Kauffman AP Psych
Unit #2: The Science of Psychology - Chapter 1, Chapter 9, and 10.2.3
Chapter 1: Thinking Critically with Psychological Science
1.1 The Need for Psychological Science
 Identify and describe the limits to intuition
o Hindsight bias
o False consensus effect
o Overconfidence effect
o Illusory correlation
o Belief perseverance
o Confirmation bias
o Random events
 Main components of the scientific attitude and research
o Critical thinking
1.2 How do Psychologists Ask and Answer Questions?
 Scientific Method
o Theories
 Characteristics of descriptive research
o Describe and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each of the following:
 Case studies
 Naturalistic observation
 Surveys
 Wording effects / framing
 Experiments
 Characteristics of correlational studies
o Correlation coefficient
o Identify examples of positive and negative correlations (strength and direction)
o Scatterplots
 Describe how scientific experiments are conducted
o Hypothesis
o Operational definition
o Random assignment
o Random sample
o Population
o Distinguish between independent and dependent variables
o Distinguish between experimental and control groups
o Describe and identify confounding variables, single-blind studies, double-blind studies, experimenter
effects, placebo effects, etc
o Replication
1.3 Statistical Reasoning in Everyday Life
 Characteristics of descriptive statistics
o Measures of Central Tendency
 Arithmetic mean
 Mode
 Median
 Skewed distribution
o Measures of Variation
 Range
 Standard deviation
 Normal curve
 Characteristics of inferential statistics
 Statistical significance
 Three principles of when to generalize from a sample
1.4 Frequently Asked Questions about Psychology
 Can laboratory experiments illuminate everyday life?
 Describe the ethical problems that confront researchers, including the use of animals and the use of deception
o Why do psychologists study animals?
o Is it ethical to experiment on people?
 Does behavior depend on one’s culture and gender?
 Is psychology free of value judgments?
Chapter 9: Thinking and Language
9.1 Thinking
 Characteristics of Thinking
o Cognition
o Concepts
o Prototypes
 Characteristics of Solving Problems
o Algorithm
o Heuristics
o Insight
 Obstacles to Solving Problems
o Confirmation Bias
o Fixation
o Mental set
o Functional fixedness
 Making Decisions and Forming Judgments
o Representativeness Heuristic
o Availability Heuristic
o Overconfidence
o Framing
o Belief Bias
o Belief Perseverance
o The fear factor
o The perils and powers of intuition
Chapter 10.2.3: Intelligence Study Guide
 Test Construction
o Standardization
o Normal Curve
 Flynn Effect
o Reliability
o Validity
 Predictive Validity
 Content Validity
Unit 3: Practice Test
1. Which of the following is true, according to the text?
A) Because laboratory experiments are artificial, any principles discovered cannot be applied
to everyday behaviors.
B) No psychological theory can be considered a good one until it produces testable
predictions.
C) Psychology's theories reflect common sense.
D) Psychology has few ties to other disciplines.
2. In generalizing from a sample to the population, it is important that
A) the sample be representative.
B) the sample be nonrandom.
C) the sample not be too large.
D) all of these conditions exist.
3. Psychologists' personal values
A) have little influence on how their experiments are conducted.
B) do not influence the interpretation of experimental results because of the use of statistical
techniques that guard against subjective bias.
C) can bias both scientific observation and interpretation of data.
D) have little influence on investigative methods but a significant effect on interpretation.
4. During a televised political debate, the Republican and Democratic candidates each argued that
the results of a recent public opinion poll supported their party's platform regarding sexual
harassment. Because both candidates saw the information as supporting their belief, it is clear
that both were victims of
A) functional fixedness.
B) mental set.
C) belief perseverance.
D) confirmation bias.
5. Failing to see that an article of clothing can be inflated as a life preserver is an example of
A) belief perseverance.
B) the availability heuristic.
C) the representativeness heuristic.
D) functional fixedness.
6. What is the mode of the following distribution of scores: 2, 2, 4, 4, 4, 14?
A) 2
B) 4
C) 5
D) 6
7. Which of the following best describes the hindsight bias?
A) Events seem more predictable before they have occurred.
B) Events seem more predictable after they have occurred.
C) A person's intuition is usually correct.
D) A person's intuition is usually not correct.
8. Which of the following would be best for determining whether alcohol impairs memory?
A) case study
B) naturalistic observation
C) Survey
D) Experiment
9. Before becoming attorneys, law students must pass a special licensing exam, which is an
________ test. Before entering college, high school students must take the SAT, which is an
________ test.
A) achievement; aptitude
B) aptitude; achievement
C) achievement; achievement
D) aptitude; aptitude
10. Marilyn was asked to solve a series of five math problems. The first four problems could only
be solved by a particular sequence of operations. The fifth problem could also be solved
following this sequence; however, a much simpler solution was possible. Marilyn did not realize
this simpler solution and solved the problem in the way she had solved the first four. Her
problem-solving strategy was hampered by
A) functional fixedness.
B) the overconfidence phenomenon.
C) mental set.
D) her lack of a prototype for the solution.
11. Which of the following research methods does not belong with the others?
A) case study
B) Survey
C) naturalistic observation
D) Experiment
12. The scientific attitude of skepticism is based on the belief that
A) people are rarely candid in revealing their thoughts.
B) mental processes can't be studied objectively.
C) the scientist's intuition about behavior is usually correct.
D) ideas need to be tested against observable evidence.
13. The four families on your block all have annual household incomes of $25,000. If a new family
with an annual income of $75,000 moved in, which measure of central tendency would be most
affected?
A) Mean
B) Median
C) Mode
D) standard deviation
14. A friend majoring in anthropology is critical of psychological research because it often ignores
the influence of culture on thoughts and actions. You point out that
A) there is very little evidence that cultural diversity has a significant effect on specific
behaviors and attitudes.
B) most researchers assign participants to experimental and control conditions in such a way
as to fairly represent the cultural diversity of the population under study.
C) it is impossible for psychologists to control for every possible variable that might influence
research participants.
D) even when specific thoughts and actions vary across cultures, as they often do, the
underlying processes are much the same.
15. When forming a concept, people often develop a best example, or ________, of a category.
A) Denote
B) Heuristic
C) Prototype
D) Algorithm
16. You decide to test your belief that men drink more soft drinks than women by finding out
whether more soft drinks are consumed per day in the men's dorm than in the women's dorm.
Your belief is a(n) ________, and your research prediction is a(n) ________.
A) hypothesis; theory
B) theory; hypothesis
C) independent variable; dependent variable
D) dependent variable; independent variable
17. Which of the following illustrates belief perseverance?
A) Your belief remains intact even in the face of evidence to the contrary.
B) You refuse to listen to arguments counter to your beliefs.
C) You tend to become flustered and angered when your beliefs are refuted.
D) You tend to search for information that supports your beliefs.
18. The bell-shaped distribution of intelligence scores in the general population is called a
A) g distribution.
B) standardization curve.
C) bimodal distribution.
D) normal distribution.
19. Which of the following is the measure of central tendency that would be most affected by a few
extreme scores?
A) Mean
B) Range
C) Median
D) Mode
20. Esteban refuses to be persuaded by an advertiser's claim that people using their brand of
gasoline average 50 miles per gallon. His decision probably is based on
A) the possibility that the average is the mean, which could be artificially inflated by a few
extreme scores.
B) the absence of information about the size of the sample studied.
C) the absence of information about the variation in sample scores.
D) all of these statements.
21. The Flynn effect refers to the fact that
A) White and Black infants score equally well on measures of infant intelligence.
B) Asian students outperform North American students on math achievement tests.
C) the IQ scores of today's better-fed and educated population exceed that of the 1930s
population.
D) individual differences within a race are much greater than between-race differences.
22. Which of the following is the measure of variation that is most affected by extreme scores?
A) Mean
B) standard deviation
C) Mode
D) Range
23. If a difference between two samples is NOT statistically significant, which of the following can
be concluded?
A) The difference is probably not a true one.
B) The difference is probably not reliable.
C) The difference could be due to sampling variation.
D) All of these conclusions can be reached.
24. The concept of control is important in psychological research because
A) without control over independent and dependent variables, researchers cannot describe,
predict, or explain behavior.
B) experimental control allows researchers to study the influence of one or two independent
variables on a dependent variable while holding other potential influences constant.
C) without experimental control, results cannot be generalized from a sample to a population.
D) of all of these reasons.
25. Most people tend to
A) accurately estimate the accuracy of their knowledge and judgments.
B) underestimate the accuracy of their knowledge and judgments.
C) overestimate the accuracy of their knowledge and judgments.
D) lack confidence in their decision-making strategies.
26. In an experiment to determine the effects of exercise on motivation, exercise is the
A) control condition.
B) intervening variable.
C) independent variable.
D) dependent variable.
27. Jack takes the same test of mechanical reasoning on several different days and gets virtually
identical scores. This suggests that the test has
A) high content validity.
B) high reliability.
C) high predictive validity.
D) been standardized.
28. If eating saturated fat and the likelihood of contracting cancer are positively correlated, which of
the following is true?
A) Saturated fat causes cancer.
B) People who are prone to develop cancer prefer foods containing saturated fat.
C) A separate factor links the consumption of saturated fat to cancer.
D) None of these statements are necessarily true.
29. A psychologist studies the play behavior of young children by watching groups during recess at
school. Which type of research is being used?
A) Correlation
B) case study
C) Experimentation
D) naturalistic observation
30. Dr. Salazar recently completed an experiment in which she compared reasoning ability in a
sample of females and a sample of males. The means of the female and male samples equaled
21 and 19, respectively, on a 25-point scale. A statistical test revealed that her results were not
statistically significant. What can Dr. Salazar conclude?
A) Females have superior reasoning ability.
B) The difference in the means of the two samples is probably due to chance variation.
C) The difference in the means of the two samples is reliable.
D) She cannot reach any of these conclusions.
31. At age 16, Angel's intelligence score was 110. What will her score probably be at age 32?
A) 125
B) 110
C) 115
D) There is no basis for predicting an individual's future IQ.
32. The existence of ________ reinforces the generally accepted notion that intelligence is a
multidimensional quality.
A) adaptive skills
B) mental retardation
C) general intelligence
D) savant syndrome
33. Before becoming attorneys, law students must pass a special licensing exam, which is an ________
test. Before entering college, high school students must take the SAT, which is an ________ test.
A) achievement; aptitude
B) aptitude; achievement
C) achievement; achievement
D) aptitude; aptitude
34. If you wanted to develop a test of musical aptitude in North American children, which would be the
appropriate standardization group?
A) children all over the world
B) North American children
C) children of musical parents
D) children with known musical ability
35. Which of the following is NOT a requirement of a good test?
A) Reliability
B) Standardization
C) Reification
D) Validity
36. Benito was born in 1937. In 1947, he scored 130 on an intelligence test. What was Benito's mental age
when he took the test?
A) 9
B) 10
C) 11
D) 13
No #37 or #38
39. You would not use a test of hearing acuity as an intelligence test because it would lack
A) content reliability.
B) predictive reliability.
C) predictive validity.
D) content validity.
40. The bell-shaped distribution of intelligence scores in the general population is called a
A) g distribution.
B) standardization curve.
C) bimodal distribution.
D) normal distribution.
NO #41
42. Most experts view intelligence as a person's
A) ability to perform well on intelligence tests.
B) innate mental capacity.
C) ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and adapt to new situations.
D) diverse skills acquired throughout life.
43. The Flynn effect refers to the fact that
A) White and Black infants score equally well on measures of infant intelligence.
B) Asian students outperform North American students on math achievement tests.
C) the IQ scores of today's better-fed and educated population exceed that of the 1930s population.
D) individual differences within a race are much greater than between-race differences.
44. By creating a label such as “gifted,” we begin to act as if all children are naturally divided into two
categories, gifted and nongifted. This logical error is referred to as
A) rationalization.
B) nominalizing.
C) factor analysis.
D) reification.
45. Originally, IQ was defined as
A) mental age divided by chronological age and multiplied by 100.
B) chronological age divided by mental age and multiplied by 100.
C) mental age subtracted from chronological age and multiplied by 100.
D) chronological age subtracted from mental age and multiplied by 100.
Answer Key
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2.
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8.
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45.
B
A
C
D
D
B
B
D
A
C
D
D
A
D
C
B
A
D
A
D
C
D
D
B
C
C
B
D
D
B
B
D
A
B
C
D
No #37 or #38
D
D
No #41
C
C
D
A