Psych Unit 1 Overview

Psychology is defined as:

• The study of the brain

• The scientific study of behavior

• The study of the mind

• The scientific study of behavior and mental processes

If a psychologist tried explaining the cause of a child's behavior by evaluating their brain chemistry and physical abnormalities, they are looking through which perspective?

• Cognitive

• Biological

• Socio-cultural

• Psychodynamic

A psychologist who believes that one's childhood events and unconscious thoughts can influence their behavior would support which perspective?

• Humanistic

• Evolutionary

• Psychodynamic

• Cognitive

Karly acts out in class because her parents are going through a divorce, she is moving homes, and doesn't feel stable in her life (stability is a "need"). Which perspective does this relate to the most?

• Biology

• Evolutionary

• Socio-cultural

• Humanistic

Tom is doing a study on how reading skills influence academic success. These two variables would like have what type of correlation?

• Positive

• Negative

• None

Harold wants to investigate levels of happiness in the United States. He chooses to look at a number of previously conducted studies and combines that information into this own paper. This is called:

• Longitudinal

• Cross-sectional

• Meta-analysis

• Survey

Tina wants to study how immigrants adjust to life in the U.S. She interviews immigrants who moved here within the last 2 years, immigrants who have been here for 5 years, and immigrants who have been here for 10 plus years. Which method is this?

• Observation

• Correlation

• Case Study

• Cross-sectional

A teacher wanted to see the impact between exercise and cognitive functioning. She had half of her students do 2 minutes of jumping jacks before taking a test and the other half did not. In this study, what is the IV and DV?

• Exercise; Cognitive Functioning

• Jumping Jacks; Exercise

• Test Scores; Exercise

• Group doing jumping jacks; Group not doing jumping jacks

In the jumping jack scenario, how did she operationally define "exercise"

• 5 minutes of increased heart rate

• 2 minutes of jumping jacks

• Final score on test

• If they took gym class previously

In the jumping jack example, the amount students studied, their attention level in class, if they ate breakfast, and if they got sleep could all be examples of:

• Operational Definitions

• Placebos

• Hawthorne Effect

• Confounding Variables