Deck 3: Evolutionary and Genetic Foundations of Psychology

Question 1

"The Fight or Flight response is a physiological reaction triggered by fearful events. Fear is a normal emotion felt in response to a threat or imminent danger. The Fight or Flight response evolved to enable humans to react appropriately to danger, by running away, freezing to become less visible, or fighting." This is an example of:

A) developmental explanation
B) mechanistic explanation
C) cultural explanation
D) adaptive explanation

Answer 1

D

Question 2

"The Fight or Flight response is a physiological reaction triggered by fearful events. Fear is a normal emotion felt in response to a threat or imminent danger. The autonomic nervous system is the main mechanism in control of this response and its role is mediated by the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system activates the physiological changes that occur during the Fight or Flight response, releasing norepinephrine. The parasympathetic nervous system acts together with the sympathetic system, returning the body to homeostasis with the release of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine." This is an example of:

A) developmental explanation
B) mechanistic explanation
C) cultural explanation
D) adaptive explanation

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Which of the following questions does a mechanistic explanation answer?

A) "What is the advantage of a certain behaviour for an organism?"
B) "How does the body elicit a certain behaviour?"
C) "What good does a certain behaviour do us?"
D) "What's the adaptive value of a certain behaviour?"

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Which of the following questions does an adaptive explanation answer?

A) "What is the advantage of a certain behaviour for an organism?"
B) "How does the body elicit a certain behaviour?"
C) "Why does the body react that way during a certain behaviour?"
D) "What happens to the organism during a certain behaviour?"

Question 5

Discuss the mechanistic explanation as well as a putative adaptive explanation of why fingers wrinkle on contact with water.

Question 6

Scientists are finally able to provide an indisputable adaptive explanation of why fingers wrinkle on contact with water.

Question 7

A mechanistic explanation tries to explain how the body gives rise to a certain function or behaviour.

Question 8

It is thanks to a long process of __________ by natural selection that organisms carry on characteristics that appeared to be useful to their survival.

Question 9

Define what is 'adaptation by natural selection'.

Question 10

With respect to adaptation by natural selection, which of the following statements is INCORRECT?

A) In each generation, there will be variation between individuals.
B) According to the rules of natural selection, individuals of a group who are unable to reproduce are more likely to die.
C) Useful traits tend to become more frequent among living organisms.
D) Individuals with adaptive traits will be more likely to survive and leave descendants.

Question 11

__________ is the process through which individuals carrying characteristics which are useful to survival will be more likely to leave offspring.

A) Inheritance
B) Reproduction
C) Adaptation by natural selection
D) Variation by natural selection

Question 12

Which of the following hypotheses was tested by Kareklas, Nettle, and Smulders (2013)?

A) Fingers wrinkling allows to swim faster.
B) Fingers wrinkling improves ability to grip wet objects.
C) Fingers wrinkling protects the skin from excessive water.
D) Fingers wrinkling maintains the basal body temperature when we are immersed in water for long periods of time.

Question 13

Haseleu, Omerbašić, Frenzel, Gross, and Lewin (2014) tried to replicate the experiment of Kareklas et al. (2013) and observed:

A) no time advantage to having wrinkled fingers when objects were wet.
B) a time advantage to having wrinkled fingers when objects were wet.
C) a time advantage to having wrinkled fingers only when objects were dry.
D) a time advantage to having wrinkled fingers with both wet and dry

Question 14

Adaptive explanations:

A) cannot be considered as scientific hypotheses
B) are not falsifiable
C) do not generate empirical research
D) can be testable

Question 15

Evolutionary psychology is tightly linked to:

A) Physics
B) Philosophy
C) Genetics
D) Epistemology

Question 16

In relation to natural selection, evolution is:

A) the process
B) the outcome
C) the mechanism
D) the purpose

Question 17

Adaptation by natural selection works best on a population having no variation.

Question 18

Evolutionary explanations can inform the research of social and developmental psychology.

Question 19

What are the basic principles of adaptation by natural selection?

Question 20

__________ refers to the fact that in every species individuals are different from one another.

Question 21

Individuals of a species leave a different number of offspring, a phenomenon called __________.

Question 22

Which of the following is not a basic principle of adaptation by natural selection?

A) Heredity
B) Variation
C) Differential reproduction
D) Translation

Question 23

__________ refers to the fact that traits get passed on from parents to children.

A) Variation
B) Heredity
C) Reproduction
D) Replication

Question 24

'Variation' is to 'differential reproduction' as __________ is to __________.

A) 'differences in number of descendants'; 'differences in traits'
B) 'differences in skin colour'; 'differences in libido'
C) 'differences in traits'; 'differences in number of descendants'
D) 'differences in libido'; 'differences in skin colour'

Question 25

All the following contribute somewhat to adaptive change except for:

A) Heredity
B) Differential reproduction
C) Variation
D) Acclimatization

Question 26

Characteristics that are useful for an organism's survival have been passed on to the present generation because of a long process of:

A) adaptation
B) acclimatization
C) habituation
D) specialization

Question 27

Adaptation by natural selection can be broken into three basic principles: variation, heredity, and specialization.

Question 28

The ability to learn language depends on our genes which provide us with the appropriate apparatus to develop such complex capacity.

Question 29

Why isn't a language simply the product of cultural aspects?

Question 30

What principle of human evolution best explains why tall people probably have tall parents?

A) Differential reproduction
B) Variation
C) Heredity
D) Reproduction

Question 31

A phenotype is the result of the interaction between the individual's genotype with a particular environment.

Question 32

The total set of genetic material that an individual inherits from their parents is called __________ and it is composed by __________, individual pieces of genetic material.

Question 33

What is the difference between genes and genome?

Question 34

__________ represent the functional pieces of genetic material.

A) Ribosomes
B) Genes
C) Proteins
D) Enzymes

Question 35

DNA is organized into:

A) chromosomes
B) genotypes
C) genes
D) nucleic acids

Question 36

Which of the following base pairing is INCORRECT?

A) Thymine-adenine
B) Guanine-cytosine
C) Thymine-cytosine
D) Cytosine-guanine

Question 37

If a portion of an individual's DNA strand contains the sequence CCCTGAA, what is the correct sequence on the other strand?

A) GGGCCTT
B) GGGACTT
C) AAAGTCC
D) AAAGCTT

Question 38

The genome is organized into __________ pairs of __________.

Question 39

Which are the four chemical bases of DNA?

Question 40

What are the two basic functions of DNA?

Question 41

Complete replication is to half replication as __________ is to __________.

A) meiosis; mitosis
B) mitosis; transcription
C) DNA; RNA
D) mitosis; meiosis

Question 42

Which of the following group of cells do not replicate their DNA through meiosis?

A) Sperm cells
B) Egg cells
C) Gametes
D) Epithelial cells

Question 43

The information stored in the DNA is accessed via a process called:

A) Translation
B) Transcription
C) Transduction
D) Transformation

Question 44

With respect to translation, which of the following statements is ACCURATE?

A) It takes place in the ribosomes.
B) Non-protein-coding genes account only for 1% of the genome.
C) It's the process by which information stored in the DNA is retrieved.
D) It's the process by which proteins are synthesized by assembling together the chromosomes.

Question 45

The DNA of sperm and egg cells is replicated by mitosis.

Question 46

The replication of only half of the DNA of a cell is a process known as meiosis.

Question 47

Allele and gene are synonyms.

Question 48

What is the main function of the MC1R gene?

A) Contributing in the colour of the eyes.
B) Contributing in the pigmentation of the skin and hair.
C) Contributing in reproductive behaviour.
D) Contributing in pro-social behaviour.

Question 49

Different alleles of the MC1R lead Kermode bears to have either black or __________ fur.

A) white
B) brown
C) ginger
D) silver

Question 50

Name the two main processes that contribute in making individuals differ genetically.

Question 51

Describe the process of recombination.

Question 52

Most of the __________ that we can observe give rise to genetic diseases and abnormalities.

Question 53

Which of the following terms is best associated with the process of recombination?

A) Sex
B) Rare
C) Harmful
D) Disease

Question 54

Which of the following terms is best associated with the process of mutation?

A) Frequent
B) Random
C) Predictable
D) Constancy

Question 55

A mutation can be described as:

A) a continuous genetic variation
B) a phenotypic change
C) a discontinuous genetic variation
D) a change due to acclimatization

Question 56

Gene mutation occurs during:

A) Translation
B) Transcription
C) DNA replication
D) DNA repair

Question 57

Mutations tend to have little influence on the allele frequency in a population.

Question 58

Genetic mutations occur during __________, when the genome is copied. Some of these mutations simply involve the swapping of one __________ for another, but others are more complex and result in changes of entire strings.

Question 59

Which is the best known, and more frequent, type of genetic trisomy? Which chromosome is affected?

Question 60

What does the expression 'mutation proposes, selection disposes' refer to?

Question 61

Down syndrome is a type of trisomy that involves an extra copy of:

A) Chromosome 19
B) Chromosome 20
C) Chromosome 21
D) Chromosome 23

Question 62

Mutations can be passed on to subsequent generations favouring evolutionary change.

Question 63

We receive two copies of most genes, one from our mother and the other from our father.

Question 64

If a genotype is _________ for a gene it means that it received the same allele of that gene from both father and mother.

Question 65

What does it mean that your genotype is 'heterozygous' for a gene?

Question 66

Describe the principles of Mendelian inheritance providing a suitable example using an imaginary gene which has an allele B and an allele b.

Question 67

A sperm cell carries:

A) only a recessive allele
B) only a dominant allele
C) only one of the alleles
D) both alleles

Question 68

Which geometrical device helps to predict the genotypes of offspring by showing all the possible combinations of alleles?

A) Punnett square
B) Beateson square
C) Mendel square
D) Darwin square

Question 69

A type of heterozygous red tomato (Rr) is crossed with a homozygous green tomato (rr). What is the probability of one of their offspring being green?

A) 100%
B) 75%
C) 50%
D) 25%

Question 70

A type of heterozygous red tomato (Rr) is crossed with a homozygous green tomato (rr). What is the probability of one of their offspring being red?

A) 100%
B) 75%
C) 50%
D) 25%

Question 71

A gene that controls for the skin colour of a variety of apples has two alleles A and a. The allele A is dominant and it is associated with the colour red, whereas the allele a is recessive and it is associated with the colour yellow. If two heterozygous apples are crossed with each other, what is the probability of one of the offspring being red?

A) 100%
B) 75%
C) 50%
D) 25%

Question 72

A gene that controls for the skin colour of a variety of apples has two alleles, A and a. The allele A is dominant and it is associated with the colour red, whereas the allele a is recessive and it is associated with the colour yellow. If two heterozygous apples are crossed with each other, what is the probability of one of the offspring being yellow?

A) 100%
B) 75%
C) 50%
D) 25%

Question 73

A genotype AA is an example of __________ genotype for a __________ trait.

A) homozygous; dominant
B) homozygous; recessive
C) heterozygous; dominant
D) heterozygous; recessive

Question 74

A genotype aa is an example of __________ genotype for a __________ trait.

A) homozygous; dominant
B) homozygous; recessive
C) heterozygous; dominant
D) heterozygous; recessive

Question 75

A genotype Aa is an example of __________ genotype which will express the __________ trait.

A) homozygous; dominant
B) homozygous; recessive
C) heterozygous; dominant
D) heterozygous; recessive

Question 76

A(n) __________ allele needs to be present in just one copy for the individual to show the trait, whereas a(n) __________ allele must be present in two copies.

Question 77

In Egyptian Mau cats the coat colour depends on the combination of dominant and recessive alleles. The dominant allele (A) is associated with the silver colour, while the __________ allele (a) is associated with bronze colour. A kitten with a genotype aA will surely exhibit a __________ fur.

Question 78

The genes on the 22 non-sex chromosomes are known as __________.

Question 79

The allele that masks the effects of the other is ________ and the masked allele is ________.

A) homozygous; heterozygous
B) homozygous; recessive
C) dominant; recessive
D) recessive; dominant

Question 80

Every generation of the Brown family presents affected individuals. This frequent occurrence suggests __________ trait.

A) an autosomal dominant
B) an autosomal recessive
C) a sex-linked
D) either a dominant or recessive