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Psych GRE Practice
Practice questions from the test
108
Psychology
Undergraduate 4
04/09/2010

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Term
What is a defining difference between major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder?
Definition
Major depressive disorder involves only depressive symptoms, but bipolar disorder involves both manic and depressive symptoms.
Term
What is an example of recognition testing?
Definition
"Is this word one of the words I showed you earlier?"
Term
In a memory experiment, participants study 2 lists of unrelated words. Experimental group gets list 1, then 2, each for 3 min. Control group gets irrelevant pictures first, then list 2 for 3 min each. What results would be expected?
Definition
The control group will recall more items from list 2 than the experimental group.
Term
What is characterized by a long history of dramatic complaints about faked medical conditions?
Definition
Factitious disorder
Term
What is the incorrect intervention for Encopresis?
Definition
Rational-emotive behavior therapy
Term
Object relations therapy is most closely related to what?
Definition
Psychoanalysis
Term
Prosopagnosia results in an inability to do what?
Definition
Detect individual differences among faces.
Term
What is most likely to occur quickly when cocaine blocks the reuptake of norpinephrine and dopamine?
Definition
Prolongation of the effects of norepinephrine and dopamine at the synapse.
Term
Which phenomena describes the following?: A pigeon was rewarded every 20 sec. regardless of behavior. By end of experiment, frequency of pigeon's grooming responses had significantly increased.
Definition
Superstitious behavior
Term
2 groups of rats are exposed to shock (US) and flashing blue light (CS). Group 1 had prior exposure to shock and light, but was at random, unrelated times. Group 2 had no prior exposure. Freezing in presence of light is CR. What happens when both groups are presented the blue light without shock?
Definition
The second group will freeze, because the flashing light is a more valid predictor of shock for that group.
Term
Longitudinal and cross-sectional research designs can be used to study how behavior changes as a function of age. A disadvantage of cross-sectional studies is that the results can be influenced by what?
Definition
Cohort differences.
Term
A cognitive theory of gender-role development would most likely state what?
Definition
Children are motivated to act in gender-consistent ways because they try to conform to their own gender schemas.
Term
Research indicates that the words in the young language learner's lexicon are most likely to be what?
Definition
Nouns referencing familiar objects in the environment.
Term
In studies by Stanley Milgram and his colleagues, which factor tended to elicit a relatively low level of obedience?
Definition
An authority figure (experimenter) in another room gave instructions to the "teacher" (participant).
Term
One could use the empathy-altruism hypothesis to explain what?
Definition
The foundation of reducing prejudice.
Term
In a job interview, Kathy tells her prospective employer that she once found a bag of money and returned it even though she desperately needed the money to pay her rent. Kathy's behavior during the interview illustrates what?
Definition
Supplication
Term
The auditory and vestibular systems are alike in that they both depend on what?
Definition
Hair cells to transduce the proximal stimulus into neural activity.
Term
The auditory and vestibular systems are alike in that they both depend on what?
Definition
Hair cells to transduce the proximal stimulus into neural activity.
Term
On a dark night, you spot a faint light, just to the right of your focal point. When you look directly at it, it disappears. Why?
Definition
Rods allow you to see in poorly lit environments, and rods are not present in the fovea.
Term
An experimenter who incorrectly rejects the null hypothesis commits what kind of error?
Definition
Type 1
Term
"Purposive behaviorism" and "sign-gestalt learning" are used to describe the learning theory developed by which psychologist?
Definition
Edward C. Tolman
Term
Mary has an identical twin sister who has schizophrenia. Is she at a higher risk of developing it too, more-so than her other family members?
Definition
Yes
Term
A professor is developing a theory of personality based on B.F. Skinner's principles. The concept that will be central to this theory is what?
Definition
Reinforcement contingencies.
Term
Which theorist proposes confrontation, avoidance, and seeking social support as the ways people cope with anxiety?
Definition
Erik Erikson
Term
One of the most common tactics in personality research is to assess traits. The most fundamental characteristic of traits is that they are what?
Definition
Inferences based on behavior.
Term
Attempting to describe or understand conscious experience was of LEAST importance to whom?
Definition
The early behaviorists, such as John B. Watson
Term
According to educational psychologists, cooperative learning involves what?
Definition
Joint effort among students.
Term
One of the fundamental assumptions of the behaviorist approach is what?
Definition
That the probability of a behavior depends on past consequences of that behavior.
Term
A 40-item vocab test was administered to a group of students. A second, similar test of vocab terms was administered to the same group approx. 1 week later. There was a correlation: r=.90. What can be stated regarding the two tests?
Definition
They have strong reliability.
Term
On an attitude scale, the consecutively ordered scale points 1 thru 7 represent different degrees of attitude strength, but the distance between any 2 adjacent scale points remains undetermined. This scale can be said to have the properties of what?
Definition
An ordinal scale.
Term
A correlation of .20 is found between education and income in a representative sample of city x. However, the correlation is not statistically significant. On the basis of this outcome alone, what conclusion is most warranted?
Definition
No significant relation between education and income was established.
Term
It's generally harder to parse a sentence in a passive voice, such as "The cat was chased by the dog", than a corresponding on in the active voice, such as "The dog chased the cat". However, the sentence "The elephant squashed the peanut" is no harder to process than "The peanut was squashed by the elephant". These examples provide support for what view?
Definition
We use semantics as a guide to parsing.
Term
Pat and Chris are eating dinner. Pat asks, "Do you have any salt?" Chris replies "Yes" and continues to eat. Psychologists who study language would say that Chris has committed which type of error?
Definition
Pragmatic
Term
How many morphemes are there in the word "dreamers"?
Definition
3
Term
Kevin is 12 months old and has never seen a cat. When he first sees one, Kevin seems startled, but he looks at his mother to see how she is responding. This is an example of what?
Definition
Social referencing
Term
Lawrence Kohlberg's and Carol Gilligan's theories of moral development are driven by different values. What are they?
Definition
Kohlberg = Motivation
Gilligan = Rationality
Term
A preschool child says, "The sun is sad today". The child is demonstrating what concept?
Definition
Animism
Term
A woman helps her daughter tie her shoes by providing a good deal of help at first, then providing less and less until the child is able to do it by herself. What is this an example of?
Definition
Scaffolding
Term
Failure of dopamine produced in the substantia nigra to reach the basal ganglia of the cerebral hemispheres results in symptoms of tremor, rigidity, akinesia, and disturbances of posture. What is this syndrome?
Definition
Parkinson's disease
Term
Jack has an irresistible urge to check his door lock exactly 5 times before he goes to bed. Although he realizes that his behavior is excessive and irrational, he feels quite anxious unless he performs this task in exactly the same manner each night. Jack's behavior is an example of what?
Definition
A compulsion
Term
Shannon feels helpless, worthless and apathetic and thinks her life is without meaning. What type of medication would she most likely benefit from?
Definition
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI)
Term
According to ethologists, fixed patterns of responses to particular classes of stimuli usually occur as a result of what?
Definition
Innate releasing mechanisms
Term
What part of the nervous system primarily deals with visceral muscles and glands?
Definition
Autonomic system
Term
Saltatory conduction in a neuron is a process where what happens?
Definition
An action potential jumps from node to node in a myelinated axon.
Term
What brain structure plays a crucial role in regulating and moderating an organism's emotional responses and learning about emotional events?
Definition
Amygdala
Term
2 strangers, Lisa and Henry, were both watching a large building being imploded. At the implosion they became attracted to each other and began dating. Lisa and Henry's attraction is best explained by what effect?
Definition
Excitation-transfer
Term
People from collectivist cultures are more likely than people from individualistic cultures to engage in what behaviors?
Definition
Defining the self in relation to others.
Term
Research on social cognition best supports what conclusion?
Definition
Social concepts used frequently by an individual in the past are likely to influence the individual's future social cognitions.
Term
What helps us locate the direction from which a sound is coming?
Definition
The sound typically reaches the two ears at different times.
Term
We often perceive what we expect to perceive. The influence of expectation on perception is an example of what? *Two profiles/vase figure*
Definition
Top-down processing
Term
Psychologists studying sensation and perception are interested in research on phantom limb pain because such research does what?
Definition
Points out that pain can be perceived even when pain receptors are not being stimulated.
Term
The use of "private speech" by preschool children best supports what conclusion?
Definition
It can enhance children's understanding of their immediate situations and help them make decisions as they talk to themselves.
Term
According to research regarding the significance of birth order during adolescence, what comment would most likely be made by a father concerning his eldest child?
Definition
"I don't know where she finds the time for her homework and all of her extracurricular activities".
Term
The symbolic play of children is considered very important in their development, primarily because it reflects what?
Definition
The ability to have one object or concept stand for another.
Term
On a test with a positively skewed distribution, one student received the mean, one received the median, and one the mode. Which score has the highest percentile ranking?
Definition
The mean.
Term
A marketing company rewards associates with a bonus for every 15 surveys they complete. What schedule of reinforcement are they implementing?
Definition
Fixed ratio
Term
A father has been trying to get his son to clean up his room each week. The child was told he would not have to wash the dishes on Saturday if he did not clean his room by the end of the week. The father is using what type of learning?
Definition
Avoidance learning
Term
Bill obtained a raw score of 30 on the midterm exam. If the mean was 25 and standard deviation was 5, Bill's t-score would be what?
Definition
60
Term
What is NOT an important component of Martin Fishbein and Icek Aizen's theory of reasoned action/planned behavior?
Definition
Peripheral persuasion cues
Term
Contemporary theories of work motivation, such as equity theory and expectancy theory, assume that what element is central to motivated behavior?
Definition
Cognitive factors
Term
A theorist who concludes that predictions about behavior depend on info about the situation and traits that characterize a person assumes what type of approach?
Definition
Interactionist
Term
Encoding of new memories is most likely to be disrupted by damage to what structure?
Definition
Hippocampus
Term
"If you help me study for this exam, I will help you fix your car" is an example of what?
Definition
Social exchange
Term
Implementation of a double-blind procedure would be most difficult in studying the behavioral effects of what?
Definition
Psychotherapy
Term
Research suggests that young girls who frequently watch television are more likely than other young girls to be highly gender stereotyped. We CANNOT conclude that television viewing leads to increased gender stereotyping in girls. Why?
Definition
Because the study is an example of an illusory correlation.
Term
The most appropriate way for researchers to assess participants' implicit memory of a short essay would be to ask them to do what?
Definition
Read the essay again, and see whether the participants read it faster than a comparable, but unfamiliar, essay
Term
On Tuesday, Sam had fish for dinner. On Wednesday, he didn't think about Tuesday's dinner at all. On Thursday, he thought about how good the fish had tasted on Tuesday. On Wednesday, therefore, Sam's memory of Tuesday's dinner was represented in what type of memory?
Definition
Episodic memory
Term
What is an essential feature of a "distributed system", such as parallel distributed processing (PDP)?
Definition
New concepts are learned via connection weights that cause a pattern of activation.
Term
What is a valid criticism for a study that gives participants a medication and tells them it should help them perform better on a test?
Definition
Participants knew the medication was supposed to help them, so they might have tried harder on the tests.
Term
What is an example of a delusion?
Definition
Being erroneously convinced that one's neighbors are plotting to take over the world.
Term
Research by Jerome Kagan and others has revealed that some young children have stronger physiological reactions to new situations than others. Children with these stronger physiological reactions are also more likely than other children to display what?
Definition
Shyness
Term
Adrenocortiotropic hormone (ACTH) is secreted by what organ?
Definition
Pituitary gland
Term
A drug is classified as a neurotransmitter agonist. One way in which this drug could affect synaptic transmission is by doing what?
Definition
Increasing release
Term
James has always been physically agile and strong. During adolescence, he chooses to get involved in sport teams and other environments where his athletic skills are highly valued. This is an example of which type of genotype-environment correlation?
Definition
Niche-picking (active relationships)
Term
According to most cognitive therapists, psychological problems are most likely to be associated with what?
Definition
Inflexible maladaptive thoughts
Term
If a dye such as trypan blue is injected into the bloodstream of a rat, all the organs of the animal are stained blue with the exception of the brain. This finding is due to what?
Definition
The brain is protected by a barrier that prevents the dye from penetrating it.
Term
A question (How does the individual perceive his/her ability to deal effectively with the environment?) regarding an individual's performance is most directly based on who's concept of self-efficacy?
Definition
Albert Bandura
Term
What personality test is derived mainly from the personality theory developed by Carl Jung?
Definition
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
Term
Investigators of the self-serving attributional bias typically compare attributions for success and failure in terms of what dimension?
Definition
Locus
Term
What is the following an example of?:
A thief harms the store clerk so he can steal the money.
Definition
Instrumental aggression
Term
What is the meaning of a sensitive period in development?
Definition
An age period during which an influence has important, long lasting, and even permanent effects
Term
A group of experts in a specialized area were able to solve complex problems in their area of expertise more effectively than a group of novices of equal general intelligence. What plausibly explains the better performances of the experts?
Definition
The experts had developed superior chunking routines for processing the specialized information.
Term
Research on problem solving indicates that heuristic search strategies, compared with algorithmic strategies, are what?
Definition
More accurate
Term
What statistical technique would a researcher most likely use to analyze data from GPAs and SAT scores of 1000 students?
Definition
Multiple regression
Term
Magdelena has a large bilateral lesion in her orbitofrontal cortex which has caused a number of disturbances in her behavior. What symptoms are most likely to be evident in Magdelena?
Definition
Although she responds appropriately to hypothetical moral dilemmas, she fails to exhibit normal social behavior in her own life.
Term
A factorial design is one that has what?
Definition
Two or more independent variables and no dependent variable
Term
What are important characteristics of a normal distribution of a set of scores?
Definition
Mean, mode, and median are identical
Term
What disorder has a known organic basis?
Definition
Amnestic disorder
Term
True or false?:
Many children who have pervasive developmental disorders recover by age 18.
Definition
FALSE
Term
Many antipsychotic medications work by blocking receptors for what neurotransmitter?
Definition
Dopamine
Term
What argument is most central to the view that innate factors have an important effect on language acquisition?
Definition
Linguistic cues that are available in the environment are too limited to enable language learning.
Term
Even when the best solution may be an alternative strategy, a participant tested on a new set of problems continues to apply a solution that had been applied successfully in a number of previous trials. They are exhibiting what?
Definition
A mental set
Term
"Ahmet believes that his friend lied to him, so he reviews their recent conversation looking for instances in which the friend may have lied" is an example of what?
Definition
Confirmation bias
Term
A stranger steps on Mario's foot. If he commits the fundamental attribution error, he will see the cause as what?
Definition
The stranger's transgression was dispositional
Term
If Mario had been depressed at the time the stranger stepped on his toes, he would be less likely to commit which type of mistake in his search for the cause?
Definition
Self-serving bias
Term
A learning curve described by Clark Hull's theory of learning can be explained as what?
Definition
A negatively accelerated function
Term
The concept of preparedness or belongingness, as applied to animal learning or to human acquisition of phobias, refers to the idea that most individuals are what?
Definition
Born with a predisposition to make some associations more readily than others.
Term
Muzafer Sherif's Robber's Cave experiment is a classic demonstration of the effects of what?
Definition
Mutual interdependence
Term
Research conducted by Kathryn Bock shows that specific syntactic constructions can prime later syntactic constructions. This indicates that people do what when speaking?
Definition
Use the same sentence structures in later sentences that they heard in earlier sentences.
Term
The use of what is the strongest indicator that work has been designed or redesigned according to sociotechnical principles?
Definition
Self-directed teams of workers
Term
Beginning in the late 1950s and early 1960s, cognitive psychology became a powerful force within the field of psychology. What was a factor that helped in those years to spur this "Cognitive Revolution" forward?
Definition
Development of digital computers
Term
Hermann Ebbinghaus' studies of list learning were based on an assumption that most research psychologists today doubt. That assumption was what?
Definition
Learning and memory improve with practice and weaken with the passage of time.
Term
Severe injury to what brain area is most likely to be life threatening?
Definition
Hindbrain
Term
What brain structure inhibits parental behavior in rodents?
Definition
Medial amygdala
Term
When he heard a child screaming, Phillip looked to see what other people were doing. Because they looked calm and unconcerned, Phillip decided that nothing needed to be done an didn't go help the child. This is an example of what?
Definition
Pluralistic ignorance
Term
When reading, literate adults vary LEAST with regard to what?
Definition
Number of letters perceived during a given eye fixation
Term
18 y.o. David received a large inheritance from his grandfather. Rather than using the money to pay for his tuition, he decided to buy a new sports car. According to Freud, David shows signs of what?
Definition
A strong id
Term
The transfer of information from short-term to long-term memory is disrupted by bilateral destruction of which part of the brain?
Definition
Hippocampus
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