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

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

In order to test the effect of praise on learning, a group of students receive verbal encouragement every time they do something correct. At the end of the semester, their grades are recorded and analyzed. What is missing from the above design?

Wilhelm Wundt's research focused on

Structuralism focused on the study of ________; behaviourism focused on the study of ________.

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

The systematic variation of some factor believed to affect behaviour is an essential characteristic of which of the following methods?

The cognitive perspective emphasizes the role of ________ that underlie behaviour.

According to the text, which of the following is not a goal of basic research?

The major emphasis of psychoanalysis is

Random assignment is used to control for

One advantage of collecting survey responses over the internet is:

What are the methods and purposes of survey research?

Subjects selected for a survey from a population make up a group referred to as a

What is the emphasis of Gestalt psychology?

Structuralism is to the structure of mental processes as functionalism is to the

What is the advantage of the experimental method over other research methods? Provide an example of a research experiment in which you correctly identify the independent variable(s), the dependent variable(s), the experimental group, and the control group. Provide a brief definition for independent variable and dependent variable.

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

According to the text, psychology is the scientific study of

Validity is the test's ability to measure what it is intended to measure.