AP Psych Unit 1

Participants were asked to rate the importance of achieving honor-roll status. Researchers found that students from smaller families rated the importance more highly than students from larger families. The research team concluded that a student’s attitude toward school achievement is the result of family size. Which of the following is the most important error made by the research team?

• Failing to randomly assign participants to conditions

• Generalizing from extreme examples

• Perceiving order in random events

• Assuming that correlation proves causation

• Using self-report data

Clinical researchers are interested in gaining insight into the causes of abnormal behavior. One way that they do this is to delve deeply into the histories of patients with a common diagnosis, interviewing family, friends, teachers, therapists, physicians, babysitters, and others who can provide rich details about the patients’ lives. Then, researchers try to see if there are any common themes in the information gathered. What research method does this strategy represent?

• Naturalistic observation

• Quantitative analysis

• Quasi-experiment

• Case study

• Experiment

Humanists would most likely criticize behaviorists on the grounds that behaviorism

• relies on methodologies that are too subjective to yield reliable data

• focuses too much on the drive toward self-actualization

• rejects free will and focuses solely on observable experiences

• overemphasizes cognitive processes involved in personality development

• is only concerned with elements of personality that develop from repressed trauma

A researcher is studying the effect of caffeinated drinks on the activity level of ten-year-old children. Half of the children in the study drank caffeinated soda, and half drank noncaffeinated soda. Neither the research team nor the children knew which drinks had caffeine and which drinks did not. The researchers were using

• a double-blind design

• a single-blind design

• random selection

• the placebo effect

• a correlational study

Margaret is beginning to plan a research project for her psychology class. She wants to examine whether there is a difference between boys and girls in terms of the frequency with which they throw away their trash in the school cafeteria after they have finished eating lunch. Which of the following methodologies would most accurately measure the behavior of interest in Margaret’s study?

• Factor analysis

• Experimentation

• Naturalistic observation

• Case study

• Survey

Which of the following scenarios is regulated by federal law?

• Dr. Ortega, a psychologist, is seeing the Anconas for couples therapy and decides he needs to see them each individually in addition to seeing them as a couple.

• Dr. Kite, a psychologist, is a member of both the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Association for Psychological Science (APS).

• Dr. James, a psychologist, is friends with Ms. Smith, whose daughter needs psychological treatment. Ms. Smith asks Dr. James whether he would counsel her daughter.

• Nona, a college student, conducts an experiment without gaining permission from either her professor or the head of the psychology department at her university.

• Dr. Mast, a psychologist, has a client, Tim, who threatens to seriously harm his brother, Carl. Tim has a history of serious violence and the means to carry out the threat; therefore, Dr. Mast must inform Carl.

Dr. Barak’s research focuses on how neurochemical makeup affects cognition, behavior, and emotion. Dr. Barak’s approach is most likely

• cognitive

• psychodynamic

• family systems

• behavioral

• biological

There is a strong positive correlation between ice cream sales and instances of snakebites. Which of the following is the most likely explanation for this correlation?

• Ice cream sales lead to people being outside more, which can potentially lead to snakebites.

• Snake bites cause humans to crave ice cream.

• Hot weather is related to both ice cream sales and snake activity.

• Ice cream sales cause humans to become more attractive to snakes.

• Increased traffic due to ice cream trucks disturbs the snakes, causing them to attack.

What is the best way to ensure that results of a study are generalizable to a population?

• By making sure to use as many participants as possible

• By using a random selection of people in that population

• By using random assignment

• By making sure to use an equal number of men and women

• By making sure the results are significant

A researcher finds a .50 correlation between college grades and income at age 30. Which of the following interpretations of these data is correct?

• High intelligence causes both higher grades and higher incomes.

• Good grades in college and high incomes are related.

• Earning good grades in college causes higher incomes in adulthood.

• Half of the income of employees who are age 30 can be explained by their college grades.

• There is no relationship between college grades and income at age 30.