Practice GRE Psychology Subject Test

A researcher was interested in whether or not jazz vocals and opera influence men's and women's emotional states. She hypothesized that these types of music influence men and women differently. In a study investigating this hypothesis, 40 men and 40 women heard a jazz piece, and 40 men and 40 women heard an operatic piece. The jazz piece was sung by a man, and the operatic piece was sung by a woman. Afterward, participants rated themselves on an inventory measuring emotional state. Higher scores on the inventory indicate positive mood.

Jazz

Men - 6

Women - 3

Opera

Men - 3

Women - 6

The researcher concludes from her study that jazz music positively changes men's moods and operatic music positively changes women's moods. Which of the following invalidates that conclusion?

Men's and women's moods were not measured before exposure to the two types of music

A researcher was interested in whether or not jazz vocals and opera influence men's and women's emotional states. She hypothesized that these types of music influence men and women differently. In a study investigating this hypothesis, 40 men and 40 women heard a jazz piece, and 40 men and 40 women heard an operatic piece. The jazz piece was sung by a man, and the operatic piece was sung by a woman. Afterward, participants rated themselves on an inventory measuring emotional state. Higher scores on the inventory indicate positive mood.

Jazz

Men - 6

Women - 3

Opera

Men - 3

Women - 6

Which of the following is the most serious problem with the methodology of this research?

The singers were not the same gender

The preference for a loosly knit social framework in which individuals are responsible only for the care of their children and themselves is known as

Individualism

Cognitive

Over many trials a puff of air aimed at JoAnne's ere is paired with a loud noise and a subtle smell. Afterward, it is very likely that JoAnne's conditioned eye blink will be under the control of the loud noise and not the subtle smell. This phenomenon is an example of

Overshadowing

Clinical

The idea that people cope with stress by moving toward people, away from people, or against people is most consistent with the views of

Karen Horney

Cognitive Psychology: Language; Speech Perception and Processing

Which of the following is the best example of the categorical perception of human speech?

When a sound is presented that is intermediate between the phonemes /b/ and /p/, listeners report that they heard either a distinct /b/ or a distinct /p/.

Developmental

Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess described three categories of infants: easy, difficult, and slow to warm up. These are categories of

Temperament

The ability of a postsynaptic neuron to respond to the presence of a particular neurotransmitter that is released from a neighboring presynaptic neuron is dependent on which of the following conditions?

The presence of receptors on the postsynaptic neuron that have an affinity for that particular neurotransitter

Critics have argued that projective tests are too

Subjective

Organizing the string of letters B-F-J-T-A-V-K-C into JFK-TV-CAB is an example of

Chunking

When persuasive communications follow the peripheral route, they focus on which of the following?

Emotions

Consider the sentence "The dishwasher is running." Which of the following is true?

It can have more than one deep structure.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), children with separation anxiety disorder often experience which of the following symptoms in addition to excessive fear or anxiety over separation from attachment figures?

Persistent desire to develop relationships with adults other than those who serve as major attachment figures

Patients with bilateral damage to the hippocampal formation are tested on motor learning tasks such as the Tower of Hanoi. Studies show that the patients improve their performance with repeated exposures. When asked whether they have ever seen the task, even after numerous test sessions with it, they typically report not having seen it before. Such results have led to which of the following conclusions?

Although procedural memory may not rely on normal hippocampal functioning, declarative memory does.

Which of the following is chemically similar to opiates, has the ability to reduce pain, and is blocked by the action of naloxone?

Endorphin

When stress is prolonged, the most likely result is

Generalized weakening of the immune system

The bradykinesia, cogwheel rigidity, and tremors that characterize Parkinson's disease are a result of the degeneration of dopaminergic cells in the

Substantia nigra

Which of the following best characterizes an infant's object concept at six months of age?

The infant understands objects to be solid bounded entities that take up space and move on continuous paths

A 40-item vocabulary test was administered to a group of students. A second, similar test of vocabulary terms was administered to this same group of students approximately one week later. The researcher reported that the correlation between these two tests was r=.90. What type of reliability is represented in this example?

Inter-rater

A researcher was interested in whether or not jazz vocals and opera influence men's and women's emotional states. She hypothesized that these types of music influence men and women differently. In a study investigating this hypothesis, 40 men and 40 women heard a jazz piece, and 40 men and 40 women heard an operatic piece. The jazz piece was sung by a man, and the operatic piece was sung by a woman. Afterward, participants rated themselves on an inventory measuring emotional state. Higher scores on the inventory indicate positive mood.

Jazz

Men - 6

Women - 3

Opera

Men - 3

Women - 6

Which of the following describes the pattern of findings displayed in the graph?

Men who heard the jazz piece and women who heard the operatic piece scored higher on the mood inventory than those in the other two groups

Developmental

Which of the following types of cognitive abilities is the LEAST likely to show a decline in late life?

Semantic memory

Measurement, Methodology, and Other: General; History

Charles Scott Sherrington proposed that rapid stimulation of a specific synapse is likely to produce a cumulative effect in the postsynaptic cell because of

temporal summation

Clinical

Which of the following is an atypical developmental pattern characterized by stereotyped motor responses and poor communication skills?

Autism spectrum disorder

Social

The sharing of information about oneself is referred to as

Self-disclosure

Developmental

Research on children's social behavior shows that relative to young adolescent boys, young adolescent girls exhibit more of which type of aggression?

Relational

Developmental

"I runned to the car" is an example of

Overregularization

Biological

The visual pathway that tells us what we are looking at is called the

Ventral stream

Measurement, Methology, and Other

Which theorist revised Sigmund Freud's stages of development, replacing Freud's psychosexual stages with psychosocial stages?

Erik Erikson

Social Psychology

Using a pendulum apparatus, a participant attempts to derive the physical laws that determine the rate at which a pendulum swings. The participant's approach to solving this problem is to hold a relevant factor (X) constant and to vary a second relevant factor (Y), and then to reverse this procedure by holding Y constant and varying X. According to Jean Piaget, the participant's level of cognitive functioning is most likely

Formal operational

Developmental

A child has just developed the ability to lie with the intention of deceiving another person. This new ability is probably based most directly on a change in the child's

Knowledge about mental representations

Measurement, Methodology, and Other

The standard deviation of a sample of test scores is a measure of the

Variability of individual scores

Biological

Rapid eye movements are most closely associated with which of the following?

Dreaming

An investigator interested in the development of children's attitudes toward the police assessed and compared the attitudes of 250 eight year olds, 240 twelve year olds, and 245 sixteen year olds. She matched the three groups with regard to gender and socioeconomic background. The investigator's research design is best characterized as which of the following?

Cross-sectional

If a psychological disorder has a genetic basis, one would expect to find the highest concordance rate for the illness between which of the following?

Identical twins

According to Sigmund Freud, a child who grabs food from another child because of hunger is driven by

the Id

All of the following statements about psychodynamic theorists are correct:

- Karen Horney stressed the importance of social relationships

- Alfred Adler claimed the childhood feelings of inferiority lead to striving for superiority

- Erik Erikson described conflicts at different stages of development

- Sigmund Freud stressed the interaction of the id, the ego, and the superego

except

Carl Jung identified two components of the unconscious: the preconscious and the formal unconscious

Juanita's classmates enjoy being with her because she is always sociable, easygoing, and lively. On Eysenck's basic personality dimensions, she would be classified as

Extroverted stable

Annette is looking for a psychotherapist whose clinical work is rooted in object relations theory. The best match for Annette would be a therapist who emphasizes

Early life relationships

Sensation and Perception; Attention

An athlete's performance may improve or worsen according to the level of arousal. Under extreme pressure, performance may diminish. This is an example of

The Yerkes-Dodson Law

Developmental Psychology

Research Methodologies

A developmental psychologist is interested in conducting a study on children's gender perceptions. The psychologist recruits children who are either 5 years of age, 8 years of age, or 10 years of age to complete the study. Which of the following best describes the psychologist's research design?

Cross-sectional

Developmental Psychology

Cognitive Development

Piaget's stages of cognitive development (in order) are

Sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational

Learning and Ethology

The term 'vicarious reinforcement' was coined by

Albert Bandura

Sensation and Perception

Perception of Form

Which of the following Gestalt laws refers to perceptual organization as being as "good" as possible?

Pragnanz

Social Psychology

Social Perception

At dinner, Karen's brother spills his drink on the table; Karen concludes this happened because he is clumsy and careless. This is an example of the

Fundamental Attribution Error

Physiological Psychology

Neurotransmitters

Which of the following is the neurotransmitter linked to Alzheimer's disease?

Acetylcholine

Social Psychology

Conformity, Obedience, and Compliance

Which of the following is NOT related to the psychological understanding of conformity, obedience, and compliance?

Batson's electroshock study

Developmental Psychology

Attachment

The "strange situation" was an experiment devised to examine the quality of the parent-child attachment relationship by which researcher?

Margaret Ainsworth

Personality and Abnormal Psychology

Trait/Type Theorists

Which well-known critic of trait theory argued that behavior is largely determined by characteristics of the situation rather than by those of the person?

Walter Mischel

Personality and Abnormal Psychology

Personality Disorders

Which of the following mental disorders is characterized by pervasive instability in interpersonal behavior, mood, and self-image; frequently intense and unstable interpersonal relationships; and, often, an intense fear of abandonment?

Borderline Personality Disorder

Research Design, Statistics, Tests, and Measurements

In a longitudinal study of weight loss, data is collected to assess weight change over time based on two different aerobics regimens: yoga and jogging.Which of the following research designs is best suited for this type of study?

Between-subjects design

Research Design, Statistics, Tests, and Measurements

To assess the validity of an intelligence test that is used to select individuals for admission to a college, a researcher collects the test takes' college grade point averages a year later. This is an example of what type of validity?

Predictive

Personality and Abnormal Psychology

According to Carl Jung, major archetypes include all of the following EXCEPT the

Libido

The founder of operant conditioning is

B.F. Skinner

A group of students enrolled in a psychology course are placed in a room and asked to perform a group communication task. The experiment concludes that the students' increased performance score on the task is partly due to their professor's presence. This is an example of

Hawthorne Effect

The term 'split brain' refers to severing the corpus callosum. This procedure is sometimes used for patients with what disorder?

Epilepsy

The fovea, the middle section of the retina, contains only which type of photoreceptor cell?

Cones

Episodic memory and semantic memory are two types of

Declarative memory

The Zeigarnik effect refers to increased recall memory in which of the following contexts?

Incomplete tasks versus completed tasks

Which of the following is not an important determinant when considering the effects of modeling on learning?

The sex of the model

The period in which a female of the species is sexually receptive is known as

Estrus

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