Unit 3 Psych MCQ
The table depicts the number of points a basketball player earns per game wearing certain colored socks. A player tracks the number of points he earns per game for five games wearing different colors of his team socks. After the data is gathered, he develops a superstition and always wears green socks. What is the mean number of points earned when wearing green socks?
13
Dr. Jamal surveys parents of children of fifth graders who have done well in school. Based on his survey results, Dr. Jamal claims that being raised as an only child accelerates how quickly students will be able to progress to concrete operational thinking. What problem is associated with this claim?
Dr. Jamal cannot make a cause-and-effect claim from survey results.
A researcher studied the impact of early childhood education on disadvantaged children. Half of the children were randomly assigned to receive high-quality preschool, while the other half received no opportunity to attend preschool. The study collected extensive data on the children from the study until they reached age 40. The researchers were able to conclude that high-quality preschool positively affected education, socioeconomic status, crime prevention, family dynamics, and health. Which of the following best describes the research methodology used?
Longitudinal experiment
Since 1938, researchers have examined the lives of 268 male college graduates to learn more about the secret of living a good life. Every two years participants complete questionnaires concerning many aspects of their lives, including their current physical and mental health. Which of the following methods is being used by these researchers?
Longitudinal study
Based on the data presented in the table, which consequence was used by the training staff for dog #2?
Reinforcement
What conclusion can be drawn from the data presented in the figure about sensitivity to teratogens during prenatal development?
Teratogens are least likely to impact the development of the heart after 9 weeks.
Researchers conducted a study to investigate whether problem-solving abilities declined as subjects got older. They gave a large random sample of 20-year-old subjects a test with various problem-solving tasks. For the next 40 years, the researchers followed up every five years with the subjects and had them complete additional tests to gauge their problem-solving abilities. Which of the following is the most accurate statement regarding this research?
This study will provide correlational results.
The table depicts the number of good behaviors that are reinforced for students in elementary classrooms. Group 1 is offered pizza or ice cream they can eat immediately when they demonstrate good behavior. Group 2 is offered a "good behavior ticket" for each good behavior that they can use to "purchase" pizza or ice cream at the end of the week. Which type of reinforcement has a larger range according to the data depicted in the table?
Token economy
Marjorie's little brother tends to bother her when he is bored. Marjorie wants to figure out which toy will keep her brother occupied the longest so he will not bother her. She conducts a study where each day at 6 P.M. for a week she gives her brother a different toy and on one of the days she gives him no toys to play with. She measures the amount of time he spends playing with each toy before he comes to bother her. Which of the following is the independent variable in this example?
Type of toy
Emily was scratched several times by the family's cat when visiting her friend's house. She reflexively pulled back in pain and surprise when it happened. Now, when she visits that house, she backs away at the sight of the cat, even if it is in another room far from her. In this scenario, Emily's behavior when she was first scratched is best labeled as which of the following?
Unconditioned response (UCR)
Which of the following operant conditioning concepts is an example of positive punishment?
While driving through the state of Mississippi, Lance was stopped for speeding and had to pay an expensive speeding ticket. As a result, he no longer goes over the speed limit when driving in Mississippi.
Researchers were interested in seeing how quickly toddlers learned how to play with a new toy while interacting with one of their caregivers. They documented the number of interactions between toddlers and caregivers as they learned to play with the new toy. The researchers noted that caregivers from different cultures varied in the number of verbal statements spoken to the children to explain how to play with the toy. Which of the following concepts best describes the topic of the research study?
Zone of proximal development
Dr. Belzer documented the behaviors of parents with their children at a local restaurant. She looked for specific examples of permissive, authoritarian, and authoritative parenting styles. Which of the following best describes the method of research used by Dr. Belzer?
Naturalistic Observation
Dr. Shirah believes irritable infants grow up to be irritable adults. Which of the following best represents Dr. Shirah's beliefs?
Nature view
In which of the following scenarios is someone showing evidence of extinction in classical conditioning?
Randy was always worried about his exams in high school and felt anxiety when in the building. However, now that he is a teacher at the same high school the anxiety has gone away.
Which of the following scenarios best describes the relationship between temperament and child-parent relationships?
Sammy has a difficult temperament, but his parents love and care for him anyway.
A researcher conducted a study with a group of babies that were between 6 and 9 months of age. The researcher, using the visual cliff apparatus, recorded the type of response the babies gave to the visual cliff. The results are depicted in the graph. Which of the following is a conclusion that the researcher can make regarding the babies' responses to the visual cliff?
Babies between 6 and 9 months of age can perceive depth.
Xander can no longer stomach the taste of sushi after he vomited from eating a spoiled serving of it. However, the appearance of sushi does not make him sick. Which of the following best accounts for why Xander becomes sick upon tasting sushi but not seeing sushi?
Biological predisposition, because this example illustrates taste aversion.
According to the data presented in the graph, most infants can stand unsupported by which age?
18 months
A researcher studied 30 people ages twenty to forty, 30 people ages forty-one to sixty, and 30 people ages sixty-one to eighty. The researcher set up two rooms—one with a faint rose smell, and one with a faint lemon smell. Each participant was asked to enter each room and identify the smell in the room. What research method did the researcher use, and what outcome would be found?
Cross-sectional. As people age, their sense of smell diminishes, especially in older age.
Crystal has three children she loves and cares for very much. Denise has two children that she neglects. Crystal's children are very friendly and talk to people more often than Denise's children. Which of the following is the likely result of the children's attachment to their mothers?
Crystal's children will have better socialization skills.
Researchers conducted a study comparing intelligence levels of people across their life spans, as shown in the graph. Which of the following conclusions can be drawn from the data comparing fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence over the life span of a person?
Crystallized intelligence and fluid intelligence begin to diverge around 30 years of age.
To explore the concept of the "imaginary audience," a researcher gave the Imaginary Audience Scale to 6th, 8th, and 10th graders who visited a local shopping mall during one weekend in June. The results indicated that students in 10th grade had the lowest ratings on the scale and concluded that the "imaginary audience" does not apply to students beyond the 8th grade. For the researcher to generalize this research, what would he need to do differently?
He would need to obtain a random sample of participants from each of the three grade levels.
One of Dr. Whitmore's students had strongly believed that cognitive abilities remained stable throughout the lifespan. When that student read Dr. Whitmore's research which found that the 60-year-old and 80-year-old groups significantly outperformed the younger groups on test of factual knowledge, he claimed that it was an obvious finding because as you get older you naturally accumulate more knowledge. This student is most clearly exhibiting which of the following?
Hindsight bias
Sebastian wants to earn an "A" in his biology course but finds it difficult to stay motivated to study every night. His teacher recommends that he surround himself with peers who study regularly to increase his studying behavior. Sebastian's teacher made her recommendation based on the learning concept of
modeling
Which of the following statements is most representative of the principles of the Law of Effect?
A person is more likely to engage in a behavior more frequently when the behavior is followed by a positive result.
Which of the following examples best illustrates latent learning?
A rat allowed to wander a maze for a few days can run it more quickly after a reward is later introduced.
To study the effects of smoking on sense of smell, a researcher would most likely conduct a
longitudinal study on 100 smokers and a matched sample of 100 nonsmokers to determine whether the smokers' sense of smell declined more over time than the nonsmokers' did
Elementary-school students were reinforced with stickers every Monday and Friday for turning in their homework on time. These stickers could later be used to purchase candy and toys from the school store. Using the data presented in the table, what is the mode for the students who received a sticker on Friday?
13
Which of the following is an example of the schedule of reinforcement that has the slowest response rate as depicted in the graph?
A local fast-food restaurant tells customers they are going to release a coupon for a free meal on their app at some point during the day.
Maria is a thirteen year old child born with deafness to parents who can hear and who also live in a remote, rural area. Since birth, her parents have provided love, nourishment, educationally enriching toys, and developed their own hand signals to communicate with her about basic necessities. However, Maria did not begin to learn sign language until she was twelve and the family moved to a city and encountered members of a deaf community. Maria has found it very difficult to learn sign language, no matter what her instructors try. Which of the follow concepts best explains Maria's difficulty learning sign language?
A sensitive period
Sarah is the mother of an eight-month-old boy named Connor. Connor has been struggling to sit up on his own without assistance. While visiting a friend, Sarah noticed that her friend's five-month-old daughter was sitting up with ease. Which of the following explanations would a developmental psychologist generally offer to Sarah?
Although sitting upright with no assistance is a major milestone, many babies will develop within a range of ages.
Which of the following is an example of habituation for a dog?
Although the dog responded the first time his owner called his name, the dog stopped responding when his owner called his name multiple times.
Annette, who lives in the United States, experienced menarche at age ten, while her great-grandmother experienced it at age fourteen. Which of the following most likely explains the difference between the age that Annette and the age that her great-grandmother experienced menarche?
Annette has better nutrition and medical care than her great-grandmother did.
Maksym's parents set moderate expectations about discipline, exhibit high levels of warmth, and have open lines of communication. Which of the following best describes the parenting style of Maksym's parents?
Authoritative
Janice cleaned out the office refrigerator without being asked. The operant conditioning concept of positive reinforcement is illustrated in which scenario?
The next day, her boss gave her a gift certificate to a local coffee shop. As a result, Janice now regularly cleans out the office refrigerator.
A psychologist works with the Temne people of Western Africa. The psychologist presents two equal balls of clay, both an inch in diameter. First, the child acknowledges that the balls of clay are equal. Then, the researcher flattens one of the balls, and the psychologist asks the child, "If your friend was given the clay shaped like a rice cake and you were given the ball, who would have more to eat?" The psychologist counted how many children said, "One of us cannot have more than the other." Which of the following cognitive concepts was the psychologist testing?
Conservation
Which dog is demonstrating stimulus discrimination in the following scenarios?
Cookie cowers when she hears the pop of fireworks, but not when she hears the pop of lightning.
Professor Wapner conducted research to explore the extent to which elements of a subject's macrosystem are linked to a person's level of self-esteem. He gathered responses from several different cultures and compared the various macrosystems to the subject ratings of self-esteem. Which of the following research methods is Professor Wapner using?
Correlational
Researchers gathered information on the prevalence of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in children under the age of six years from a randomly selected sample from a large nation. One type of data collected involved parents reporting about special health care needs of their children such as whether they had emotional, behavioral, or developmental delays. Children with no or low ACEs were less likely to experience developmental difficulties. Which of the following research methodologies was used in this study?
Correlational
Which of the following statements explains why it is difficult to experiment with human development?
Direct long-term manipulation of a child's environment would be unethical.
If a therapist were using counterconditioning techniques to alleviate a patient's intense fear of heights, they would need to do which of the following?
Ensure that the patient is informed of the therapeutic procedures that will be utilized.
The operant conditioning concept of negative reinforcement is illustrated in which of the following scenarios?
Ervin always buckles his seat belt to stop the beeping sound his car makes when the seat belt is unbuckled.
Nayanika is 50 years old and finds her career meaningful and impactful. She enjoys mentoring new employees, which gives her a sense of purpose. Which of the following best represents Nayanika's current stage of psychosocial development?
Generativity
Research was conducted on the frequency of accidents involving construction workers being hit by construction vehicles in a work zone. The researchers measured the response of the pedestrians to the volume of warning sounds for each of the vehicles involved in the accidents. The data are depicted in the graph. Which of the following principles of learning is demonstrated by the results? Responses
Habituation
Jean Piaget formulated his theory of cognitive development by observing his own children at play. What is a valid criticism of the case study approach that Jean Piaget used to collect research data to originate his cognitive development theory?
His observations may have been biased due to his relationship with the participants.
In an effort to demonstrate that phobias were the result of environmental conditioning rather than mental processes, a researcher conditioned an 8-month-old child named Albert to have an intense fear of a white fluffy rat. While the result supported the researcher's behaviorist viewpoint, which of the following reasons explains why this research would not be allowed today?
It created too much stress for the participant, which violates the code of ethics for psychological research.
Which scenario below best depicts insight learning?
Laramie suddenly realized that he could put some of his groceries in a cabinet after repeatedly failing to fit them into a pantry.
Using the information presented in the graph, what is most likely the reason for the fall in the strength of the conditioned response in trials 16-20?
The CS and US are no longer being paired together.
A researcher explored the importance of comfort in newborn rhesus monkeys. The researcher separated infant monkeys from their biological mothers and introduced them to two inanimate surrogate mothers. One surrogate mother was constructed of wire and had a milk bottle attached to it, and the second was covered in soft cloth but did not have a milk bottle attached to it. The baby monkeys spent almost all of their time on the soft cloth mother and only went to the wire monkey to eat. In this experiment, what is the dependent variable?
The amount of time the infant spent with each surrogate mother.
Dr. Stonington argues that children's cognitive abilities develop in clear, distinct stages that are universal. Which of the following views is most consistent with Dr. Stonington's beliefs? Responses
The discontinuous view of development
Anthony is an adolescent who has a pimple on his cheek and thinks everyone is looking at it. Which of the following best explains what Anthony is experiencing?
The imaginary audience phenomenon
Which of the following aspects of classical conditioning is demonstrated by Quadrant 1 in the figure?
Unconditioned response to an unconditioned stimulus.
Professor Whitmore conducted research to examine changes in cognitive development across the life span. He recruited 400 participants and then grouped them by age. The study included 20-year-olds, 40-year-olds, 60-year-olds, and 80-year-olds (100 in each group). Each group in the study took several different tests. Some of the tests were fact-based and drew upon knowledge from several different areas. Other tests required participants to solve new problems as quickly as they could. Dr. Whitmore's research design is best classified as which of the following?
Cross-sectional
After years of watching their mother drive a car, Rowan knows how to start the car when sitting in the driver's seat for the first time. Which of the following types of learning best explains how Rowan acquired this new behavior?
Observational learning
When teaching an introductory Spanish class, Jermaine first introduces students to individual words and then helps students string the words together into sentences. This is an example of which of the following?
Scaffolding
Which of the following examples best illustrates Piaget's concept of conservation?
Seven-year-old William understands that when water is poured from a short, wide glass into a taller, thinner glass, the amount of water is the same.
Dalton developed a phobia of dogs after watching his older cousin act fearfully when he interacted with dogs in their neighborhood. Which of the following best explains why Dalton developed his phobia of dogs?
Social learning theory, because Dalton learned from observing his cousin's behavior toward dogs.
Professor Whitmore conducted research to examine changes in cognitive development across the life span. He recruited 400 participants and then grouped them by age. The study included 20-year-olds, 40-year-olds, 60-year-olds, and 80-year-olds (100 in each group). Each group in the study took several different tests. Some of the tests were fact-based and drew upon knowledge from several different areas. Other tests required participants to solve new problems as quickly as they could.
The 20-year-old cohort will likely outperform all other groups on the tests that involve solving new problems quickly.
Researchers hypothesize that the older a baby is when it begins to crawl, the longer it will take the baby to stop exhibiting earlier rocking behaviors. The researchers go into the infant room of a day care center every day for six weeks. Every time a baby rocks, the researchers record it. They document which babies are already crawlers and at what age each started crawling. What will help the researchers with their investigation?
Their knowledge that rocking behavior develops before crawling behavior and that rocking behavior eventually goes away once crawling behavior begins
Participants anonymously consented to an experiment where they would be classically conditioned to have a positive emotional response to advertisements for various products. In reality, the experimenter was attempting to see if subliminal messages in an advertisement influenced participant views on the product being advertised. Which of the following ethical guidelines might be of concern to an institutional review board (IRB) concerning this research?
There might be more deception than is deemed appropriate.
Based on the graph, which schedule of reinforcement would a parent choose to create the fastest rate of learning in their child?
Variable Ratio
