Exam 1: The Science of Psychology

Jenna suffers from a nervous tic of washing her hands repeatedly and being unable to resist washing them again and again.Which perspective would explain Jenna's hand-washing behavior as a result of repressed conflicts?

Research in which a carefully selected group of people is asked a set of predetermined questions in interviews or through questionnaires is known as __________.

The tendency to look for information that supports one's own belief is called ___________.

In an experiment on the effects of level of motivation on the performance of typists,the researcher randomly assigned one third of her subjects to each of three levels of motivation (and then induced different levels of motivation in the three groups).She measured the average words typed per minute by each group,and found that performance was highest under medium motivation,average under low motivation,and worst under high motivation.What was the independent variable in this experiment?

As children grow older,their discretionary income usually increases.The best conclusion to draw about the variables age and income are that they are:

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

______________ is an experiment in which neither the participants nor the individuals running the experiment know if participants are in the experimental or the control group until after the results are tallied.

The editors of Scientific American are able to obtain a representative sample of their readers in order to assess their attitudes toward preservation of the rain forests in Costa Rica.When interpreting the results of their survey,the editors will be able to ___________.

A person who has suffered a major stroke and is now experiencing severe personality problems because of the damage would best be advised to see a

A scientist,conducting a research study on sleep and learning,questions her own objectivity and decides to let a third person,not associated with conducting the experiment,score the tests.The scientist is probably trying to eliminate __________.

A group of students was asked to write an essay in support of the legalization of marijuana.They were paid $.50.Another group of students received $2.00 for the same task.It was subsequently found that those students who received only $.50 developed a more positive attitude towards the legalization of marijuana.The experiment in this study was using (the)__________.

Which of the following is NOT associated with Gestalt psychology?

In the 1970s,a 13-year-old girl was found locked up in a room,strapped to a potty chair.Since she had grown up in a world without human speech,researchers studied "Genie's" ability to acquire words,grammar,and pronunciation.This type of research is called _____________.

In a laboratory,smokers are asked to "drive" using a computerized driving simulator equipped with a stick shift and a gas pedal.The objective 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 group who smokes the cigarette without nicotine is _____________________.

Anything that follows a response,making that response more likely to recur,is __________.

If a functionalist from the 1870s were alive today,where would we most likely find him?

In 1879,in Leipzig,Germany,the first psychological laboratory was developed by ______________.

A correlation coefficient is a numerical measure of the ____________.

A psychologist wanted to see if people are more prone to seek the company of others when anxious than when calm.He randomly assigned half of his subjects to an anxiety group and then told them that,as part of the study,they would receive electric shocks.He did not frighten the other group of subjects.Finally,he recorded how many subjects in each group chose to be "tested" in a group setting and how many chose to be "tested" alone.In this study,the group that was NOT frightened would be called the ____________ grou

One of the common guidelines for ethical research is that participants may not withdraw from a study once they start.