Psych Final Exam

Expert pool players were observed to make 71 percent of their shots when alone. When four people watched them, they made 80 percent of their shots. This best illustrates

social facilitation.

A hypothesis is a(n)

testable prediction that gives direction to research.

The tendency for observers to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal dispositions on another's behavior is called

the fundamental attribution error.

The distinctive feature of the psychodynamic perspective is its emphasis on

unconscious conflicts.

Which perspective would focus on the extent to which different styles of parenting are encouraged among various ethnic communities?

social-cultural

Solomon Asch reported that individuals conformed to a group's judgment of the lengths of lines

even when the group judgment was clearly incorrect.

Vince, an extraverted university freshman, has just moved into a dormitory. Vince is most likely to become friends with

Bill, his assigned roommate who is majoring in computer science.

A research method in which an investigator manipulates factors that potentially produce a particular behavior is called a(n)

experiment.

Attribution theory was designed to account for

. how people explain others' behavior.

Which perspective most clearly focuses on how we learn observable responses?

behavioral

The tendency for people to exert less effort when they are pooling their efforts toward a common goal is known as

social loafing

Participants in the Milgram obedience studies were ordered to

deliver electric shocks to a learner for giving incorrect answers.

Both the researchers and the participants in a memory study are ignorant about which participants have actually received a potentially memory-enhancing drug and which have received a placebo. This investigation involves the use of

the double-blind procedure.

Psychologists who carefully watch the behavior of chimpanzee societies in the jungle are using a research method known as

naturalistic observation.

A clinical psychologist who explains behavior in terms of unconscious drives and conflicts is employing a(n) ________ perspective.

psychodynamic

Which branch of psychology is most directly concerned with the study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another?

social psychology

Which perspective is most directly concerned with how the physical properties of the brain influence behaviors and mental states?

biological

Which of the following is true for those assigned to the experimental group in an experiment?

The experimental group receives the experimental treatment

People are less likely to give aid if an emergency occurs in the presence of many observers. This is known as

the bystander effect.

The relief of pain following the ingestion of an inert substance that is presumed to have medicinal benefits illustrates

the placebo effect.

Most children believe their school is better than the other schools in town. This best illustrates

ingroup bias.

A specification of how a researcher measures a research variable is known as a(n)

operational definition.

The ingroup is the set of people with whom we share a common

. identity.

In order to learn about the political attitudes of all students enrolled at Arizona State University, Professor Marlow randomly selected 800 of these students to complete a questionnaire. In this instance, all the students enrolled at Arizona State University are considered to be a(n)

population.

A researcher interested in investigating the attitudes or opinions of a large sample of people is most likely to use which research method?

survey

Which of the following researchers used the case study method, carefully observing one exceptional individual in depth to reach conclusions that might be true of all of us?

Jean Piaget

Which theory best explains why our actions can lead us to modify our attitudes?

cognitive dissonance theory

If the political conservatism of students who join fraternities and sororities is greater than that of students who do not, the gap in the political attitudes of the two groups will probably widen as they progress through college. This would be best explained in terms of

group polarization.

Philip Zimbardo devised a simulated prison and randomly assigned college students to serve as prisoners or guards. This study best illustrated the impact of

role-playing on attitudes.

Conformity is best described as

adjusting one's behavior or thinking toward a group standard.

Feelings, often based on our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in particular ways to objects, people, and events are called

attitudes

The mere exposure effect most directly contributes to the positive relationship between ________ and liking.

\

proximity

An unjustifiable and usually negative attitude toward a group and its members is called

prejudice

Overgeneralized beliefs about a group of people that often underlie prejudicial emotions are called

stereotypes

Stanley Milgram designed his influential studies on obedience in response to thinking about the Holocaust. In their defense, Nazi war criminals said they had committed such atrocities against the Jews and others because they were “just following orders.” Milgram's motivation to study obedience to authority illustrates that

psychology is not value free; it affects what psychologists study.

To determine whether the strength of people's self-esteem is related to their income levels, researchers would most likely make use of

correlational research.

Group polarization refers to

the enhancement of a group's prevailing attitudes through group discussion.

Social facilitation refers to the tendency to

perform well-learned tasks more effectively in the presence of others.

Mrs. Pinheiro fell on a busy city sidewalk and broke her leg. Although hundreds of pedestrians saw her lying on the ground, most failed to recognize that she was in need of medical assistance. Their oversight best illustrates one of the dynamics involved in

the bystander effect.

Replication involves

repeating an earlier research study.

The biological perspective in psychology would be most likely to emphasize that behavior is influenced by

blood chemistry.

The behavioral perspective is most likely to emphasize the importance of

observable responses.

Deindividuation refers to

a loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.

The cognitive perspective in psychology focuses on how

people encode, process, store, and retrieve information.

Solomon Asch asked people to identify which of three comparison lines was identical to a standard line. His research was designed to study

conformity

The process of retrieval refers to

getting information out of memory storage.

Your ability to experience physical sensations is most likely to be disrupted by damage to your

thalamus

José has just played a long, bruising football game but feels little fatigue or discomfort. His lack of pain is most likely caused by the release of

endorphins

Split-brain patients have had their ________ surgically cut.

corpus callosum

Our immediate short-term memory for new material is limited to roughly ________ bits of information.

7

For you to be able to run, ________ must relay messages from your central nervous system to your leg muscles.

motor neurons

To demonstrate that brain stimulation can make a rat violently aggressive, a neuroscientist should electrically stimulate the rat's

amygdala

Fill-in-the-blank test questions measure ________; matching concepts with their definitions measures ________.

recall; recognition

Repeating someone's name several times shortly after being introduced to that person is an effective strategy for

rehearsal

At your first day of work the manager introduces your coworkers, one at a time. As you meet each person, you repeat all the names, starting at the beginning. By the time you meet the last person, you can better recall the names at the beginning and the last names you heard. Which of the following best explains your experience?

serial position effect

The somatic nervous system is a component of the ________ nervous system.

peripheral

While you are hiking in the mountains, a rattlesnake slithers across your trail. Which of the following triggers the “fight-or-flight” response, increasing your heart rate and blood pressure, as you run away?

sympathetic nervous system

When Stoyka was a child, a brain disease required the surgical removal of her left cerebral hemisphere. Stoyka is now a successful high school student who lives a normal life. Her success best illustrates the importance of

plasticity

Proactive interference refers to the

disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information.

Which of the following is the component of the limbic system that plays an essential role in the processing of new memories?

hippocampusThis

Which type of memory has an essentially unlimited capacity?

long-term memory

Most Americans still have accurate flashbulb memories of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. This best illustrates that memory formation is facilitated by

the body's release of stress hormones.

In 1848, Phineas Gage, a railroad construction foreman, survived when an explosion drove an iron rod through his head. The once friendly, soft-spoken Gage became irritable and dishonest. Gage's case provided evidence that which region of the brain plays a role in personality and behavior?

frontal lobes

Psychologist Michael Gazzaniga asked split-brain patients to stare at a dot as he flashed HE·ART on a screen. HE appeared in the left visual field, ART in the right. When asked, patients said they saw

ART

To identify which specific brain areas are most active during a particular mental task, researchers would be most likely to make use of a(n)

fMRI

Which brain area is primarily involved with controlling speech?

Broca's area

Chunking refers to

the organization of information into meaningful units.

When an eyewitness to an auto accident is asked to describe what happened, which test of memory is being used?

recall

The process of getting information into memory is called

encoding

After reading a newspaper report suggesting that drunken driving might have contributed to a recent auto accident, several people who actually witnessed the accident began to remember the driver involved as traveling more recklessly than was actually the case. This provides an example of

constructive memory

Exceptionally clear memories of emotionally significant events are called

flashbulb memories.

The benefits of brain plasticity are most clearly demonstrated in

children who have had a cerebral hemisphere surgically removed.

Endocrine glands secrete hormones directly into

the bloodstream.

Damage to the left cerebral hemisphere is most likely to reduce people's ability to

speak fluently.

“The magical number seven, plus or minus two” refers to the storage capacity of ________ memory.

short-term

Although Mr. Yanagita has recently learned to play poker quite well, he cannot consciously remember ever having played poker. It is likely that he has suffered damage to his

hippocampus

The surgical removal of a large tumor from Dane's occipital lobe resulted in extensive loss of brain tissue. Dane is most likely to suffer some loss of

visual perception.

Which of the following best describes explicit memories?

include memory for general knowledge

When Mr. Valdez thought his 1-year-old daughter had fallen down the stairs, his heartbeat accelerated, his blood pressure rose, and he began to perspire heavily. Mr. Valdez's state of arousal was activated by his ________ nervous system.

sympathetic

Shortly after hearing a list of items, people tend to recall the last items in the list especially quickly and accurately. This best illustrates

a recency effect.

*Memory* is best defined as

the persistence of learning through the storage and retrieval of information.

A brief electrical charge that travels down the axon of a neuron is called the

action potential.

An area at the rear of the frontal lobes that controls voluntary movements is called the

motor cortex.

Which endocrine gland regulates body growth?

pituitary

In transmitting sensory information to the brain, an electrical signal travels from the ________ of a single neuron.

dendrites to the cell body to the axon

In creating more effective treatments for pain, researchers would use which of the following techniques for identifying regions of the brain that handle pain?

functional MRI (fMRI)

Which brain structure receives information from all the senses except smell?

thalamus

Which of the following psychoactive drugs is most likely to impair people's ability to sleep?

caffeine

Josef, a high school student, tells his therapist that he has had a recurring dream in which he hunts and kills a ferocious tiger. The therapist explains that the dream reflects Josef's unresolved feelings of hostility toward his father. According to Freud, the therapist is revealing the possible ________ content of Josef's dream.

latent

Morphine and heroin are

opiates.

Circadian rhythm refers to

a pattern of biological functioning that occurs on a roughly 24-hour cycle.

The local fire department sounds the 12 o'clock whistle. The process by which your ears convert the sound waves from the siren into neural impulses is an example of

transduction.

If Marty doesn't drink caffeinated sodas daily, he experiences severe headaches. Marty is most clearly showing signs of

physical dependence.

A perceptual set is a

mental predisposition that influences what we perceive.

When most people stare at a red square and then shift their eyes to a white surface, the afterimage of the square is

green

Sleep apnea is a disorder involving

\

. the cessation of breathing during sleep.

Drugs such as alcohol and opiates that calm neural activity and slow body functions are called

depressants

The adjustable opening in the center of the eye is the

pupil.

Consciousness is

our awareness of ourselves and our environment.

After watching a scary television movie, Julie perceived the noise of the wind rattling her front windows as the sound of a burglar breaking into her house. Her mistaken interpretation best illustrates the influence of

perceptual set.