Psy 200 Ch 1 & 2

What is Psychology?

The scientific study of mind and behavior

Psychology came from the older fields of _____?

philosophy and physiology/biology

Who is the founder of psychology?

Wundt

What is introspection?

Turning attention inward to examine one’s own thoughts (and was studied by structuralists)

Psychoanalytic

Emphasizes the role of the unconscious and
early childhood

Behavioral

focuses on observable behavior

humanistic

looks at how humans can fulfill their whole
potential

cognitive

focuses on thought processes

neuroscience/biological

looks at how biological influences impact
thought and behavior

evolutionary

looks at how behavior and thought processes
may have been adaptive for survival

cultural

looks at how thought and behavior differs
across cultures

What is the clinical bias?

The stereotype that all psychologists are therapists?

Social

looks at how people influence, think about, and
relate to one another

Developmental

studies how people change over the lifespan

Industrial/organizational

applies psychological principles in the
workplace

School

helps students in the school with aptitude tests,
classifying students, etc

Dr. Anderson conducts an experiment to see whether exposure to helpful models leads to helping behavior in young
children. Of the forty girls and boys in his study, half are exposed to helpful models while the other half watch the same
models not engaged in helping behavior. In this experiment, the dependent variable is:
A. the gender of the children.
B. helpful or non-helpful models.
C. the age of the children.
D. helping behavior

D. Helping Behavior 

Which of the following is the best way to generate a random sample of students for a research study?
A. mail out a questionnaire that students could voluntarily complete and return
B. stand by the door of the library and ask people who pass by to answer your questions
C. offer extra credit for students in a particular classroom who choose to participate
D. use a table of random numbers to pick participants from a student listing

D. use a table of random numbers to pick participants from a student listing

A significant disadvantage of the correlational approach is that it:
A. does not provide evidence of cause and effect.
B. cannot be used to examine relationships between variables that exist naturally.
C. does not aid in the process of prediction.
D. does not provide information about how two variables are related.

A. does not provide evidence of cause and effect.

After conducting an experiment, Dr. Fitzpatrick concluded that there was a statistically significant difference between
the scores of the experimental and control groups. In other words,
A. the difference is highly meaningful and important to scientists.
B. the results are replicable.
C. the scores differed by five points or more.
D. it is unlikely that the difference occurred by chance.

D. it is unlikely that the difference occurred by chance.

What is an operational definition?

A description of an abstract property so that it can be manipulated or measured.
E.g. anxiety is measured by assessing hear rate

Repeating a study is known as ________ ?

replication

Aspects of an observational setting that cause people to change their behavior because they know they are being
observed is called ____ ?

demand characteristics

Missy finds a negative correlation between aggression and happiness. This means that
a) as aggression goes up, happiness tends to go up
b) as aggression goes up, happiness tends to go down
c) aggression going up causes happiness to go down
d) aggression and happiness are not related because of a third variable

b) as aggression goes up, happiness tends to go down

A(n) _______ measures two variables

correlation

a(n) ________ manipulates one
variable and looks at its effect on another

Experiment

Ken wants to see how the color of the room impacts memory. He has three groups of people take a memory test. One
group is in a blue room, one is in a green room, and one is in a yellow room.
What is the independent variable?
What is the dependent variable?

Room color IV, Memory DV

Barbie decides to a study looking at the effectiveness of a new drug. Half of her participants get the drug and half get no drug.

Which group is the experimental group?
Which group is the control group?

EG: Got the drug, CG: Got no drug

Why do we use random sampling?

To select participants from the population to be in the study

Why do we use random assignment?

In an experiment to put participants in groups