Deck 14: Gestalt Psychology

Question 1

Which of the following is NOT one of the three original founders of Gestalt psychology?

A)Max Wertheimer
B)Kurt Lewin
C)Kurt Koffka
D)Wolfgang Kohler

Answer 1

Kurt Lewin

Question 2

Three kinds of learning, according to Koffka, include

A)S-R R learning, operant conditioning, and insightful learning
B)classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and insightful learning
C)S-R learning, S-S learning, and S-O-R learning
D)sensorimotor learning, imitation, and ideational learning

Answer 2

sensorimotor learning, imitation, and ideational learning

Question 3

The Gestalt approach to methodology was

A)pluralistic
B)based on exclusive use of field studies
C)similar to Titchener's with a powerful emphasis on introspection
D)similar to Watson's with an emphasis on wet lab studies

Answer 3

pluralistic

Question 4

The Gestalt view of the mind-brain problem is called

A)interactionism
B)isomorphism
C)epiphenomenalism
D)material monism

Question 5

Isomorphism, in Gestalt psychology, refers to structural correspondence between _____ and_____.

A)brain processes . . . behaviors
B)brain processes . . . experience
C)behaviors . . . experience
D)behaviors . . . environment

Question 6

__________ broadened the base of Gestalt psychology into the fields of motivation, personality, and social
Psychology.

A)Kurt Koffka
B)Kurt Goldstein
C)Rudolph Arnheim
D)Kurt Lewin

Question 7

Kurt Lewin viewed behavior as a function of

A)the individual
B)environmental effects on the individual
C)the person and the environment
D)reinforcement

Question 8

The expression life space refers to

A)the physical area within which a social group is free to operate
B)the span of life
C)every psychological fact that is influential in the life of an individual at a given time
D)the estimated time that the earth will support human life

Question 9

According to Kurt Lewin, the task of education is to

A)reinforce a more socially acceptable repertoire of behaviors
B)build general skills by teaching specific disciplines
C)extend the life space so that we can strive for goals further and further into the future
D)increase the educator's ability to control the educated

Question 10

Better recall for uncompleted compared with completed tasks came to be known as the

A)Zeigarnik effect
B)Prägnanz effect
C)illumination effect
D)Koffka effect

Question 11

The expression group dynamics characterizes some of the social psychological work of

A)Muzafer Sherif
B)Kurt Lewin
C)Kurt Koffka
D)Karl Duncker

Question 12

Karl Duncker's work on functional fixedness demonstrated that many people seem to have

A)an inability to find productive solutions to new problems
B)the capacity for truly productive thinking
C)symptoms of minimal brain damage
D)astigmatism

Question 13

Isolated or unusual items in a list are typically recalled better than homogeneous items. This has been called the

A)Zeigarnik effect
B)von Restorff effect
C)phi phenomenon
D)law of heterogeny

Question 14

According to the text

A)Gestalt therapy grew directly and logically out of Gestalt psychology
B)the Gestalt psychologists had no interest in psychotherapy
C)there is probably no conceptual relationship between Gestalt therapy as advanced by Fritz Perls and
D)Gestalt psychology as advanced by Wertheimer, Köhler, and Koffka
E)a true Gestalt psychotherapy would have many similarities with psychoanalysis

Question 15

Which of the following statements best characterizes the Gestalt position on scientific analysis?

A)analysis should never be performed
B)analysis should only be used in extremely rare cases
C)analysis should be used to investigate legitimate parts of a whole
D)analysis should always be used to investigate the smallest divisions our technology allows us to create

Question 16

In his book Organizing and Memorizing, _____ applied Gestalt problem-solving research to educational psychology.

A)Kurt Koffka
B)Rudolf Arnheim
C)Catherine Stern
D)George Katona

Question 17

The Gestalt position with regard to clinical psychology is best characterized by which of the following statements.

A)Gestalt psychology is best expressed in the system of Gestalt therapy
B)Gestalt psychology should not be applied to clinical settings
C)the Gestalt model can serve as a fruitful resource for clinical psychology
D)Gestalt psychology is primarily a clinical theory

Question 18

According to Gestalt psychology, natural events, left to themselves,

A)show latent order within apparent disorder
B)produce nothing but chaos
C)show no semblance of order
D)cannot even be said to act in lawful ways

Question 19

The Gestalt psychologist most noted for extending Gestalt principles into the field of development was

A)Kurt Koffka
B)Max Wertheimer
C)Wolfgang Köhler
D)Kurt Lewin

Question 20

In his book The Mentality of Apes, Köhler describes observing chimpanzees learning to solve a problem through

A)trial and error
B)approximation
C)incremental learning
D)insight

Question 21

According to Gestalt psychology, what is the primary focus of psychology?

A)perception
B)thinking
C)experience
D)learning

Question 22

The tendency to perceive objects that are close together as belonging to the same groups illustrates which Gestalt principle of organization?

A)proximity.
B)similarity.
C)closure.
D)good continuation.

Question 23

According to Kurt Lewin, which type of conflict occurs when an individual must choose between two objects both with negative valences?

A)approach-approach
B)approach-avoidance
C)avoidance-avoidance
D)avoidance-approach

Question 24

_____________ was the first person to use the term Gestalt to refer to the idea that "the whole is more than the sum of its parts."

A)Emmanuel Kant
B)Christian von Ehrenfels
C)Max Planck
D)Ernst Mach

Question 25

The term Gestalt is close in meaning to

A)molar behavior
B)pattern or configuration
C)dynamics
D)the unconscious

Question 26

The Gestalt system advanced by Wertheimer was

A)concerned largely with applied psychology
B)limited essentially to the fields of thinking and perception
C)a worldview with implications for psychology, philosophy, science, and education
D)restricted to the field of philosophical psychology

Question 27

Some of Wertheimer's views undoubtedly grew directly out of the physical theories set forth by

A)Isaac Newton
B)Albert Einstein
C)Hermann von Helmholtz
D)Thomas Hobbes

Question 28

_______ preceded Wertheimer in arguing that there are form qualities given immediately in experience and
That the form qualities may persist even when all the elements change.

A)Thomas Hobbes
B)Christian von Ehrenfels
C)John Locke
D)James Mill

Question 29

Michael Wertheimer stated the radical Gestalt view that the whole is not equal to the sum of its parts, but

A)the whole is equal to the sum of its parts
B)no whole emerges from an aggregate of parts
C)the whole is prior to and radically other than the parts
D)the whole emerges after the parts

Question 30

The phi phenomenon provides a particularly elegant demonstration of the idea that

A)short-term and long-term memory are different things
B)insight is itself conditioned
C)productive thinking can be learned
D)the quality of the whole is different from the sum of the parts

Question 31

The classic work on figure and ground was reported by

A)Max Wertheimer
B)Wolfgang Köhler
C)Edgar Rubin
D)Kurt Lewin

Question 32

Which of the following is NOT a Gestalt principle of perceptual organization?

A)good continuation
B)proximity
C)orthography
D)similarity

Question 33

Perceptual organization tends to be as good as it can under prevailing conditions. This is a statement of the

A)law of closure
B)principle of isomorphism
C)law of Prägnanz
D)principle of good continuation

Question 34

The earliest Gestalt orientation of Max Wertheimer is found in the psychology of

A)thinking
B)learning
C)motivation
D)the unconscious

Question 35

If one went to Max Wertheimer for advice about how to become a productive thinker, Wertheimer would most likely encourage the individual to

A)take a course in formal logic
B)stick with the tried and true principles of association and begin always with simple things before working to more complex problems
C)become aware of unconscious conflicts
D)work on the capacity to grasp structural organizations within the larger context and attempt to see the
E)whole problem

Question 36

Learning, from a Gestalt perspective, involves

A)the connection of a response with an absolute stimulus value
B)connections that are "hard wired" between stimuli and responses
C)cognitive structures and the patterns of relationships
D)trial and error acquisitions of complex relationships

Question 37

A major challenge to S-R theories of learning and to the concept of blind trial and error came out of the work
Done by _______ on the island of Tenerife.

A)Kurt Koffka
B)Wolfgang Köhler
C)Kurt Lewin
D)Max Wertheimer

Question 38

The Gestalt views on science are

A)most consistent with the Newtonian views
B)more consistent with nineteenth-century thought rather than twentieth-century thought
C)more consistent with the recent scientific worldview than with that advanced in the 1940s
D)by now largely irrelevant