cord regulates the experience of pain by either opening or closing neural channels that are involved in pain sensations that get sent to the brain

gate control

A(n) ________ is a small segment of DNA that contains information for producing protein(s)

gene

_________________________ are the central nervous system cells that provide structural support, promote efficient communication between neurons, and remove cellular debris

glial cells

Topics in ________ range from studies of how stress is linked to illness and immune function to studies on the role of social factors in how people interact with health care professionals.

health psychology

The main function of the temporal lobes is

hearing

Developmental psychology can be best described as the study of

how thought and behavior change and show stability across the life span

The ________ regulates almost all of our major drives and motives, including hunger, thirst, temperature, and sexual behavior

hypothalamus

A ________ is a specific, informed, and testable prediction of what kind of outcome should occur under a particular condition.

hypothesis

The ________ variable in an experiment is an attribute that is manipulated by an experimenter under controlled conditions.

independent

The ________ is a group of forebrain structures that share important functions in emotion and motivation

limbic system

The top layers of skin have receptor cells that are sensitive to different tactile qualities. These receptors are called

mechanoreceptors

The ________ is involved in various kinds of reflexes, such as coughing, swallowing, sneezing, and vomiting

medulla

Axons that become ________ are insulated and can transmit impulses more efficiently

myelinated

The process of developing new neurons is called

neurogenesis

In a naturalistic observation, a researcher

observes and records behavior in the real world

A small area high in the lining of the nasal cavity contains the ________, which are the receptors for smell

olfactory sensory neurons

The structure composed of the axons of ganglion cells from the retina that carry visual information from the eye to the brain is known as the

optic nerve

The ability of the brain to preserve perception of objects in spite of the changes in retinal image when an object changes position or distance from the viewer is known as

perceptual constancy

Scientific literature consistently finds that people who are extraverted are more likely than introverts to use Facebook and have a wider network of social relationships. These studies are most likely to be conducted by a

personality psychologist

The cells in the retina (called rods and cones) that convert light energy into nerve energy are called

photoreceptors

A ________ is defined as a substance or treatment that appears identical to the actual treatment but lacks the active substance.

placebo

_______________________ is defined as the brain's ability to adopt new functions, reorganize itself, or make new neural connections throughout life, as a function of experience

plasticity

It is vital to safeguard the dignity and autonomy of individuals and take extra precautions when dealing with study participants, such as children, who are less likely to understand that their participation is voluntary. This guideline of psychological research is known as

respect for persons

Our sensitivity diminishes when an object constantly stimulates our senses. This process is known as

sensory adaptation

Giovanni conducts research on prejudice and racism to understand how people of one group perceive and treat people in other groups. This indicates that Giovanni is most likely a student of

social psychology

A representative sample is a

subset of a population that truly reflects the characteristics of that population

The main function of the ________ is activating the body in times of emergency, for example, by increasing the heart rate, dilating the pupils of the eyes, or inhibiting digestion

sympathetic nervous system

The junction between an axon and an adjacent neuron is known as the

synapse

Psychology as a modern empirical science

tests predictions about behavior with systematic observations and gathered data

In the brain, the first major structure involved in processing bodily sensations is the ________, which relays the impulses to the somatosensory cortex in the parietal lobes

thalamus

Psychology is most accurately defined as the

the scientific study of thought and behavior

Psychoanalysis assumes that

the unconscious mind is the most powerful force behind thought and behavior

Once inside the auditory canal, sound vibrations travel to the

tympanic membrane

In the context of the midbrain, the reticular formation plays a key role in

wakefulness

Personality psychology can be best defined as the study of

what makes people unique as well as the consistencies in people's behavior across time and situations