Exam 1: A --What Is Psychology

Determinism is the assumption that everything that happens has a cause.

Women now receive the majority of psychology Ph.D.s in the United States.

____________________ is credited with being the founder of American psychology.

A psychologist believes that differences between males and females are due to society's expectations about how boys and girls behave. This psychologist takes the ____________________ viewpoint.

William James established the American approach to psychology known as functionalism.

An increased need for sodium salts in the body can be caused by damage to the ____________________.

A program that studies ergonomics (human factors) may be found in either the psychology department or the ____________________ department of some universities.

Individuals who believe that behavior is primarily determined by one's genetic predispositions likely favor nurture in the nature-nurture debate.

A psychologist who specializes in making machines easier for people to use is known as an ergonomist or human-factors psychologist.

A human factors specialist (or ergonomist), attempts to facilitate the operation of machinery so that ordinary people can use it efficiently and safely.

Wundt's set the precedent for studying psychological questions with ____________________.

One of the early research interests of comparative psychologists was to measure and rank order animal intelligence in varying species. Various tasks were developed in the attempt to understand animal intelligence. In your textbook, two specific tasks are presented. Name and describe these two tasks.

____________________ are specialists in the psychological condition of students, usually in kindergarten through the 12th grade.

The type of person that would be most interested in the genetic makeup of an individual, is a ____________________ psychologist.

To be officially recognized as a psychologist, a person must hold the Psy.D. degree.

The nature-nurture issue is the question of the relationship between ____________________ and ____________________.

A counseling psychologist is trying to help her client with vocational issues, specifically whether or not the client should pursue medical school or get a job straight out of college. In trying to determine how her client might behave (prior to intervention), the psychologist will want to assess a number of variables. In terms of the nature/nurture debate, give one example of "nature" influences and one example of "nurture" influences.

The mathematical description of the relationship between the physical properties of a stimulus and its perceived properties is called the ____________________.

The research field of ____________________ and ____________________ studies how behavior depends on the outcomes of past behaviors and current motivations. or

John Watson and other behaviorists were much more interested in studying animal behavior and learning than in studying mental processes.