Question 1

John Locke's idea of tabula rasa

Accepted Answer

A)  contradicted Descartes's statement: "I think, therefore I am." 
B)  emphasized the careful measurement of behavior. 
C)  confirmed Plato's analogy of the cave. 
D)  supported the premises of the social brain hypothesis.

Question 2

Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and _______.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Psychology is the scientific study of the...

Question 3

A quarter in your hand casts a different image on your retina than a quarter taped to the wall across the room, yet you know that the quarters have exactly the same dimensions. This phenomenon would be best explained by a

Accepted Answer

A)  behaviorist. 
B)  Gestalt psychologist. 
C)  evolutionary psychologist. 
D)  structuralist.

Question 4

Refer to the figure below.
 When he is in a casino, Albert is unable to control himself. He does not stop gambling until all of his money is gone. The _______ lobe of Albert's brain is most likely to be affecting this behavior.

Accepted Answer

A)  parietal 
B)  occipital 
C)  temporal 
D)  frontal

Question 5

John Watson, Ivan Pavlov, and B. F. Skinner would have agreed that psychology is the study of

Accepted Answer

A)  behavior. 
B)  the mind. 
C)  conscious experience. 
D)  mental processes.

Question 6

Psychological research has proven that many long-held, popular beliefs about psychology are untrue. Psychology as a science has been able to accomplish this by emphasizing

Accepted Answer

A)  critical thinking. 
B)  reliance on authority. 
C)  consciousness. 
D)  belief perseverance.

Question 7

Your sister is very shy. An empiricist philosopher would say that her shyness is due to

Accepted Answer

A)  natural selection. 
B)  her early experiences. 
C)  genetics. 
D)  her inherent personality.

Question 8

An important principle to remember when studying psychology is that

Accepted Answer

A)  we are consciously aware of all the events that affect our behavior. 
B)  genetics has very little influence on our behavior. 
C)  adults rarely alter their behavior according to what those around them are doing. 
D)  the act of learning changes the physical structure of the brain.

Question 9

The _______ school of psychology uses introspection to analyze conscious experience.

Accepted Answer

The answer of The _______ school of psychology uses introspection...

Question 10

_______ psychology is the study of internal mental processes, specifically how we acquire and process information and gain knowledge.

Accepted Answer

The answer of _______ psychology is the study of internal...

Question 11

A _______ would be most likely to argue that a 13-year-old boy took up smoking because his father, older brothers, and friends were smokers.

Accepted Answer

A)  cognitive psychologist 
B)  behaviorist 
C)  neuroscientist 
D)  functionalist

Question 12

In a psychology experiment, subjects listen to a variety of tones presented at different frequencies and then reflect on the experience, describing what they heard as precisely as possible. These individuals would have been using a process called

Accepted Answer

A)  behaviorism. 
B)  introspection. 
C)  hypnosis. 
D)  Gestalt therapy.

Question 13

A behaviorist would be least concerned with

Accepted Answer

A)  events that occurred in the past. 
B)  observable behavior. 
C)  functional relationships. 
D)  events that are occurring now.

Question 14

The discipline of psychology can most accurately be defined as the study of

Accepted Answer

A)  mental processes. 
B)  behavior. 
C)  the mind and behavior. 
D)  the anatomy of the brain.

Question 15

In the late 1800s, a student of Edward Titchener would likely have been trained to

Accepted Answer

A)  carefully examine his own internal experiences. 
B)  determine the purpose of a particular human behavior. 
C)  listen closely while individuals tell him of their psychological symptoms. 
D)  examine the behavior of animals to find clues about human behavior.

Question 16

Of the following, who is best described as a structuralist?

Accepted Answer

A)  Edward Titchener 
B)  William James 
C)  B. F. Skinner 
D)  Wilhelm Wundt

Question 17

Refer to the graphs below.
  
Researchers wanted to determine if ideas about race affect our visual perception. In an experiment, white college students were asked to look at a screen with images of objects that were either crime-relevant (e.g., a handgun) or crime-irrelevant (e.g., a book). For each object, the first image was so blurry it was unrecognizable. The image became progressively clearer across 40 different frames until the students were able to correctly identify it. 
Before they began the task, they were shown a photo for 50 milliseconds. The photo was of a black face, a white face, or an abstract line drawing. These "flashes" were subliminal images, meaning that the students were not aware of having seen them. Researchers wanted to find out whether seeing a black or white face, even without being aware of it, influenced the students' ability to identify the objects.
-A hallmark of psychology as a science is critical thinking. What is a valid criticism of this perception experiment?

Accepted Answer

A)  There was no need to show students an abstract line drawing. 
B)  It was unethical not to tell the students they were being shown subliminal images. 
C)  There might have been something about the faces used, apart from race, that influenced the students' perception of the images. 
D)  Researchers should have shown students only "crime-irrelevant objects."

Question 18

On which of the following points would Plato and Descartes likely have agreed?

Accepted Answer

A)  There is no such thing as "innate knowledge." 
B)  Knowledge is acquired through experience alone. 
C)  Children are born as "blank slates." 
D)  Knowledge does not rely on our fallible senses.

Question 19

Much of the information about psychology portrayed in the popular media is

Accepted Answer

A)  a close match to the findings of psychological researchers. 
B)  not able to be studied empirically. 
C)  just basic common sense. 
D)  contradicted by what psychological research has demonstrated.

Question 20

A psychologist coming from the _______ perspective might be interested in studying the practical reasons why humans have developed abstract reasoning abilities.

Accepted Answer

The answer of A psychologist coming from the _______ perspective...

Exam 1: Introduction: Principles of Psychology