Chapter 1 PRACTICE TEST

Take this practice test to make sure you learned the information in this chapter. See Appendix B for answers.

  1. Linda is a psychologist. During her day at work, she is most likely to ______.
    1. research thought processes
    2. investigate export policies
    3. study trends in foreign markets
    4. interpret a European burial site
    Answer Answer

    A: As a psychologist, Linda researches thought processes. Psychology is the scientific study of mental activity and behavior, which are based on brain processes. (See study unit 1.1.)

  2. This text provides information about psychological research that reveals six strategies for learning to learn that will help you improve your performance in any of your college classes. If you believe that you can learn these strategies, use them to get better at studying, and be more successful in college, then you are already embracing the strategy called ______.
    1. selective attention
    2. cues
    3. growth mindset
    4. elaboration
    Answer Answer

    C: When you have a growth mindset, you choose to believe that you can do better in gaining knowledge or acquiring a skill even if doing so is challenging or has been difficult in the past. (See study unit 1.2.)

  3. Your teenaged son says, “This new TikTok says that if you dream about your own death then you actually die in real life.” Because you have read Chapter 1 of this textbook and know how to follow the three steps in critical thinking, you tell your son that the first thing he must do is ______.
    1. conduct empirical research on the topic
    2. investigate whether the source of the claim is believable
    3. determine whether there is strong evidence for the claim
    4. explore whether other believable sources agree about the claim
    Answer Answer

    B: The first of the three steps of critical thinking is to determine whether the source making the claim is believable. In this case, the answer is “no” because TikTok is not a trusted source of scientific information. (See study unit 1.6.)

  4. Dr. El-Khadra is a psychologist who investigates how teenagers with mental health challenges such as anxiety and depression also have significant changes in their brains that last into adulthood. Based on this description of Dr. El-Khadra’s research interests, it is most likely she investigates this topic in _____domain of psychology.
    1. the mental and physical health
    2. the developmental
    3. the biological
    4. more than one
    Answer Answer

    D: Dr. El-Khadra’s research most likely spans three domains of psychology because it explores anxiety and depression (mental and physical health domain) from when people are teenagers to adults (developmental domain) based on changes in their brains (biological domain). (See study unit 1.5.)

  5. The fact that psychologists today should work to understand psychological phenomena across as many different types of people as possible reflects the importance of ______ in psychological research.
    1. diversity
    2. self-regulated learning
    3. domains
    4. ethics
    Answer Answer

    A: Diversity refers to differences between people that become apparent in a specific context. Diversity includes having diverse participants in psychological research. (See study unit 1.6.)

  6. Nancy is conducting a study on how couples communicate. However, she does not have the money to conduct laboratory tests, so she decides to collect data by observing arguments that couples have. To ensure that she does not violate the ethics standard of privacy from the institutional review board, Nancy must ______.
    1. always keep the couples’ personal information secret
    2. always obtain informed consent from the couples
    3. observe couples only in public settings
    4. observe couples only in their own homes
    Answer Answer

    C: According to the ethical standards regarding privacy, the couples in a study of this kind must be observed in public settings only, not in private settings. (See study unit 1.7.)

  7. Simon, a psychologist, studies whether people who watch a greater amount of TV are more likely to be good at memorizing visual information than those who watch less TV. To investigate this testable ______, Simon uses the number of remembered visually presented words as the ______ of the amount of TV watching.
    1. theory; independent variable
    2. hypothesis; dependent variable
    3. theory; dependent variable
    4. hypothesis; independent variable
    Answer Answer

    B: Simon has come up with a specific, testable prediction—a hypothesis. He is using the number of words remembered during a visual task as the dependent variable that will let him measure his participants’ visual memories. (See study unit 1.8.)

  8. Julia wants to study whether children in public playgrounds tend to play with children of their own gender. To begin her study, Julia goes to the local playground, watches the kids for about 20 minutes, and takes notes on what she sees. Julia is conducting her research by using the descriptive method of a(n) ______.
    1. self-report
    2. case study
    3. experiment
    4. observational study
    Answer Answer

    D: By closely watching the children and not manipulating any variables, Julia is using one of the three descriptive methods, an observational study. (See study unit 1.9.)

  9. Keyshawn learns that, according to psychology research, students’ active reading is related to their getting higher quiz scores. The research method used to get these data must have been a(n) ______ method.
    1. observational study
    2. correlational
    3. case study
    4. experimental
    Answer Answer

    B: Because the research shows a relationship between two variables (reading actively and higher quiz grades), a correlational method was used. (See study unit 1.10.)

  10. Dr. Chen designs an experiment to study whether people who smile in photos are considered more attractive. His participants see photographs of the same people with a neutral facial expression and when smiling. Dr. Chen asks participants to rate the attractiveness of the person in each photograph. In this experiment, the participants seeing the neutral faces are the ______, and the participants seeing the smiling faces are the ______.
    1. control group; experimental group
    2. dependent variable; independent variable
    3. experimental group; control group
    4. independent variable; dependent variable
    Answer Answer

    A: Remember that the control group receives the baseline condition (seeing photos of people with a neutral facial expression) whereas the experimental group gets the treatment of interest (seeing photos of the same people smiling) to determine which people are rated as more attractive. (See study unit 1.11.)