Exam 1: Introduction to Psychology

A psychologist is conducting an experiment to test the influence that coloured backgrounds of pages in textbooks have on the amount of information retained by students. She has a short text printed in three versions, each with a different colour of background. After students in three separate groups read their assigned text, she tests the students' retention. In this study, the three colours are the

Which of the following best describes the current state of psychology?

Which of the following variables is presumed to vary as a result of the researcher's manipulation of another factor or condition?

The biological perspective suggests that

When researchers can specify the conditions under which a behaviour or event is likely to occur, they have accomplished the goal of

What is experimenter bias, and how is it controlled?

How did behaviourism differ from previous schools of psychology?

An understanding of any behaviour or mental process usually begins with

What is the purpose of deception in psychological experiments?

What is selection bias, and what technique do researchers use to control for it?

Jason, a champion marksman, has discovered that the sight on his best competition rifle does not hit the target where he aims it, but that it does always miss by the same distance and in the same direction. Variation in his sight best illustrates

Which of the following is a challenge for gathering accurate information from an interview?

An inert substance, such as a sugar pill, is given to the control group in an experiment as a control for the placebo effect.

Martin rejects the idea that people lack a free will but believes that people are capable of making rational, conscious choices and determining what they will become. Martin strongly endorses the

Which of the following best reflects psychology's goal of prediction?

Professor Jancy did a study in which she explored the relationship between caffeine consumption and the ability to memorize words on a list. The independent variable in her study was

Who knows which subjects are in the experimental and control groups when the double-blind technique is used?

Investigators use animals in psychological research to learn more about humans.

Who is generally thought of as the founder of psychology and what was his contribution to psychology?

The major emphasis of behaviourism is