1. Several weeks after being fired from a job he had held for over 20 years, Harold awoke one morning in a state of bewildered confusion. He had little sense of who he was and even failed to recognize his wife. Harold's experience is most indicative of a ________ disorder.
A. dissociative
B. phobic
C. generalized anxiety
D. mood
2. Carlos seems to be doing fine; he has a nice apartment, does his job well, and gets along with the people at work. But he feels miserable; he is filled with anxiety and a sense of dread, but is not sure why. Often he contemplates suicide. Which approach to defining mental disorders best fits Carlos?:
A. violation of cultural standards.
B. maladaptive behavior.
C. emotional distress.
D. the legal definition.
3. With regard to behavior, positive reinforcement is to negative reinforcement as
A. increase is to increase.
B. decrease is to decrease.
C. increase is to decrease.
D. reward is to punishment.
E. appetitive is to aversive.
4. What was Sigmund Freud's term for psychological energy?
A. libido
B. Thanatos
C. Eros
D. unconscious drive
5. Cognitive psychologists argue that short-term memory has the capacity to hold between five and _______ items of information.
A. six
B. seven
C. eight
D. nine
E. ten
6. Almost all research comparing the willingness of men and women to shock the learner in Milgram's experiment have found
A. that women are more willing to obey the experimenter than men.
B. that women are less willing to obey the experimenter than men.
C. that women were equally willing to obey the experimenter as men.
D. that women in other countries were less willing to obey the experimenter than men of other countries.
7. A flashbulb memory would typically be stored in ________ memory.
A. sensory
B. implicit
C. short-term
D. state-dependent
E. long-term
8. In classical conditioning, extinction occurs when
A. backward conditioning takes place.
B. a new CS is associated with the UCS.
C. the CS and the UCS are presented at the same time.
D. the CR and the UCS are no longer paired.
E. the CS and the UCS are no longer paired.
9. In the famous study of Little Albert, what was the unconditioned stimulus?
A. a dog
B. a white rat
C. a mask
D. a loud noise
E. jingling keys
10. Norbert, an 18-year-old college freshman, has missed almost all his classes during the past month. He spends most of his time in his bedroom, frequently not even bothering to get dressed or eat meals. He thinks his whole life has been a failure and blames himself for being a social misfit. Norbert is most likely suffering from:
A. conversion disorder.
B. an antisocial personality disorder.
C. a mood disorder.
D. hypochondriasis.
E. a panic attack.
11. Which schedule of reinforcement is used at the slot machines in Las Vegas?
A. fixed ratio
B. variable ratio
C. fixed interval
D. variable interval
12. Which of the following is true of cognitive schemas?
A. Cognitive schemas are developed primarily through automatic encoding.
B. Cognitive schemas are important for implicit memory but aren't involved in explicit memory.
C. Cognitive schemas always result is people retaining exact, verbatim records of what they've heard.
D. Cognitive schemas can lead to a distortion of new information that does not easily "fit" into an existing schema.
13. John has a negative attitude about most aspects of his life. He complains that his supervisor is demanding and criticizes him unfairly. He worries that if he quit he would not be able to find other employment. When his friends try to help him see the bright side of a situation he becomes angry. John would probably score high on the dimension of
A. introversion.
B. negative emotionality.
C. self-actualization.
D. secondary trait factors.
14. The term operant describes any behavior that is _______ emitted.
A. reflexively
B. frequently
C. freely
D. effortlessly
E. sporadically
15. There is _______ support for the Big Five approach to personality.
A. no
B. a modicum
C. moderate
D. strong
16. Compared with apartment dwellers whose landlords pay their energy costs, those apartment dwellers who pay their own energy costs use less energy. This most clearly illustrates that consumer energy usage is influenced by:
A. observational learning.
B. classical conditioning.
C. operant conditioning.
D. spontaneous recovery.
E. latent learning
17. Frank, an air traffic controller, runs 2 miles every day after work because it reduces his level of stress. Frank's running habit is maintained by a ________ reinforcer.
A. positive
B. negative
C. secondary
D. partial
18. Attribution theory concerns itself with the _______ of events.
A. causes
B. likelihood
C. sequence
D. complexity
E. symbolic nature
19. Before 1980, fewer than 200 cases of multiple personality had been diagnosed. After 1980, more than 30,000 cases have been reported. This example best exemplifies which criticism of the DSM?
A. It increases the risk of self-fulfilling prophecies.
B. It encourages overdiagnosis.
C. It confounds serious mental disorders with normal problems in living.
D. It implies that the subjective art of diagnosis can be objectively scientific.
20. After reading her diagnosis, a patient is able to see many of her behaviors as consistent with her diagnosis. This example best exemplifies which criticism of the DSM
A. It increases the incidence of overdiagnosis.
B. It confounds serious mental disorders with normal problems in living.
C. It increases the risk of self-fulfilling prophecies.
D. Diagnoses can be misused for social and political purposes.
21. A benefit of the self-serving bias, is that it
A. leads to more accurate attributions.
B. helps people rationalize their failure to take helpful action.
C. decreases the salaries of company heads in the U.S., by making them accountable for everything that happens to the company.
D. makes it possible for people to maintain self-esteem.
22. Freud believed that the _______ alone is present at birth.
A. id
B. ego
C. superego
D. conscious
E. preconscious
23. Carl Rogers held a(n) _______ view of human nature.
A. optimistic
B. pessimistic
C. indifferent
D. contradictory
24. Many psychologists in Oklahoma City have been working with survivors of the bombing of the Federal Building there. Many survivors report insomnia, intrusive thoughts, and a feeling of detachment from others. A likely diagnosis for many of these individuals would be
A. PTSD.
B. social phobia.
C. panic attack.
D. generalized anxiety disorder.
25. Research has shown that the _______ the group size, the _______ likely individuals are to help a stranger
A. smaller; more
B. larger; more
C. results are mixed
D. size doesn't matter
26. Suppose you are a letter carrier. On several occasions, a dog with a jingling collar attacks you and you are afraid. Later you become afraid when you hear a jingling sound. What is the unconditioned response (UCR)?
A. the attacking dog
B. the bag of mail
C. the initial fear
D. the jingling sound
E. the subsequent fear
27. Now that she is a happily married grandmother, Anna cannot remember the battering that occurred during her first marriage. Her loss of memory may be an example of
A. proactive interference.
B. a flashbulb memory.
C. motivated forgetting.
D. long-term potentiation.
28. The key word in defining a schema is
A. concrete.
B. accurate.
C. detailed.
D. vivid.
E. organized.
29. The _______ approach to abnormality explains problems as due to unconscious conflicts.
A. biological
B. psychodynamic
C. cognitive-behavioral
D. biopsychosocial
30. The infant Albert developed a fear of rats after a white rat was associated with a loud noise. In this example, fear of the white rat was the:
A. UCS.
B. UCR.
C. CS.
D. CR.
31.Becky is a graduate student who worked for Dr. Kohl for 6 months on a voluntary basis. Then Dr. Kohl got a grant and was able to pay Becky for doing the same work she had been doing as a volunteer. The grant only lasted for 6 months. At the end of that time, Becky probably
A. went back to her volunteer status, just as enthusiastically as before.
B. was much less enthusiastic about doing the work for no money.
C. increased her work output somewhat, even though she was no longer being paid.
D. greatly increased her work output, even though she was no longer being paid.
32. Social loafing refers to the finding that
A. group interaction inhibits creativity.
B. group interaction inhibits dissension.
C. leaders do NOT exert as much effort as group members.
D. personality characteristics predict which members of a group will NOT work as hard as others.
E. people in a group tend NOT to work as hard as when alone.
33. Some psychologists are skeptical that _______ actually exist(s).
A. hypochondriasis
B. bipolar disorder
C. conversion disorder
D. somatoform disorders
E. dissociative identity disorder
34. You are preparing to give a talk on preventing AIDS to a high school class. Your talk would be most effective in encouraging safe sex practices if it
A. were graphically horrifying.
B. were graphically horrifying, but with information about how to avoid the danger.
C. emphasized information about how to avoid the danger only.
D. made people moderately anxious and provided information about how to avoid the danger.
35. After watching a movie, research participants are asked to retell what they saw. The researcher finds that participants added to, eliminated pieces of, and rearranged aspects of what they saw. This demonstrates how memory is a
A. completely unreliable version of reality.
B. video camera that records everything.
C. series of detailed slides.
D. reconstructive process.
36. To study memory, Ebbinghaus used nonsense syllables because they
A. are easy to memorize.
B. are difficult to memorize.
C. are incapable of generating rules.
D. remove the influence of prior associations.
E. demonstrate the influence of proactive interference.
37. When four-year-old Sally announces that she is going to marry her daddy when she grows up, she is displaying behavior that would place her in which of Freud's psychosexual stages?
A. oral
B. phallic
C. genital
D. anal
38. Freire did very poorly on his last arithmetic test. The tendency to make the fundamental attribution error might lead his sixth-grade teacher to conclude that Freire did poorly because:
A. he is unmotivated to do well in school.
B. the test covered material that had not been adequately covered in class.
C. his parents had an argument the evening before the test.
D. he was not given enough time to complete the test.
39. From about age six to puberty, children pass through the _______ stage of psychosexual development.
A. phallic
B. latency
C. oral
D. genital
E. anal
40. According to research by Asch, if one person in a group dissents from the majority, conformity on the part of others will
A. remain the same.
B. decrease slightly.
C. increase slightly.
D. increase dramatically.
E. decrease dramatically.