Exam 1 - Intro to Psych - Dr. Ybarra

In a dataset, the most frequently occurring score is 82. Which measure of central tendency is being described?

A. Mean

B. Median

C. Mode

D. Standard deviation

C. Mode

Concepts to study: Measures of central tendency

A psychologist notices that a news article makes a strong claim about the effects of social media. Before accepting the claim, she asks, "What evidence actually supports this conclusion?" Which critical-thinking strategy is she using?

A. Identifying the reputation of the researcher

B. Examining the available evidence

C. Assuming the claim is accurate

D. Rejecting the claim because it is controversial

B. Examining the available evidence

Concepts to study: Understanding research in psychology

A psychologist uses information from previous studies to anticipate which students are most likely to drop out of college next year. Which goal of psychology is being emphasized?

A. Describing behavior

B. Predicting behavior

C. Influencing behavior

D. Encoding behavior

B. Predicting behavior

Concepts to study: Conducting research in psychology

A researcher wants to know whether the results of a study conducted with 100 university students can reasonably be applied to college students across the country. Which concept is most relevant?

A. Reliability

B. Statistical significance

C. Generalizability

D. Standard deviation

C. Generalizability

Concepts to study: Interpreting research in psychology

A student memorizes the definition of "neural plasticity" by repeatedly saying the definition aloud several times. Which memory strategy is the student primarily using?

A. Recognition

B. Rehearsal

C. Retrieval cueing

D. Generalization

B. Rehearsal

Concepts to study: Memory strategies

A professor asks students to remember a nine-digit phone number. One student remembers it more easily after dividing it into three groups of three digits. This strategy illustrates:

A. Chunking

B. Recognition

C. Flashbulb memory

D. Retroactive interference

A. Chunking

Concepts to study: Memory strategies

Which situation represents a retrieval problem rather than an encoding problem?

A. A student never pays attention when the professor explains a concept

B. A student is distracted while reading a textbook and never processes the information

C. A student studied a concept carefully but temporarily cannot remember it during an exam

D. A student never saw the information in the first place

C. A student studied a concept carefully but temporarily cannot remember it during an exam

Concepts to study: Components of memory

A person learned Spanish in high school and later begins learning Italian. The Italian vocabulary makes it increasingly difficult to remember some of the Spanish vocabulary. This is an example of:

A. Proactive interference

B. Encoding failure

C. Memory decay

D. Retroactive interference

D. Retroactive interference

Concepts to study: Types of forgetting, issues with memory

A professor creates a test intended to measure students' knowledge of statistics. The test produces very similar scores each time students take it, but the scores do not actually reflect how well students understand statistics. Which statement best describes the test?

A. It has high validity but low reliability

B. It has high reliability but low validity

C. It has high generalizability but low reliability

D. It has high statistical significance but low validity

B. It has high reliability but low validity

Concepts to study: Interpreting research in psychology

A person remembers information from an old class particularly well when sitting in the same classroom where they originally learned it. Which type of memory is this most consistent with?

A. State-dependent memory

B. Context-dependent memory

C. Procedural memory

D. Flashbulb memory

B. Context-dependent memory

Concepts to study: Types of memory

Which example best represents semantic memory?

A. Remembering your tenth birthday party

B. Knowing that neurons communicate with one another

C. Remembering how to ride a skateboard

D. Remembering what you ate yesterday

B. Knowing that neurons communicate with one another

Concepts to study: Types of memory

A student hears a list of words. When asked to recall the list, the student remembers the final few words especially well. This is the:

A. Primacy effect

B. Tip-of-the-tongue effect

C. Misinformation effect

D. Recency effect

D. Recency effect

Concepts to study: Influences on memory

A witness remembers an event differently after hearing another witness repeatedly describe details that were not actually present. Which phenomenon does this demonstrate?

A. Misinformation effect

B. Memory decay

C. Procedural memory

D. State-dependent memory

A. Misinformation effect

Concepts to study: Influences on memory, issues with memory

A researcher finds that people who exercise more tend to report greater alertness. Which additional finding would be necessary before concluding that exercise causes increased alertness?

A. A correlation between exercise and alertness

B. A statistically significant relationship alone

C. An experimental manipulation of time spent exercising

D. A larger sample without manipulating any variables

C. An experimental manipulation of time spent exercising

Concepts to study: Conducting research in psychology, types of psychological research

In a medication study, neither the participants nor the researchers interacting with them know who received the actual medication. What problem is this procedure primarily designed to reduce?

A. Memory decay

B. Generalizability

C. Neural plasticity

D. Expectancy effects

D. Expectancy effects

Concepts to study: Research in psychology

A psychologist spends six months conducting an extremely detailed examination of one individual who has a rare neurological condition. Which research method is most consistent with this approach?

A. Survey

B. Experiment

C. Case study

D. Random assignment

C. Case study

Concepts to study: Types of research studies

A person's muscles contract when they intentionally move their arm, while their heart continues beating without conscious control. Which pairing correctly identifies the systems primarily involved in these particular instances?

A. Somatic; autonomic

B. Autonomic; somatic

C. Sympathetic; somatic

D. Parasympathetic; sympathetic

A. Somatic; autonomic

Concepts to study: Biology and components of the nervous system

A patient can see objects clearly but has difficulty processing visual information after a brain injury. Which lobe would be the most relevant area to investigate?

A. Occipital

B. Parietal

C. Temporal

D. Frontal

A. Occipital

Concepts to study: Parts of the brain (lobes and structures) and their functions

Multiple Sclerosis involves breakdown of the _______?

A. Axon

B. Myelin sheath

C. Dendrites

D. Soma

B. Myelin sheath

Concepts to study: Parts of a neuron and their functions

If your ________ is activated, you will feel relatively at ease.

A. Somatic nervous system

B. Sympathetic nervous system

C. Autonomic nervous system

D. Parasympathetic nervous system

D. Parasympathetic nervous system

Concepts to study: Components of the nervous system

A researcher reports that students' exam scores ranged from 55 to 95. Which statistic describes the difference between the highest and lowest scores?

A. Mode

B. Range

C. Standard deviation

D. Correlation coefficient

B. Range

Concepts to study: Measures of central tendency

A psychologist proposes a broad explanation that organizes numerous observations about how personality develops. She then develops specific predictions that can be tested based on that explanation. Which pairing is correct?

A. Theory; hypothesis

B. Hypothesis; theory

C. Operational definition; theory

D. Correlation; hypothesis

A. Theory; hypothesis

Concepts to study: Research in psychology, components of research

A researcher wants to determine exactly how "academic success" will be measured in a study. Which concept refers to specifying the precise way a variable will be measured?

A. Theory

B. Hypothesis

C. Operational definition

D. Correlation

C. Operational definition

Concepts to study: Research in psychology, components of research

A researcher notices that people who own more books also tend to report higher levels of education. The researcher concludes that owning books causes people to become more educated. What is the primary problem with this conclusion?

A. Correlation does not establish causation

B. Correlations cannot be positive

C. Education cannot be measured

D. A relationship cannot exist between two variables

A. Correlation does not establish causation

Concepts to study: Understanding research in psychology

A researcher finds that two variables are related, but the relationship is relatively weak. Which correlation coefficient could represent this finding?

A. +1.20

B. +0.99

C. −0.98

D. +0.12

BONUS: One of the above answer options provided a correlation coefficient that is NOT possible, which one is it?

D. +0.12

Bonus: A. +1.20

Concepts to study: Research in psychology, correlation coefficient