Deck 6: Empiricism, Associationism, and Utilitarianism

Question 1

The first psychological journal Mind was founded by a philosopher who had great influence on many early psychologists. He was

A)Jeremy Bentham
B)John Stuart Mill
C)James Mill
D)Alexander Bain

Answer 1

Alexander Bain

Question 2

According to _______, language provides a set of symbols in part to represent needs and desires.

A)John Locke
B)Etienne Bonnot de Condillac
C)George Berkeley
D)David Hartley

Answer 2

Etienne Bonnot de Condillac

Question 3

______ attempted to show how all intellectual activity could be derived from sensation alone.

A)John Locke
B)Etienne Bonnot de Condillac
C)George Berkeley
D)David Hartley

Answer 3

Etienne Bonnot de Condillac

Question 4

According to the text, ______ demonstrated that empiricism, when driven to its ultimate conclusion, provided a sandy foundation for the new sciences.

A)David Hume
B)John Locke
C)George Berkeley
D)Francis Bacon

Question 5

_____ is a central figure in the history of psychology because he, more than any other empiricist, focused attention on the role of emotions in human intellectual iife.

A)George Berkeley
B)John Locke
C)James Mill
D)David Hume

Question 6

According to David Hume, our sense of a personal identity is a result of

A)imagination
B)rational deduction
C)emotional passion
D)a stable psyche

Question 7

Which of the following would be most consistent with David Hume's position on the question of personal identity?

A)we have a sense of personal identity because there is a substantive self
B)the sense of personal identity is based on objective causality
C)we may exaggerate the continuity of the self
D)Hume did not address the problem of personal identity

Question 8

Our lives are a string of unrelated events with no causal connections between them. Who would be most likely to support this view?

A)Francis Bacon
B)John Locke
C)David Hume
D)George Berkeley

Question 9

How did Berkeley account for the consistency of our perceptions (e.g., your house is always where you left it)?

A)material objects exist whether we perceive them or not
B)God, the ultimate perceiver, sees everything all the time
C)objects continue to exist if we believe that they will do so
D)all of the above

Question 10

This early empiricist was a radical environmentalist who denied hereditary influence. In his view, even genius is a product of proper education.

A)John Stuart Mill
B)Jeremy Bentham
C)Claude-Adrien Helvétius
D)Alexander Bain

Question 11

The person commonly regarded as the founder of modern associationism was also concerned with the problems of motivation and the physiological basis of associations. He was

A)Jeremy Bentham
B)David Hartley
C)James Mill
D)John Stuart Mill

Question 12

""The principle which regulates the existing social relations between the sexes-the legal subordination of one sex to the other-is wrong in itself and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement."" Such a statement came from ____ who was probably influenced with respect to his feminist perspectives by____

A)John Stuart Mill . . . his father, James
B)John Stuart Mill . . . his wife, Harriet Taylor
C)James Mill . . . his wife, Harriet Burrow
D)James Mill . . . his mother, Isabel Fenton

Question 13

John Stuart Mill argues that many sciences including meteorology must couch their results in terms of probabilities. With respect to psychology, he believed

A)there could be a basic psychology but not an applied psychology
B)there could be both a basic and an applied psychology
C)we could make probabilistic statements but they would not be sufficiently exact to be helpful
D)it could really never be a science

Question 14

James Mill created a conception of mind based on

A)mechanics
B)hedonism
C)rationalism
D)chemistry

Question 15

The belief that the instrinsic nature of men is qualitatively different from the intrinsic nature of women is

A)psychophysical parallelism
B)mechanism
C)psychological hedonism
D)essentialism

Question 16

An active advocate for the rights of women and the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was

A)Harriet Taylor
B)Harriet Burrow
C)Mary Wollstonecraft
D)Elizabeth Dixon

Question 17

According to the doctrine of psychological hedonism, human beings seek

A)knowledge above all things
B)homeostatic equilibrium above all things
C)to gain pleasure and avoid pain
D)sensory pleasure above all other types

Question 18

According to utilitarianism, moral decisions should be based on

A)our intuitive grasp of what is right and what is wrong
B)the doctrine of accountability that grows directly out of a belief in free will
C)the concept of the greatest good for the greatest number
D)the doctrine we encounter in nature, namely that might makes right.

Question 19

_______ provided a physiological view of associationism, arguing that connections between stimuli can be triggered through vibrations carried through nerves.

A)Jeremy Bentham
B)David Hartley
C)James Mill
D)John Stuart Mill

Question 20

In his classic Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision, Berkeley hoped to

A)provide support for Descartes's contention that there are geometric principles that we know innately and that contribute to depth perception
B)advance a new theory of color vision based on three primary colors
C)demonstrate similarities between vision and audition
D)clearly demonstrate the role of experience in depth perception

Question 21

In the modern period, empiricism seems to begin with a deep interest in _____ but soon that interest turns to the problem of _______

A)induction . . . deduction
B)ontology . . . epistemology
C)epistemology . . . ontology
D)axiology . . . epistemology

Question 22

""To be, is to be perceived."" Such a contention is most consistent with the brand of empiricism advanced by

A)Francis Bacon
B)John Locke
C)George Berkeley
D)Michel de Montaigne

Question 23

Hermann believes there are no new scientific truths that are not already set forth in a holy book written hundreds of years ago. According to Francis Bacon, Hermann may be falling victim to the

A)Idols of the Theater
B)Idols of the Marketplace
C)Idols of the Cave
D)Idols of the Den

Question 24

A politician may frame his or her position as ""liberal"" or ""conservative."" According to Francis Bacon, if one decides to endorse the politician because of the name of the label he or she applies to his or her position, one may be falling victim to

A)Idols of the Theater
B)Idols of the Marketplace
C)Idols of the Cave
D)Idols of the Tribe

Question 25

According to Bacon, human beings sometimes follow strongly preferrred theories or prejudices. He referred to excessive reliance on a favored explanatory mode as

A)Idols of the Theater
B)Idols of the Marketplace
C)Idols of the Cave
D)Idols of the Tribe

Question 26

According to Bacon, human beings sometimes rely too much on authority. He referred to excessive reliance on authority as the

A)Idols of the Theater
B)Idols of the Marketplace
C)Idols of the Cave
D)Idols of the Tribe

Question 27

The Idols of the Tribe, according to Francis Bacon, are

A)errors in knowledge based on faulty deduction
B)errors in knowledge resulting from faulty definitions
C)objects that are commonly worshipped
D)inherent limitations based on weaknesses in human nature

Question 28

In his later years, Bacon studied science and philosophy. He was primarily interested in problems of

A)human knowledge
B)axiology
C)ethics
D)rationalism

Question 29

The term empiricism is roughly equivalent to the English term

A)knowledge
B)experience
C)observation
D)experiment

Question 30

Empiricism advocated for all of the following EXCEPT

A)nativism
B)a posteriori knowledge
C)a passive mind
D)induction

Question 31

Francis Bacon placed the most value in which of the following epistemological methods?

A)induction
B)deduction
C)intuition
D)logic

Question 32

Bacon believed that

A)most psychological topics could not be treated scientifically
B)the senses could be explored scientifically but other topics such as emotions and memory could not be treated scientifically
C)society should support a great range of empirical studies on psychological subjects
D)most psychological topics should be approached deductively

Question 33

According to Berkeley, the distinction between primary qualities and secondary qualities is

A)basically untenable because all qualities must be experienced
B)the clearest distinction in all philosophy
C)to be resolved by reducing all qualities to primary qualities
D)unimportant

Question 34

The book entitled Some Thoughts Concerning Education marks_____ as one of the earliest pioneers in educational psychology.

A)George Berkeley
B)David Hume
C)John Locke
D)Francis Bacon

Question 35

Solidity and shape might properly be regarded as _______ whereas color and taste are better regarded as _______.

A)secondary qualities . . . primary qualities
B)primary qualities . . . secondary qualities
C)categorical imperatives . . . subjective qualities
D)subjective qualities . . . categorical imperatives

Question 36

Which of the following, according to John Locke, would qualify as a secondary quality?

A)color
B)taste
C)solidity
D)a. and b.

Question 37

Qualities presumed to reside in, or inhere, in an object are called _____ qualities.

A)primary
B)material
C)secondary
D)tertiary

Question 38

John Locke argued aggressively

A)against innate ideas
B)in favor of the idea that all knowledge comes from sensory information
C)in favor of the formation of ideas through empirical association
D)all of the above

Question 39

""Nothing is in the intellect that was not previously in the senses."" This statement sets forth the essential theme of the so-called ""white paper"" doctrine of

A)John Locke
B)George Berkeley
C)David Hartley
D)Jeremy Bentham

Question 40

Most of Locke's philosophical interests related to the problem of

A)ontology
B)theology
C)epistemology
D)free will and determinism

Question 41

Which empiricist argued against materialism in his book, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonius?

A)David Hume
B)Michel de Montaigne
C)John Locke
D)George Berkeley