Psychology 1010

Marilyn is a graduate student in psychology, and she has decided that she wants to study the influences of nature and nurture. Which of the following might be the most appropriate title for her thesis?

"How one's genes interact with their surroundings to determine intelligence."

To demonstrate the vast changes that have taken place in the world around us over the last century, consider that average human life expectancy in 1900 was ______ years, and that number has jumped to 79 years in 2010

47

How much of their genetic code do fraternal twins share?

50%

These days, researchers find that about ______ percent of homes across the world have a television, demonstrating the ease with which information can be transmitted to populations.

80

Shalva suggests that most people outside of industrialized societies do not have telephones in their home. Loni disagrees, and would most accurately respond in which of the following ways?

Actually, about three-quarters of the world's population now has access to a mobile phone!

Which of the following is an example of an empirical question that could be tested using systematic observation?

Do teenagers spend more time on their cell phones in a shopping mall than do adults?

_____ methods in psychological research are approaches to data-gathering that are tied to actual measurement and observation.

Empirical

______ conditioning can contribute to the development of anxiety disorders such as phobias and panic disorder.

Fear

What is a type I error?

Finding a relationship when none really exists.

Which of the following titles of an academic paper best reflects the notion that science is democratic?

Look at the Data and Form Your Own Opinion.

______ is/are a way to see if observed data differ from what the data would look like if there was no relationship between the variables.

Null hypothesis significance testing

Which of the following statements accurately presents a major difference between operant and Pavlovian conditioning?

Operant addresses voluntary behaviors while Pavlovian addresses reflexive responses.

What does the alternative hypothesis predict in NHST?

That there is a relationship between two variables.

How does a researcher know which methods she should use to test her hypotheses in psychological research?

The best method depends on the question being asked as well as the resources that are available to the researcher.

Martha and Mary are sisters who were born 2 ½ years apart. Eric and Merrick are fraternal twin brothers who were born 8 minutes apart. Which of the following would be the most accurate statement regarding their genetic similarities?

The sisters are as genetically similar as the twin brothers

In what way have scientists Fritz Haber and Norman Borlaug helped to save more than a billion human lives on our planet?

They developed hybrid agricultural crops and synthetic fertilizer that allowed us to produce adequate food for the planet.

Which of the following individuals are most commonly connected with the principles of operant (or instrumental) conditioning?

Thorndike and Skinner

Which of the following examples would demonstrate the influence of nature on one's success?

a football player is born with the genes to be very tall, very fast, and quite muscular

Which of the following would serve as an appropriate operational definition of depression in a research study about mood disorders?

a participant's total score on a statistically valid depression inventory

When scientific theories are revised with new data, these revisions hope to increase the theory's ______ to real-world observations.

accuracy

The electrical part of a neural signal - the message that gets sent down an axon and toward the next neuron - is called a(n) ______.

action potential

Dr. Eplin is conducting a study with hundreds of children and the parents who raised them, but are not biologically related to the children. Dr. Eplin is curious whether genes or the household environment has a greater influence on children's behavior. What kind of study is Dr. Eplin conducting?

an adoption study

Psychologists often explore questions related to abstract concepts (e.g., satisfaction, happiness, spirituality) when conducting research but those concepts may be hard to quantify. What must be clearly stated at the beginning of the research of such a concept?

an operational definition of the concept

News media might report scientific claims as "proven." Why is this a problem?

based on probabilities, not proof.

Why would it be accurate to say that neural communication is an 'electrochemical process'?

because the system is electrical within a neuron, but chemical between neurons

The science of how one's genetic code and their environmental influences interact to affect their actions is called ______.

behavioral genetics

Pavlov conditions his dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell. Next, he flashes a green light every time the bell and food are presented, but the dogs do not learn to salivate to the green light. This demonstrates ______.

blocking

The single most basic part of the human brain - a part that is seen in other, less-evolved animals - is the ______. This essential area helps to regulate such critical functions as breathing, digestion, and the beating of your heart.

brainstem

There is a very popular fighting-oriented video game in which characters often kill each other at the end of their match. One character's finishing move is to grab his opponent and tear his spine out. His final stance is to stand up holding the opponent's brain and spinal cord up high in a victorious pose. In biological terms, this combatant is holding his opponent's ______ nervous system.

central

13-year old Laila is taken to her doctor when her parents recognize that she is having symptoms related to her movement and posture. The doctor sends her to a neurologist, who orders an MRI of her brain. The doctor is not surprised to find out that Laila has a small growth on her ______, and speaks to the parents about how this will be treated so that Laila's symptoms will resolve.

cerebellum

Which of the following provides the easiest opportunity to see the way in which genes and one's environment work together to influence behavior?

child adoption studies

Named after the Russian physiologist who first identified its basic principles, Pavlovian conditioning is also called:

classical conditioning.

Aaron has been using heroin at his friend Luca's apartment. One night Aaron takes the same dose of heroin when he is home alone, and nearly dies from an overdose. Which phenomenon related to classical conditioning explains why this happened?

conditioned compensatory responses

In Pavlovian conditioning, a fundamental premise is that the only thing that a conditioned stimulus can cause is a(n):

conditioned response.

Maritza is in a study testing if almond milk slows the development of brittle bones. She's in the study for 3 months but doesn't know that her milk allergy is causing her body to block nutrients, so it doesn't help her. Maritza's allergy is an example of a(n):

confound

A scientific theory has ______ when it agrees with other theories within and across disciplines.

consistency

Charlise suffers from severe epilepsy and has several seizures a week. Her neurologist has tried several different medications to control the illness, all without success. Now she is concerned that Charlise will suffer brain damage if the seizures continue, and has recommend a split-brain procedure. She describes to Charlise that this surgery will involve severing the ______ to reduce electrical activity between the two hemispheres of her cerebral cortex.

corpus callosum

The thick bundle of neurons that connects the left and right cerebral hemispheres is called the ______. This structure allows those hemispheres to communicate with each other.

corpus callosum

Which kind of research allows us to passively observe exactly two variables to determine a relationship between them without drawing cause-and-effect conclusions?

correlational research

Dr. Morabian is conducting research that was inspired by studies published 10 years before he got his doctorate. He reads those studies, thinks about how they can be improved, and designs research that will extend their findings. Dr. Morabian's work demonstrates that science is:

cumulative.

Annie conducts a correlational research study and calculates that the variables in question have a correlational coefficient of -.81. In this statistic, the negative sign gives us information about the ______ of the relationship between the two variables.

direction

Dr. Magill is conducting research on whether giving monkeys ice cold water in the morning will cause them to be less aggressive during the day. He has several graduate students observing the monkeys and he regularly comments to the students that ice water is "definitely making a difference." As a result, the graduate students are less likely to rate minor aggressive incidents as true aggression. The research in this example has been compromised by ______.

experimenter expectations

A statement that can be shown to be false is ______.

falsifiable

In Ivan Pavlov's original experiment, the _____ served as an unconditioned stimulus because it naturally elicited a response from the dogs.

food

The human brain has developed in numerous ways over the course of evolution. For example, ______Blank, an ancestor of the modern human that lived over 2 million years ago, had a larger brain volume than its own ancestors but far less than modern humans.

homo habilis

Dr. Miller-Lewis is conducting research aimed at understanding how elderly people can best thrive when residing in an assisted-living facility. She has several logical ideas that can be tested in her research. These ideas, which might be thought of as educated guesses, are called ______.

hypotheses

A prediction that is tested by researchers is called a/an ______.

hypothesis

In an experiment, the condition that is being manipulated or changed by the researcher is called the______ variable.

independent

Professor Karthum uses bonus points for excellent attendance. He knows that behaviors that lead to satisfying outcomes are more likely to be repeated. This is the basic premise of the:

law of effect.

When Paula and Paulette were first conceived, they were the result of a single fertilized egg splitting into two different zygotes. They share all of their genetic code, and can be thought of as natural clones. What kind of twins are they?

monozygotic

The ______ system can be thought of a massive network of cells that allows for communication within the body.

nervous

In null hypothesis significance testing, the researcher is attempting to falsify the ______.

null hypothesis

Denzel is a psychologist who is interested in conducting research that examines the nature-nurture debate as it applies to people. He is trying to come up with a way to explore this issue using an experiment, but is having difficulty constructing a research plan. What would be the primary obstacle Denzel faces?

one cannot manipulate human beings' genetics easily

Markus is in a study examining the impact of vitamin C on vision. Some participants take 100mg. of vitamin C every day while others take placebo. Markus doesn't know which group he's in, but he is given eye exams measuring his vision each month. What is the dependent variable?

participant's vision, in this case, Markus'

Barbara is complaining that she has terrible abdominal pains. Several physicians have found nothing wrong with her. One physician gives Barbara a prescription for tablets with no real medication in them. "I think that this new medication will be very helpful for your abdominal infection," the physician tells Barbara. Within 24 hours of taking the fake medication Barbara reports that her abdominal pains have disappeared. This is called a ______.

placebo effect.

Evolutionary theorists have suggested that human beings may have a natural aversion to bitter tastes because many lethal poisons have a bitter flavor. This natural ability to learn an association for biological reasons is called ______.

preparedness

Effects that increase behaviors are called reinforcers; effects that decrease behaviors are called _____.

punishers

The scientific discipline of ______ examines similarities between individuals and analyzes them based on how biologically related they are.

quantitative genetics

The idea of falsifiability involves ______.

ruling out bad explanations

Inductive reasoning is based on data from _____.

samples

Which of the following neurotransmitters is known to have an impact on such functions as sleep, hunger, and mood?

serotonin

To demonstrate the enormous contributions that science has made to social and technological changes over the past century, your text author cites the work of Dr. Edward Jenner. Sometimes called the "father of immunology," Jenner's work directly led to the development of a vaccine that led to the eradication of ______.

smallpox

Inductive reasoning involves drawing conclusions from ______.

specific observations.

While driving to the beach for a vacation, your family gets stuck in traffic for over an hour. Each car sits very close to the one in front of it and the one behind it, but there is a small space that separates each car. In a system of neurons, such gaps between cells would be called ______.

synaptic gaps

Sometimes considered the core of science, ______ refers to the careful monitoring (or watching) of the natural world with the aim of better understanding it.

systematic observation

Lilah chews mint bubble gum every day. After she gets the flu and feels nauseated she hates the taste of mint. This is an example of:

taste aversion conditioning.

Which of the following would NOT be considered a structure that is part of the limbic system?

the medulla

Which question has caused more controversy than any other in the history of psychology?

the nature-nurture debate

There are three fundamental questions that exist at the intersection of philosophy and psychology. Which of the following is one of them?

the nature-nurture problem

When we develop ______ (groups of closely related phenomena or observations) in science, we must do so in a way that can be tested. Otherwise there is no way to prove (or disprove) them.

theories

What is participant demand?

when a research participant behaves in a way that she/he thinks the experiment wants them to behave