Final Practice Exam

Before a job interview, a man's palms sweat and his stomach knots for hours. In this course's terms, which statement correctly separates the stressor from the stress?

Select one.

• The sweating palms are the stressor, and the interview is the stress
• The interview and the sweating palms are both stressors, since both of them set off a response in his body
• The interview is the stressor, and the sweating palms and knotted stomach are the stress
• The interview is the stress, and the knotted stomach is the stressor

In Milgram's 1963 baseline study, 14 of the 40 participants stopped before reaching the 450-volt switch. What percentage of participants stopped early?

Select one.

• 35%
• 14%
• 65%
• 40%

A 5-year-old sees two equal rows of 6 coins, then watches one row get spread out wider and says the longer row has more coins. Using boundary ages of about 2, 7, and 11, which stage is the child in, and what does the answer reveal?

Select one.

• Preoperational stage; the child does not yet have conservation
• Concrete operational stage; the child has conservation
• Sensorimotor stage; object permanence is still being built
• Formal operational stage; the child reasons about a hypothetical

A new neighbor is tall, runs every morning, and talks about training schedules over dinner. The city has many more accountants than professional athletes, yet a coworker decides the neighbor must be a professional athlete. Which heuristic is the coworker using, and what does it overlook?

Select one.

• The representativeness heuristic, which overlooks how common each occupation is
• The availability heuristic, which overlooks how memorable professional athletes are
• Confirmation bias, which overlooks evidence against the coworker's first guess
• Anchoring, which overlooks how far a first guess pulled the coworker's estimate

Two shoppers wait in the same long checkout line. Marisol taps her foot and checks the time but is angry at no one. Greg mutters that the cashiers are incompetent, glares at other shoppers, and is still fuming an hour later. Based on how research narrowed the Type A finding, which statement is best supported?

Select one.

• Marisol shows the risk, because time urgency is the core of the Type A pattern
• Greg shows hostility, the component most consistently associated with heart disease
• Both carry equal risk, because both fit the Type A pattern
• Neither shows any risk, because the Type A idea was disproved

During the Strange Situation procedure, a toddler fusses and cries when his father steps out of the playroom. On the father's return, the boy runs to him, settles within a minute, and goes back to stacking blocks. How is his attachment classified, and why?

Select one.

• Insecure, because crying at the separation shows he cannot manage without his father
• Secure, because he cried more loudly than most toddlers when his father left
• Insecure, because a securely attached toddler would stay calm when the caregiver leaves
• Secure, because he seeks comfort at the reunion, calms, and returns to play

A parent keeps a notebook of how an infant's speech changes over the first few years of life. Which sequence should the notebook entries follow?

Select one.

• Babbling, one-word speech, two-word speech, telegraphic speech
• One-word speech, babbling, two-word speech, telegraphic speech
• Babbling, two-word speech, telegraphic speech, one-word speech
• Babbling, telegraphic speech, one-word speech, two-word speech

In an illustrative sample of 40 office workers, weekly hours of exercise and a mood rating show r = 0.52. A bout of illness could lead a worker both to exercise less and to feel worse. Which conclusion does this study support?

Select one.

• In this sample, more exercise was associated with better mood, and illness is a possible third variable
• More exercise caused the better moods
• Illness caused both the low exercise and the low moods
• Exercise and mood are unrelated in this sample, because the existence of a third variable cancels out the correlation

Two neighbors both go through a painful divorce in the same year. Only the neighbor whose parent and grandparent lived with anxiety disorders goes on to develop lasting anxiety. What does the diathesis–stress model say about this?

Select one.

• The divorce alone caused the anxiety, so the family history played no part
• A vulnerability and the stress acted together; usually neither alone is enough
• The family history alone caused the anxiety, so the divorce played no part
• The sibling who developed anxiety did not try hard enough to cope, a weakness of character

A cyclist falls hard on a busy downtown sidewalk, and dozens of people walk past without stopping. On a quiet side street, the single person who sees a similar fall calls for help right away. Which idea best explains the difference?

Select one.

• Deindividuation: people in the crowd lost self-awareness and felt anonymous
• Diffusion of responsibility: with many onlookers, each feels less responsible to act
• Group polarization: talk within the crowd pushed people toward not helping
• Social facilitation: the crowd made the simple task of calling for help easier

A city with 50,000 registered voters picks 400 names at random from the full voter list, then uses a random number generator to decide which of those 400 receive a postcard reminder. What does the random selection of the 400 names accomplish?

Select one.

• It lets the city generalize its results to all registered voters
• It lets the city claim the postcard caused any difference in turnout
• It makes the turnout measure more consistent from one election to the next
• It removes the need for a group that receives no postcard

A flashcard set on the five-factor model has one card per dimension. Which card names something that is NOT one of the Big Five dimensions?

Select one.

• Optimism
• Openness
• Extraversion
• Agreeableness

Two clinics advertise the same kind of knee procedure. One brochure says it has a "95% success rate," and the other says it has a "5% failure rate." A reader decides the first clinic's procedure is far safer. What best describes the two brochures?

Select one.

• They state the same outcome, so preferring one wording shows a framing effect
• They describe different outcomes, so the reader's preference is sound
• They state the same outcome, so preferring one wording shows anchoring
• They describe different outcomes, so the preference shows overconfidence

After a reader's retina transduces the light reflected from a page of print, which part of the brain receives and processes that visual information?

Select one.

• The frontal lobe
• The occipital lobe
• The temporal lobe, which handles hearing
• The cerebellum

After a week of news coverage about a plane crash, a traveler decides to drive across the state instead of taking a short flight, even though the long drive is the riskier way to travel. What best explains the traveler's judgment?

Select one.

• The crash makes flying resemble a typical dangerous activity, so representativeness is at work
• The coverage frames the drive as a gain, so the flight feels like a loss
• The traveler already distrusted planes and noticed only the stories that fit
• Vivid, recent coverage makes crashes easy to recall, and that ease feels like frequency

A phone app asks a volunteer to tap the screen the moment a circle turns green, and it logs nine taps (illustrative numbers constructed for this course, not real data), in milliseconds: 268, 301, 245, 333, 290, 252, 319, 277, and 296. How far apart are the slowest and the fastest taps, that is, what is the range in milliseconds? Enter the number only.

Type a short answer.

A salesperson earns a bonus after an unpredictable number of sales calls, sometimes on the third call and sometimes on the twentieth. Which schedule is this, and what is it known for?

Select one.

• Variable-ratio, known for high response rates that resist extinction
• Fixed-ratio, known for the steadiest responding because the bonus is predictable
• Fixed-interval, because the bonus depends on how much time has gone by
• Variable-interval, because the bonus depends on unpredictable stretches of time

A neighborhood group first asks residents to put a small "Drive Slowly" sticker on their mailbox. Weeks later, it asks the same residents to place a large sign on their lawn, and most who took the sticker agree. Which idea does this illustrate?

Select one.

• Normative social influence
• The peripheral route to persuasion
• The foot-in-the-door phenomenon
• Social facilitation

Galanter (1962) also described a person in a quiet room hearing a clock tick from about 20 feet away. Which concept does this example illustrate?

Select one.

• The difference threshold
• Perceptual constancy
• The absolute threshold
• Sensory adaptation

Which researcher opened the Leipzig laboratory where trained observers reported their conscious experience while instruments timed their reactions, the event most often treated as the founding of experimental psychology?

Select one.

• Edward Titchener
• Wilhelm Wundt
• William James
• Sigmund Freud

Illustrative data on 20 employees show r = 0.7210 between weekly overtime hours and the number of sick days taken in a year. Which of these could explain the association without overtime itself causing sick days? Select all that apply.

Select every option that applies.

• Because 0.7210 is above 0.5, the overtime must be what causes the sick days
• A demanding department could lead to both more overtime and more illness
• Employees who miss days could work extra hours afterward to catch up
• Because employees chose their own overtime, they were randomly assigned
• Lower pay could lead some employees both to take overtime and to put off medical care

In an illustrative study, a coin flip placed each of 120 volunteers into a group that napped for 20 minutes or a group that read quietly for 20 minutes. Afterward, 70% of the nappers and 45% of the readers solved a puzzle. What feature of the design lets the researchers say the nap caused the difference?

Select one.

• The large number of volunteers in each group
• Random sampling of the volunteers from a whole population
• The use of a puzzle instead of a real-world task
• Random assignment of volunteers to the two groups

A team lead has each of 3 new hires rated on all five Big Five dimensions. How many dimension ratings are recorded altogether?

Select one.

• 8
• 15
• 5
• 25

A reviewer complains that a psychodynamic account can explain any result once it has happened: a person who argues with a parent and a person who avoids that parent can both be said to be showing a defense. Which feature of a scientific claim does the reviewer say is lacking?

Select one.

• Agreement between two independent scorers
• A sample large enough to detect a real effect
• Random assignment of participants to conditions
• Falsifiability, being open to disproof by data

Hermann Ebbinghaus tested his own memory by learning lists of nonsense syllables and then learning the same lists again after a delay. How did he turn "memory" into something he could measure?

Select one.

• By counting how many syllables he could still picture in detail a week later
• By percent savings, the reduction in time needed to relearn a list
• By how sure he felt that each list was still in his memory
• By how many new lists he could learn within one session

An office worker skips breakfast and works through lunch, and by midafternoon he can think of little but food. Which hormone is most likely climbing, and where is it mainly released?

Select one.

• Ghrelin, released mainly by the stomach, signaling hunger
• Leptin, released mainly by the stomach, signaling hunger
• Ghrelin, released mainly by fat cells, signaling fullness
• Leptin, released by fat cells, signaling hunger

A student guesses whether more English words start with the letter k or have k as their third letter, and picks "start with k" because such words pop into mind faster. Of encoding, storage, and retrieval, which process is this guess relying on?

Select one.

• Storage, because words kept in memory the longest seem the most common
• Retrieval, because words that come to mind quickly seem more common
• Encoding, because only words that were learned deeply can be counted
• No memory process, because the guess is a judgment based on resemblance

For most of a school year, a single parent works two jobs while a child recovers from surgery, keeping up with every bill and appointment on a steady flow of stress hormones and appearing to cope well. Which stage of the general adaptation syndrome is this?

Select one.

• The alarm reaction
• The resistance stage
• The exhaustion stage of prolonged stress
• The recovery stage

A student hears a new classmate's name at the start of class, keeps it in mind through the lecture, and calls it up to say goodbye afterward. Which list names the memory processes in the order the student used them?

Select one.

• Storage, then encoding, then retrieval
• Retrieval, then encoding, then storage
• Encoding, then storage, then retrieval
• Encoding, then retrieval, and storage last

Once a neurotransmitter has carried its message across the synaptic gap, some molecules are left over in the gap. What is reuptake?

Select one.

• Sending the electrical impulse along the axon toward its terminal buttons
• Wrapping the axon in fat so the impulse moves faster
• Pulling the leftover molecules back into the sending neuron
• Releasing new molecules from the next cell's dendrites

A retiree spends hours each week tending a community garden, gives away every vegetable, and expects no payment, thanks, or award. Why is this hard for incentive theory to explain?

Select one.

• Because gardening reduces a biological need for food
• Because no outside reward is pulling the behavior
• Because gardening is an instinct shared by the whole species
• Because the retiree's arousal is too low for an easy task

A friend argues, "Whether a toddler grows up speaking Korean or Spanish is pure nurture, so biology has nothing to do with language." Which reply best reflects how developmental psychology handles the nature and nurture question?

Select one.

• Your friend is right, because the particular language a child speaks is learned entirely from the people at home
• Language is all nature, because every typically developing child in every culture learns to talk
• Nature and nurture interact: children are born ready to acquire language, and experience decides which one
• The question is about continuity versus stages, not about nature and nurture

For months, a shopper has felt sudden surges of intense fear in crowded stores, and she now has her groceries delivered to avoid going inside. Which statement reasons about this the way the course does?

Select one.

• The shopper has panic disorder, so she should begin medication right away
• The shopper is an anxiety case, since all three D's are present and have lasted for months
• The pattern fits the anxiety-disorders category, but only a professional can diagnose
• The pattern cannot be placed in any category until she avoids even more places

Bandura's social-cognitive approach explains personality through what people learn from their surroundings and through their beliefs about their own abilities. Of the course's six perspectives, which two does it most directly draw together?

Select one.

• The behavioral and the cognitive perspectives
• The humanistic and the biological perspectives
• The biological and the sociocultural perspectives
• The psychodynamic and the humanistic perspectives

Fastening a seat belt stops the car's loud warning chime, and over time the driver buckles up sooner after getting in. Which consequence is this?

Select one.

• Negative reinforcement: the chime is removed, and buckling increases
• Positive punishment, because an unpleasant chime is part of the situation
• Negative punishment, because something is taken away
• Positive reinforcement, because feeling safe is pleasant

Decades after a house fire, a man can still describe the smell of the smoke and the color of the flames in vivid detail. Which brain structure is most associated with strengthening memories that carry this kind of emotional charge?

Select one.

• The amygdala, which is central to fear and strengthens emotional memories
• The cerebellum, which coordinates movement and balance and supports learning motor skills
• The thalamus, which relays incoming sensory messages
• The occipital lobe, which processes vision

Hikers on a trail at twilight can still make out the shape of the path and a deer moving through the trees, but the wildflowers' colors look gray. Why?

Select one.

• Cones need bright light for color, while dim-light rods carry no color
• Rods carry color, but twilight is too dark for them to work
• The lens can no longer focus light on the retina at twilight
• The occipital lobe adapts to the flowers and stops registering their color

Every time a cat's owner shakes the treat bag, treats follow, and after many pairings the cat licks its lips at the rattle alone. In this example, which is the conditioned stimulus (CS)?

Select one.

• The treats themselves
• Licking its lips at the taste and smell of the treats
• Licking its lips at the rattle of the bag
• The rattle of the treat bag after the pairings

Two coworkers learn they will each present to the company's board the next morning. One feels a surge of energy and rehearses with focus; the other spends the night dreading it and barely sleeps. According to the appraisal model, what best explains the difference?

Select one.

• One presentation was harder, so it was a larger stressor
• Each coworker appraised the same kind of event differently, as a challenge or as a threat
• Only one coworker's sympathetic nervous system responded
• The second coworker had already reached the exhaustion stage of the general adaptation syndrome

A 16-digit gift-card code held one digit at a time is 16 items. If you hold it instead as four groups of 4 digits, how many chunks is it, and does that fit Cowan's (2010) working-memory estimate of about 4 ± 1 chunks?

Select one.

• 16 chunks, which is well above the range of 3 to 5
• 4 chunks, which is below the range
• 4 chunks, which is inside the range of 3 to 5
• 8 chunks, which is above the range