Chapter 1–3: History, Research Strategies, and Statistical Reasoning in Psychology (14th Edition)

A comprehensive set of practice questions and answers covering the key concepts from Chapter 1 modules 1–3 of Myers et al. Psychology (14th edition).

How is psychology described as a science?

A science driven by a passion to explore and understand, using a scientific attitude—skepticism, humility, and openness to new perspectives—to separate fact from fiction.

What is critical thinking in psychology?

The use of a scientific attitude: curiosity, skepticism, humility; examining assumptions, evaluating evidence, and assessing conclusions to check biases.

What are psychology's three main levels of analysis?

Biological, psychological, and social-cultural.

What is the biopsychosocial approach?

An integrated framework that combines biological, psychological, and social-cultural levels of analysis.

Why is no single level of analysis sufficient on its own?

Each level provides a perspective but is incomplete; together they form a fuller picture.

Name the major theoretical perspectives in psychology.

Neuroscience, Evolutionary, Behavior genetics, Psychodynamic, Behavioral, Cognitive, Social-cultural.

What does the neuroscience perspective focus on?

How the body and brain enable emotions, memories, and sensory experiences.

What does the evolutionary perspective focus on?

How natural selection has promoted the survival of genes and behavior tendencies.

What does the behavior genetics perspective focus on?

How our genes and environment influence our individual differences.

What does the psychodynamic perspective focus on?

How behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts.

What does the behavioral perspective focus on?

How we learn observable responses.

What does the cognitive perspective focus on?

How we encode, process, store, and retrieve information.

What does the social-cultural perspective focus on?

How behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures.

What is a theory?

An explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events.

What is a hypothesis?

Testable prediction, often implied by a theory.

What is an operational definition?

Carefully worded statement of the exact procedures used in a research study.

What is replication in research?

Repeating the essence of a study, usually with different participants in different situations, to discern whether the basic finding extends.

What is preregistration?

Publicly communicating planned study design, hypotheses, data collection, and analyses.

What is a case study?

Examines one individual in depth; provides fruitful ideas but cannot be used to generalize conclusions.

What is naturalistic observation?

Records behavior in its natural environment; describes but does not explain behavior.

What is a survey and interview?

Examine many cases in less depth; rely on sampling and questioning; wording effects can influence responses.

What are wording effects in surveys?

Differences in responses caused by the wording or framing of questions (e.g., 'aid to the needy' vs 'welfare').

What is random sampling?

Using random sampling of the population to obtain representative results.

What is a positive correlation?

A direct relationship in which both variables increase together or decrease together.

What is a negative correlation?

An inverse relationship where one variable increases as the other decreases.

What is a correlation coefficient?

A statistic ranging from -1.00 to +1.00 that indicates the direction and strength of a relationship.

What is a scatterplot used for in correlation analysis?

Visualizes the relationship between two variables and patterns of correlation.

What does correlation tell us about causation?

Correlation does not imply causation; it shows relationships but not cause-and-effect.

What is experimental manipulation in psychology experiments?

Deliberately changing one or more factors (the independent variable) to observe effects while holding other factors constant.

What are the experimental group and control group?

Two groups in an experiment; participants are randomly assigned to receive treatment (experimental) or not (control).

What is the purpose of random assignment?

To minimize preexisting differences between groups and improve internal validity.

What is the placebo effect?

Improvements that occur due to participants’ expectations rather than the treatment itself.

What is a double-blind procedure?

A research design in which neither participants nor researchers know which group is receiving treatment to prevent bias.

What are independent, dependent, and confounding variables?

Independent variable: manipulated factor; Dependent variable: measured outcome; Confounding variable: uncontrolled factor that could affect results.

What is descriptive research?

To observe and record behavior without manipulating variables; uses case studies, naturalistic observation, or surveys.

What is correlational research?

To detect natural relationships and assess how well one variable predicts another; cannot establish causation.

What is experimental research?

To establish cause-and-effect by manipulating the independent variable and using random assignment.

What are the weaknesses of descriptive, correlational, and experimental methods?

Descriptive: no variable control; correlational: cannot infer causation; experimental: feasibility, generalizability, and ethical limits.

What is the normal distribution (bell curve)?

A bell-shaped distribution for many psychological measures; the mean is often the central value (e.g., 100 on WAIS).

What average score does the WAIS typically report for the mean?

100.

What is a skewed distribution?

A distribution that is not symmetrical, with a longer tail on one side.

What are the measures of central tendency?

Mode: most frequent score; Mean: arithmetic average; Median: middle score.

What is the mean, and why can it be distorted?

Mean is the arithmetic average; it can be distorted by extreme scores.

What is the importance of statistical principles in inferring population differences?

Representative samples, larger samples, more estimates, and avoiding generalizations from few unrepresentative cases.

Why is protecting research participants important?

Honesty and replication are crucial; fake science can cause harm, as with vaccine misinformation; replication helps protect and inform.

What does the SQ3R study method stand for?

Survey, Question, Read, Retrieve, Review.

What is the purpose of preregistration in research?

To publicly declare planned study design, hypotheses, data collection, and analyses before collecting data.