Exam 1: Introduction to Psychology

A psychologist is studying the effects of fatigue on competition. She has subjects skip one, two, or three nights of sleep and then play a competitive game, noting the number of points scored by subjects in the three different conditions. In this example, the dependent variable is

The survey is most useful when we wish to learn about

What was the primary technique that the structuralists used to study consciousness?

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

The school of thought in psychology known as functionalism was aimed at analyzing the basic elements of conscious mental experience.

While of the following statements would most likely be endorsed by a humanistic psychologist?

For the Gestaltists, the phi phenomenon proved

Which of the following statements is not true of naturalistic observation?

Having read about experimental research and survey research in this chapter, how will it affect the way you evaluate research studies in articles you read or in reports you hear in the future?

A researcher conducting a study testing the effects of caffeine on attention is concerned about experimenter bias. The way for her to reduce this problem would be to

Research results can be influenced if a researcher unconsciously behaves differently toward subjects in the various groups based on his or her preconceived notions. This is called

The major emphasis of functionalism was

How did behaviourism differ from previous schools of psychology?

Because behaviourism was focused on observable and measurable behaviour, those who embraced the approach did not accept the introspective methods of the other schools.

When the new drug was tested, both the researcher and the patients knew who was getting the new drug and who was getting a sugar pill that looked like the drug. If possible, this researcher should have used

A correlation coefficient of -.97 suggests a very weak relationship between the two variables under study.

The major emphasis of psychoanalysis is

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 methods has the advantage of allowing the investigator to collect large amounts of information about the attitudes, beliefs, experiences or behaviours of large groups of people?

An understanding of any behaviour or mental process usually begins with