Go to Section 1-3: Quiz Questions

1. A woman developed a psychotic disorder after a car accident in which she received severe head injuries. Based on this evidence, I have concluded that head injuries cause psychosis[∂]. What of the following is the best comment to make about my conclusion?

A. I cannot conclude this because I have not ruled out the effects of extraneous variables.

2. Which of the following is an example of a case study?

B. A study of an autistic girl showed that she developed autistic symptoms soon after receiving the MMR vaccine at 18 months.

3. Which of the following would be the most distal cause of Sarah's being late for her psychology class?

D. She went to bed only two hours before she had to get up.

4. Which of the following is a major weakness of case studies?

A. Case studies do not allow us to determine if one event is causing another event.

5. A transpersonal therapist went on a shamanic journey to contact the spirit guide of her client. After the spirit guide was contacted, "she" described a ritual that the client must perform in order to relieve his depression. After the client performed the ritual, he felt much happier. If we want to test scientifically the claim that the performance of this ritual is an effective treatment for depression, we would need to control for

D. the placebo effect.

6. If we wanted to quickly discover a general relationship between two variables in a large group of people, which kind of study would we want to perform?

B. a correlational study

7. Students who sit in the first few rows of a classroom tend to perform better on tests than do students who sit in the last few rows. One possible explanation is that students who sit in the first few rows tend to be more attentive and more involved in the class discussions than are students in the last few rows. Which of the following alternative explanations includes an extraneous variable that is most likely to be another possible cause of the association between test performance and seat location?

C. Levels of motivation to do well are most likely to differ between students who sit in front and students who sit in back.

8. In the 1970s, a team of researchers in Taiwan decided to find variables that best predicted who would make use of birth-control methods. They found that people who had more electrical appliances in their homes (such as toasters and fans) were more likely to use birth-control methods. Given what you've learned about correlational studies, how would you interpret this finding?

A. The more electrical appliances in people's homes, the more likely it is that they will use birth-control methods.

9. Jerome was thinking about a friend of his whom he had not heard from in a long time when he heard the phone ring. He was very surprised when he discovered that this very same friend was on the other end of the line. Jerome decided that he must have had a psychic premonition. His conclusion is an example of which of the following problems with our everyday attempts to determine the accuracy of our beliefs?

B. We tend to find order and meaning in chance pairings of events.

10. Which of the following is an example of a negative correlation?

C. The fewer the number of calories consumed, the longer that people tend to live.

11. Students who take course sections that start at 7:30 a.m. are more likely to withdraw from them than students who take course sections that start at 10:30 a.m. One plausible explanation of this difference is that students taking a 7:30 class discover, soon after the semester begins, that this time is not a good one for them, and stop attending class. In this case, the explanation is: the difficulty of attending classes at different times of the day causes differences in withdrawal rates. Which of the following is an extraneous variable that offers another plausible explanation for the difference in rates of withdrawal between 7:30 and 10:30 classes?

C. Most 7:30 classes have part-time teachers, who tend to be less experienced.

12. According to the brain-mind theory, the most proximal cause of all behaviors, cognitions, and emotions is

A. brain activity.

13. A man is brought to the local hospital by police because he seems confused, does not know where he is, and cannot remember the last few days. The doctors examine him carefully: they take a medical history, order brain scans, examine him for drug use, look at his white-blood cell count, and so on. Finally they decide that the man has a brain inflammation that has affected his thinking and memory. This example illustrates which of the following research methods?

D. a case study

14. Which of the following is not a necessary condition for earning an A in this course?

C. A person must be interested in learning about psychology and closely related disciplines.

15. I wanted to determine if giving daily quizzes improved test scores in PSY 101. I gave daily quizzes in my 10:30 AM section, but did not give daily quizzes in my 7:30 AM section. At the end of the semester, I found that students in the later section received higher average test scores than did students in the earlier section. Which two variables are confounded in this study?

C. Giving daily quizzes is confounded with class meeting time.

16. Which of the following is a sufficient condition for earning an A in this course?

D. A person must be influenced by many interacting factors that together cause excellent performance.

17. Based on what you've learned in this course so far, why do you think that psychologists are so concerned with constructing good theories?

C. Theories help us to develop ways of modifying behavior and mental events.

18. Several months after his father's death, a man began thinking about Mr. Rogers, the former host of a popular children's television show: "He's getting pretty old; I'll bet that he will die soon." The man was shocked when he woke up the next morning and heard on the news that Mr. Rogers had died the night before. The man concluded that he must have had a psychic premonition concerning Mr. Rogers' death. What is the best comment to make about this conclusion?

B. We cannot conclude this because the effects of extraneous variables have not been controlled.

19. When testing a particular theory, which of the following should be the most important component of one's research?

B. ruling out alternative explanations

20. xxxx

Go to Section 1-3: Quiz Questions