Deck 1: Studying the Person

Question 1

In setting up a hypothesis-testing study, a scientist should first

A) Decide on the proper statistical procedure to be employed
B) Recruit a body of subjects persons) who can participate in the study
C) Design a methodology that is appropriate for the problem
D) Review the theoretical and empirical literature concerning the hypothesis

Answer 1

Review the theoretical and empirical literature concerning the hypothesis

Question 2

A theory is

A) A set of statements proposed to explain certain observations
B) A collection of facts about reality
C) A prediction about how a stimulus causes a response
D) A careful description of numerous observations

Answer 2

A set of statements proposed to explain certain observations

Question 3

In the context of justification, a scientist seeks to

A) Discover new facts
B) Build theories
C) Test hypotheses
D) Collect unsystematic observations

Answer 3

Test hypotheses

Question 4

Compared to social psychology, personality psychology places more emphasis on

A) How people behave when they are alone
B) The problems that people face in modern life
C) The universal features of human nature
D) How different people behave differently in the same situation

Question 5

One criterion of a good theory is that it be generative. This means that the theory should

A) Support the status quo
B) Be consistent with empirical observations
C) Lead to new research and theorizing
D) Account for the greatest number of phenomena with the fewest explanatory concepts

Question 6

Which of the following scientific tools is a good theory not likely to provide?

A) Abstract model
B) Hypotheses
C) Conceptual terminology
D) Statistical procedure

Question 7

Which of the following is not a criterion of a good theory?

A) Parsimony
B) Testability
C) Coherence
D) Complexity

Question 8

Which of the following is not a main concern of personality psychology?

A) Species-typical characteristics
B) A person's uniqueness
C) Individual differences
D) Psychotherapy

Question 9

Which of the following features of psychological individuality functions to provide a person's life with a sense of unity and purpose?

A) Characteristic adaptations
B) Archetypes
C) Dispositional traits
D) Life stories

Question 10

A very useful methodology for inductive investigations in personality psychology is the

A) Experimental method
B) Correlational method
C) Statistical method
D) Case study

Question 11

The first step in scientific inquiry is

A) Testing hypotheses
B) Quantifying data
C) Proposing a theory
D) Observing a phenomenon

Question 12

The distinction in science between the context of discovery and the context of justification is essentially the distinction between

A) Generating hypotheses and testing hypotheses
B) Finding facts and proving theories
C) Testing theories and testing hypotheses
D) Building theories and generating facts

Question 13

To say that a theory should be falsifiable is to say that it

A) Should be resistant to attempts to prove it false
B) Should be stated in such a way that scientists can understand if it is true
C) Should specify observations it would take to disprove the theory's major propositions
D) Should stimulate critical thinking in the scientist

Question 14

When a scientist investigates a phenomenon in an inductive way, he or she seeks to

A) Discover concrete facts from abstract theories
B) Create abstract theories from concrete observations
C) Test abstract hypotheses with concrete observations
D) Disprove common misunderstanding with experiments

Question 15

A teenager who understands her entire life as a journey on the path to becoming an accomplished musician provides us with an example of a

A) Dispositional trait
B) Characteristic adaptation
C) Life story
D) None of the above

Question 16

Today, most personality psychologists tend to regard the concept of a "personality trait" as:

A) Indispensable to the science of personality
B) A useful fiction about the consistency of human lives
C) A deeply flawed idea that has no place in the science of personality
D) Useful for predicting behavior when people are alone but not when they are in social situations

Question 17

Personality psychology is the scientific study of

A) The whole person
B) Abnormal behavior in humans
C) Social groups
D) Personal adjustment

Question 18

In personality psychology, case studies are usually used to

A) Examine a single life in detail
B) Test the effect of an independent variable on a dependent variable
C) Look at one variable in depth and across different situations
D) Focus on the behavior of a particular population or group

Question 19

The primary goal of science is

A) Personal growth
B) Understanding
C) Quantification
D) Technological advance

Question 20

Which of the following is not considered a characteristic adaptation?

A) The achievement motive
B) Religious values
C) The life intimacy task
D) Friendliness

Question 21

Which of the following is generally not a central point of emphasis in personality psychology per se?

A) Individual differences in persons
B) Continuity and stability in the person over time
C) Focus on the adult years
D) Psychotherapy technique

Question 22

According to Allport,

A) Traits have motivational features
B) Motivation directs traits
C) Behavior determines traits and motivation
D) Unconscious forces shape human individuality

Question 23

To operationalize a variable is to

A) Figure out a way of measuring it
B) Figure out a way of controlling it
C) Decide on a rule for deducing hypotheses
D) Decide on a strategy for testing hypotheses

Question 24

As opposed to nomothetic research, idiographic studies in personality

A) Seek to test hypotheses generated by theories
B) Attempt to examine variables as they naturally co-occur
C) Focus attention on the details of a single case
D) Use grand theories to interpret results

Question 25

Which of the following criticisms is often levied against the experimental method in personality psychology?

A) Causal relationships cannot be determined
B) Too many variables are examined at once
C) Complex personality processes cannot be assessed
D) Hypotheses cannot be disconfirmed

Question 26

If Variable A is negatively correlated with Variable B, then

A) Variable A causes Variable B
B) Variable B causes Variable A
C) Both variables are caused by a third one
D) None of the above can be stated with certainty

Question 27

If a particular finding in a study is statistically significant "at the .05 level," then the chances are about 5% that the finding is

A) False
B) True
C) Meaningful
D) Due to chance

Question 28

In an experiment in which subjects are exposed to one of two different noise levels to assess the influence of noise on academic performance, the independent variable is

A) The subjects
B) The noise level
C) Academic performance
D) The experimenter's attitude

Question 29

A variable is

A) A personality trait
B) Any quality that can assume two or more values
C) A fixed quantity
D) Any method that can be used to evaluate a person's standing on a personality dimension

Question 30

Science progresses through a continuous dialogue between

A) Fact and fiction
B) Observation and theory
C) Theory and hypothesis
D) Reality and imagination

Question 31

A good sample for a hypothesis-testing research study should

A) Be larger than 30 subjects
B) Be appropriate for the hypothesis to be evaluated
C) Be representative of all subjects within a particular category
D) Include many different kinds of subjects

Question 32

In the 1950s and 1960s, the field of personality psychology devoted a great deal of attention to

A) Problems in measurement
B) Building grand, unifying theories
C) Identifying social factors influencing personality
D) Measuring biological bases of behavior

Question 33

Letters from Jenny is an example of what type of research?

A) Nomothetic
B) Idiographic
C) Construct validity
D) Hypothesis-testing research

Question 34

In an experiment, the psychologist manipulates the variable in order to observe the effect on the variable.

A) Independent, dependent
B) Control, experimental
C) Dependent, independent
D) Experimental, control

Question 35

Allport's concept of proprium involved

A) Personality traits that explain behavior
B) All aspects of personality that create psychological unity
C) Motivation constructs that conflict with each other
D) All social and internal factors that explain personality

Question 36

The major structural unit of Allport's concept of personality is

A) Motivation
B) Behavior
C) Trait
D) Adaptive characteristics

Question 37

In an experiment, the experimental and control groups differ from each other on what basic dimension?

A) The level of the independent variable
B) The level of the dependent variable
C) The level of the extraneous variable
D) The level of the controlled variables

Question 38

If a scientist obtained a +.75 correlation coefficient between intelligence and height in a sample of 125 male chimpanzees, this means that in the particular sample

A) Taller chimpanzees are always more intelligent than shorter ones
B) Taller chimpanzees tend to be more intelligent than shorter ones
C) 75% of the chimpanzees who are tall are also very intelligent
D) Taller chimpanzees tend to be less intelligent than shorter ones

Question 39

Which of the following trends is especially characteristic of current work in personality psychology?

A) Building grand, unifying theories
B) Evaluating response bias in personality measures
C) Interaction between psychological and contextual variables
D) Reducing social behavior to brain processes

Question 40

Gordon Allport's vision of personality emphasized

A) Brain correlates of traits
B) Unconscious motivational processes
C) The rational aspects of human functioning
D) Psychopathology