Exam 1: The Science of Psychology

Random assignment is when each participant is assigned alphabetically to each condition.

The first step in any investigation is:

A psychologist is interested in what a particular person might do in a stressful situation.This psychologist is most interested in the goal of:

Which of the following statements is true about naturalistic observation?

A variable that the experimenter manipulates is called a/an

In the 1800s,Franz Gall popularized a pseudoscience called ________ that claimed to understand a person's personality through the study of the bumps on their skull.

Why was the perspective followed by Wilhelm Wundt and his followers called structuralism?

Critical thinking requires making judgments that are well reasoned and well thought out.

Which topic would NOT be investigated by a psychologist if the definition of psychology were limited to "the science of behaviour"?

______________________ is an experiment in which participants do not know if they are in the experimental or the control group,but the experimenters do know which participants are part of which group.

A researcher is investigating the effects of exercise on weight.What are the independent and dependent variables in this experiment?

A group of subjects randomly selected for study that matches the population on important characteristics such as age and sex is called a/an:

If you are interested in how patterns,beliefs,and customs influence behaviour,you are interested in the __________ perspective.

The magazine Desperate Wives publishes a survey of its female readers called "The Sex Life of the Canadian Wife." It reports that 87 percent of all wives like to make love in rubber boots.The critical flaw in this research would be:

Ken is planning on studying the influence of intelligence on the ability to recall events from the 1960s.If Ken does not account for variables such as age that could also influence one's ability to recall these events,age could be considered a/an:

You are at a hockey game and the arena is packed; the crowd is evenly split between fans of the two teams.At one point,the referee makes a call.Half of the fans yell insults; the other half of the fans shout their approval.The crowd's reaction reminds you of the topic of today's lecture in psychology class.What was the likely topic of the lecture?

The belief that the unconscious mind has an influence on one's behaviour is part of what early field of psychology?

Which of these is the most accurate definition of the discipline of psychology?

In a __________ study,neither the experimenter nor the participants knows who is in the control group and who is in the experimental group.

In a laboratory,smokers are asked to "drive" using a computerized driving simulator equipped with a stick shift and a gas pedal.The object is to maximize the distance covered by driving as fast as possible on a winding road while avoiding rear-end collisions.Some of the participants smoke a real cigarette immediately before climbing into the driver's seat.Others smoke a fake cigarette without nicotine.You are interested in comparing how many collisions the two groups have.In this study,the dependent variable is the: