1. The philosophical belief that every behavior has a cause is
known as
a.
b.
c.
d.
structuralism.
determinism.
functionalism.
solipsism.
Q# 2. To say that a test is reliable is to say that its results are
a.
b.
c.
d.
replicable.
parsimonious.
falsifiable.
valid.
Q# 3. Several studies find that among college students, use
of illegal drugs is negatively correlated with grade-point
average. Which conclusion, if any, do these results justify?
a. The use of illegal drugs impairs either learning,
memory, or concentration.
b. Highly conscientious students, who are likely to do
well in school, avoid illegal drugs.
c. Students who spend their time and effort on risky
activities do not spend much time studying.
d. The results do not justify any of these conclusions.
Q# 4. Someone claims that a subliminal message "buy
popcorn" in the middle of a movie increases people's
likelihood of buying popcorn. Which of the following would
be the best way to test that claim?
a. Display such a message in the middle of the movie and
determine whether popcorn sales are higher before the
message or after it.
b. Display such a message every day for one month, and
not at all the next month. Determine whether popcorn
sales are higher during the month with the message.
c. Display such a message on some days, randomly
chosen, and not others. Determine whether popcorn sales
are higher on days with the message.
d. When people buy popcorn, ask them why they are
buying it and whether or not they remember any
messages on the screen.
Q# 5. Which psychologists are most likely to believe that "the
whole is more than the sum of its parts"?
a.
b.
c.
d.
behaviorists
psychoanalysts
Gestalt psychologists
transactional analysts
Q# 6. An experimenter asks a group of 6-year-old children to
try to repeat lists of two to eight numbers or letters
immediately after hearing them. Five years later the same
experimenter asks the same children, now 11 years old, to
repeat new lists of two to eight numbers or letters. This is an
example of a
a.
b.
c.
d.
cross-sectional study of long-term memory.
cross-sectional study of short-term memory.
longitudinal study of short-term memory.
longitudinal study of long-term memory.
Q# 7. If tolerance to a drug injection is based on
classical conditioning, what procedure would lead to
the extinction of the tolerance?
a. Administer electric shocks whenever the
person attempts to take an injection.
b. Take injections of a large amount of the drug
as frequently as possible.
c. Wait a long time between one injection and
the next.
d. Go through the injection procedure without
the drug itself.
Q# 8. Most people who buy lottery tickets have developed
the habit of doing so based on
a.
b.
c.
d.
negative reinforcement.
vicarious reinforcement.
omission training.
passive avoidance learning.
Q# 9. Going to sleep immediately after reading something
may improve memory of the material. One likely explanation
is that going to sleep
a. attaches distinctive retrieval cues to the items to be
remembered.
b. increases the encoding specificity.
c. decreases retroactive interference.
d. takes advantage of the actor-observer effect.
Q# 10. "The magical number seven, plus or minus
two" refers to the number of
a. dreams we have each night.
b. basic traits that exist.
c. times people must be hypnotized before they are able
to completely block out pain.
d. items we can hold in short-term memory.
Q# 11. One difference between expert and novice
chess players that has been experimentally
demonstrated is
a. experts use their frontal lobes more than novices do
when playing chess.
b. novices are more likely to have an internal locus of
control.
c. experts tend to be high self-monitors.
d. experts recognize and remember familiar patterns
better.
Q# 12. For which of the following pairs would we expect the
highest correlation of IQ scores?
a.
b.
c.
d.
identical twins raised together
identical twins raised separately
fraternal twins raised together
fraternal twins raised separately
Q# 13. Which of the following questions below is NOT a
question of nature vs. nurture?
a. Are boys more aggressive than girls because of higher
testosterone levels, or because of the way they are
raised?
b. Is alcoholism entirely due to social customs, or is it
influenced by certain genes?
c. Do high-IQ parents have high-IQ children because of
the stimulating environment they provide, or because of
the genes they pass on to their children?
d. Do phobias develop through classical conditioning, or
through observing models react to the feared stimulus?
Q# 14. A placebo would be most likely to be used in an
experiment examining
a. the role of social pressure in obedience to authority.
b. schedules of reinforcement.
c. the various theories of color vision.
d. the effectiveness of a new drug treatment for
schizophrenia.
Q# 15. It has been reported that people who use marijuana
are more likely than other people are to commit crimes. Why
is this NOT evidence that marijuana use leads to crime?
a. It is probably a reflection of the Clever Hans effect.
b. It states a negative correlation.
c. It confuses correlation with causation.
d. The results probably depend on demand
characteristics.
Q# 16. Which theory states that a child grows up to be an
honest person because his or her parents set an example of
this virtue?
a.
b.
c.
d.
Freud's theory of the unconscious
social-learning theory
cognitive dissonance theory
James-Lange theory
Q# 17. If you want to improve your memorization of a list of
words, you should avoid
a. attaching distinctive retrieval cues to each word on the
list.
b. memorizing similar materials afterward.
c. thinking about the meaning of each word on the list.
d. long delays between one study session and the next.
Q# 18. The EEG can be used for what purpose?
a. to measure the intelligence of people who do not
speak English
b. to distinguish among stages of sleep
c. to compare an individual's personality to group norms
d. to test a person's ability at pitch perception
Q# 19. Which of the following would be an example of
intrinsic motivation?
a. a rat pressing a bar for a food reward
b. a child playing nicely to avoid punishment
c. an artist painting because she enjoys painting
d. a subject in Milgram's experiment delivering shocks to
please the experimenter
Q# 20. What is the connection between obesity and
genetics?
a. We know that there is a genetic component to obesity,
although social and cultural factors are also important.
b. Social and cultural factors account for obesity; there is
no genetic influence.
c. Obesity has been traced to a gene on the X
chromosome.
d. Obesity has been traced to a gene that controls the
sense of smell.
Q# 21. Which of the following statements offers the best
advice for motivating productive behavior?
a. Set your goals so high they can never be reached ; that
way you will never stop trying.
b. "I will do my best" is the most effective goal in almost
all situations.
c. Set your goals to be high but realistic, and then commit
to your goals publicly.
d. Avoid setting goals to avoid the possibility of negative
feedback.
Q# 22. The impressions we form of other people are like
memory, in that both social impressions and memory
a. emphasize the first information we learn and any
unusual information.
b. become stronger and stronger as time passes.
c. depend on the actor-observer effect.
d. are like tape recorders that can replay the original
information.
Q# 23. According to some psychologists, people with
schizophrenia tend to be ambivalent--that is, they hold
contradictory beliefs without distress. If that is correct, we
would expect that schizophrenic people would be less
influenced than most other people are by
a.
b.
c.
d.
regression to the mean.
the opponent-process principle in emotions.
cognitive dissonance.
optical illusions.
Q# 24. In Milgram's experiment on obedience to authority,
he started by asking one person to deliver a mild shock to
another person and then gradually worked up to more
intense shocks. This procedure resembles
a.
b.
c.
d.
Jung's principle of the collective unconscious.
Freud's principle of catharsis.
the Gestalt principle of proximity.
Skinner's principle of shaping.