Which perspective is most directly concerned with assessing the relative influence of both nature and nurture on our psychological traits?

1

A clinical psychologist who explains behavior in terms of unconscious drives and conflicts is employing a(n) _______ perspective

A.) evolutionary

B.) psychodynamic

C.) behavioral

D.) social-cultural

E.) cognitive

2

Which of the following are located exclusively within the brain and spinal cord?

A) sensory neurons

B) motor neurons

C) myelin sheath

D) interneurons

E) axons

3

A researcher interested in investigating the attitudes or opinions of a large sample of people is most likely to use which research method?

A) survey

B) correlation

C) experiment

D) case study

E) naturalistic observation

4

Dr. Robinson conducts basic research on the relationship between brain chemistry and intellectual functioning. Which psychological specialty does Dr. Robinson's research best represent?

A) social psychology

B) clinical psychology

C) biological psychology

D) industrial-organizational psychology

E) developmental psychology

5

The benefits of brain plasticity are most clearly demonstrated in

A) children who have had a cerebral hemisphere surgically removed

B) people paralyzed by a severed spinal cord

C) individuals with Alzheimer's disease

D) adults with aphasia

E) people free of any disease or brain damage

6

The minimum level of stimulation required to trigger a neural impulse is called the

A) reflex

B) threshold

C) synapse

D) action potential

E) refractory period

7

The hindsight bias refers to people's tendency to

A) dismiss the value of replication

B) reject any ideas that cannot be scientifically tested

C) exaggerate their ability to have foreseen the outcome of past events

D) assume that correlation proves causation

E) overestimate the extent to which others share their opinions

8

For you to experience the pain of a sprained ankle, _____ must first relay messages from your ankle to your central nervous system

A) endocrines

B) interneurons

C) glands

D) motor neruons

E) sensory neurons

9

A PET scan of a patient looking at a photograph of a painting would most likely indicate high levels of activity in which brain structure?

A) sensory cortex

B) Broca's area

C) corpus callosum

D) occipital lobes

E) frontal lobes

10

Clinical psychologists specialize in

A) constructing surveys

B) animal research

C) providing therapy to troubled people

D) providing drugs to treat behavioral disorders

E) treating patients in clinical settings

11

Dr. Santaniello conducts basic research on how children's moral thinking changes as they grow older. It is most likely that Dr. Santaniello is a(n) ____ psychologist

A) social

B) clinical

C) developmental

D) industrial-organizational

E) biological

12

The difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution is the

A) mean

B) range

C) median

D) standard deviation

E) correlation coefficient

13

Thinking about sex (in your brain's cerebral cortex) can stimulate a region of the limbic system to secrete hormones. These hormones trigger the pituitary gland to influence hormones released by other glands in the body. Which brain region influences the endocrine system?

A) hippocampus

B) amygdala

C) thalamus

D) reticular formation

E) hypothalamus

14

Which of the following structures in the brainstem helps coordinate movements and lies above the medulla?

A) reticular formation

B) hippocampus

C) pons

D) thalamus

E) hypothalamus

15

The relief of pain following the ingestion of an inert substance that is presumed to have medicinal benefits illustrates

A) random assignment

B) the hindsight bias

C) the double-blind effect

D) the placebo effect

E) illusory correlation

16

Addictive drug cravings are likely to be associated with reward centers in the

A) thalamus

B) cerebellum

C) reticular formation

D) limbic system

E) angular gyrus

17

Which of the following is a measure of the degree of variation among a set of events?

A) mean

B) scatterplot

C) standard deviation

D) median

E) correlation coefficient

18

Adopted children are more likely to demonstrate levels of agreeableness and extraversion, more similar to that of their biological parents than their adoptive parents. This finding suggests that personality traits are more strongly influenced by

A) genes than by heredity

B) home environment than by genes

C) environmental relatives than by genetic relatives

D) nurture than by nature

E) genes than by the home environment

19

An axon is

A) a cell that serves as the basic building block of the nervous system

B) a layer of fatty tissue that encases the fibers of many neurons

C) an antagonist molecule that blocks neurotransmitter receptor sites

D) the extension of a neuron that carries messages away from the cell body

E) a junction between a sending and receiving neuron

20

A researcher invested in proving a causal relationship between two variables should choose which research method?

A) correlation

B) survey

C) naturalistic observation

D) experiment

E) case study

21

Which perspective most clearly focuses on how we learn observable responses?

A) evolutionary

B) biological

C) behavioral

D) humanistic

E) psychodynamic

22

Which perspective is most directly concerned with how the physical properties of the brain influence behaviors and mental states?

A) cognitive

B) social-cultural

C) psychodynamic

D) behavioral

E) biological

23

The threadlike structures that contain genes are called

A) synapses

B) hormones

C) neurons

D) chromosomes

E) genomes

24

Which perspective would focus on the extent to which different styles of parenting are encouraged among various ethnic communities?

A) evolutionary

B) cognitive

C) psychodynamic

D) social-cultural

E) biological

25

Hormones are the chemical messengers of the

A) action potential

B) autonomic nervous system

C) endocrine system

D) peripheral nervous system

E) central nervous system

26

A correlation coefficient is a measure of the

A) difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution

B) average squared deviation of scores from a sample mean

C) direction and strength of the relationship between two variables

D) statistical significance of a difference between two sample means

E) frequency of scores at each level of some measure

27

The enduring traditions, attitudes, and behaviors shared by a large group of people constitutes their

A) culture

B) normal curve

C) wording effects

D) statistical significance

E) operational definition

28

The first psychological laboratory was established by

A) William James

B) John Watson

C) Wilhelm Wundt

D) Sigmund Freud

E) Jean Piaget

29

Evolutionary psychologists emphasize that environmentally adaptive behaviors are those that have prompted

A) reproductive success

B) personal happiness

C) cultural diversity

D) heritability

E) behavior genetics

30

Which research method is typically used to examine one participant in depth, usually because the individual's situation/behavior is rare or unusual?

A) survey

B) correlation

C) experiment

D) case study

E) scientific method

31

The complete set of cases from which samples may be drawn is called a(n)

A) control condition

B) population

C) case study

D) independent variable

E) survey

32

The ability to simultaneously copy different figures with the right and left hand is most characteristic of those whose _____ has been cut

A) angular gyrus

B) reticular formation

C) corpus callosum

D) motor cortex

E) sensory cortex

33

Which endocrine gland regulates body growth?

A) parathyroid

B) adrenal

C) thyroid

D) pituitary

E) pancreas

34

To demonstrate that brain stimulation can make a rat violently aggressive, a neuroscientist should electrically stimulate the rat's

A) reticular formation

B) cerebellum

C) medulla

D) amygdala

E) thalamus

35

Psychologists' personal values and goals

A) are carefully tested by means of observation and experimentation

B) lead them to avoid experiments involving human participants

C) can bias their observations and interpretations

D) have very little influence on the process of scientific observation

E) affect their work only if they are different from the norm

36

The biological perspective in psychology would be most likely to emphasize that behavior is influenced by

A) environmental circumstances

B) blood chemistry

C) unconscious conflicts

D) subjective interpretations

E) memory processes

37

The somatic nervous system is a component of the ____ nervous system

A) peripheral

B) autonomic

C) central

D) sympathetic

E) parasympathetic

38

A patient who suffered a stroke says that she no longer recognizes herself in a mirror. Which brain structure was likely damaged in the stroke?

A) occipital lobes

B) temporal lobes

C) left hemisphere

D) right hemisphere

E) reticular formation

39

The cognitive perspective in psychology focuses on how

A) feelings are influenced by blood chemistry

B) people try to understand their own unconscious motives

C) behavior is influenced by environmental conditions

D) people encode, process, store, and retrieve information

E) how behaviors and thinking vary across cultures

40

Which approach is most directly concerned with assessing the relative contributions of heredity and experience to personality development?

A) cognitive

B) behavioral

C) psychodynamic

D) biological

E) biopsychosocial

41

Which brain structure receives information from all the senses except smell?

A) hippocampus

B) amygdala

C) pons

D) thalamus

E) medulla

42

Efforts to discover the intelligence of children is more heavily influenced by their biology or by their home environments are most directly relevant to the debate regarding

A) structuralism versus functionalism

B) evolution versus natural selection

C) observation versus introspection

D) nature versus nurture

E) humanism versus behaviorism

43

Someone who has difficulty after a stroke is suffering from which of the following?

A) neurogenesis

B) lesion

C) aphasia

D) angular gyrus

E) interneurons

44

The best way to detect enlarged fluid-filled brain regions in some patients who have schizophrenia is to use a(n)

A) EEG

B) MRI

C) PET scan

D) brain lesion

E) X-ray

45

Which technique most clearly minimizes the likelihood that any outcome differences between the experimental and control conditions can be attributed to age or personality differences in research participants?

A) replication

B) statistical measurement

C) random assignment

D) operational definitions

E) the double-blind procedure

46

A brief electrical charge that travels down the axon of a neuron is called the

A) synapse

B) agonist

C) action potential

D) myelin sheath

E) refractory period

47

The most commonly reported measure of central tendency is the

A) mode

B) mean

C) normal distribution

D) median

E) standard deviation

48

When the release of ACh is blocked, the result is

A) depression

B) muscular paralysis

C) aggression

D) schizophrenia

E) euphoria

49

Molecules that are similar enough to a neurotransmitter to bind to its receptor sites on a dendrite and block that neurotransmitter's effects are called what?

A) agonists

B) antagonists

C) endorphins

D) endocrines

E) action potentials

50

Sleep researchers who are interested in brain wave activity are likely to use which kind of brain scan?

A) EEG

B) CT

C) fMRI

D) PET

E) MRI

Which perspective is most directly concerned with assessing the relative contributions of heredity and environmental experience?

Which perspective of psychology is most concerned with how people think about and interpret their experiences?

Which is the focus of the cognitive perspective of psychology?

Which prominent psychologist have been most likely to define psychology as the scientific study of observable behavior?