Introductory Psychology (PSY301, 2:00-3:30pm) – Test 3

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

____ 1. One strategy for suppressing unpleasant thoughts is to snap a rubberband against your wrist every time you have such a thought. This technique generally does not work. The rubberband strategy is an ineffective use of which of the following principles:

a.	competition of cues for attention	d.	cognitive labeling of emotion
b.	Stroop interference on automaticity	e.	body feedback on emotion
c.	Whorffian hypothesis of language’s influence

____ 2. In a laboratory experiment, two groups of people read passages of racist propaganda. Group 1 is given no instructions, Group 2 is told to keep their mouths open and their eyes wide. Which of the following is most likely?

a.	Group 1 reports being more surprised at the material than Group 2.	d.	Group 2 reports being more surprised at the material than Group 1.
b.	Group 1 reports being more angry at the material than Group 2.	e.	Group 2 reports being more sympathetic to the material than Group 1.
c.	Group 1 reports being more disgusted at the material than Group 2.

____ 3. Assume that a negative event has occurred in your life. Under which of the following conditions would it likely be most stressful?

a.	It occurred just after a positive event.
b.	It was a completely neutral event.
c.	It was just like an event you had experienced a year earlier.
d.	It was unexpected.
e.	You are female, not male.

____ 4. You flip a quarter 10 times and it comes up heads every time. On the eleventh try, you are POSITIVE that it will come up tails. You are succumbing to:

a.	the availability heuristic	d.	normative reasoning
b.	anchoring	e.	the representativeness heuristic
c.	algorithmic reasoning

____ 5. In lecture, we saw a video in which a parrot learned a large vocabulary and could communicate. Why would Noam Chomsky say that the parrot had not learned to use language?

a.	the parrot did not use nonverbal communication	d.	the parrot did not learn enough words
b.	the parrot did not have prosody	e.	the parrot did not use syntax
c.	the parrot did not use semantics

____ 6. Comparisons between how children acquire spoken versus signed languages indicate that

a.	signed language is acquired much more slowly than spoken language
b.	both develop at about the same pace.
c.	signed language is acquired faster because it follows a more innate language structure.
d.	signed languages follow entirely different grammatical rules from those of spoken language.
e.	signed language is acquired more efficiently if the child’s parents speak, whereas the acquisition of spoken language isn’t affected by whether the parents speak or sign.

____ 7. You’re walking down the street and a bear jumps out at you. The James-Lange theory of emotion states that:

a.	your appraisal of your pounding heart caused you to feel fear	d.	activity in your amygdala caused you to feel fear
b.	your pounding heart was caused by fear	e.	you would feel no fear
c.	your pounding heart caused you to feel fear

____ 8. Some studies have shown that athletes are actually happier with winning an Olympic bronze medal than a silver medal. Why might this be?

a.	Finishing second carries too much regret for not winning first.
b.	People do not like the pressure of being in the top two ranks.
c.	People who finish third expect to finish first the next Olympics.
d.	In much of the world, bronze is a more valuable material than gold.
e.	Finishing second is considered bad luck in at least 100 countries.

____ 9. Fluid intelligence, which involves quick thinking and reasoning skills, is analogous to what kind of memory?

a.	working memory
b.	semantic memory
c.	sensory memory
d.	long-term memory
e.	procedural memory

____ 10. Which person would NOT have significant trouble regulating their emotions?

a.	Someone who had a frontal lobotomy operation.	d.	Someone who damaged their orbitofrontal cortex in a car accident.
b.	Phineas Gage.	e.	Someone with damage to their occipital lobe.
c.	Someone with prefrontal cortex damage.

____ 11. “Schadenfreude” is a German term, defined as satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else’s misfortune. English does not have a term for this emotion. Which of the following is the strongest claim that is in line with the Whorffian hypothesis?

a.	Schadenfreude is a descriptive emotion	d.	Germans cannot truly feel the schadenfreude emotion
b.	Schadenfreude is not a basic emotion	e.	Americans cannot truly feel the schadenfreude emotion
c.	Americans cannot speak the word “schadenfreude” correctly

____ 12. Some of the best IQ test questions are not culturally biased. Which of the following would be the least culturally biased?

a.	asking a child to find what block would come next in a sequence
b.	asking a child to solve a currency problem
c.	asking a child to do arithmetic
d.	asking a child to complete an analogy problem
e.	asking a child to fill in the missing word

____ 13. You are shown a number of photographs, some of which elicit a negative emotional response in you and some that are neutral. A week later you are shown a series of photographs and asked to identify the ones you have seen before. You will remember

a.	very few of either type since negative affect serves to repress memory.
b.	more of the negative photographs.
c.	more of the neutral photographs.
d.	very positive ones and very negative ones at comparable rates but not neutral ones.
e.	the neutral and negative photographs equally well.

____ 14. You are sitting in a big lecture class. You have been ignoring the professor while messing around on Facebook on your laptop. Suddenly, you hear the phrase “next week’s test” and immediately pay attention. This is most analogous to:

a.	the cocktail party effect	d.	Whorffian cognition
b.	the Stroop effect	e.	the availability heuristic
c.	dichotic listening

____ 15. All of the following are examples of nonverbal communication except:

a.	clothing and hairstyle	d.	American sign language
b.	prosody in speech	e.	body posture
c.	facial expression

____ 16. Do men or women use the word “I” more often? Why?

a.	Men; they boast more about themselves	d.	Men; they think about others less
b.	Men; they are more concerned about their body image	e.	Women; they try harder to be the center of attention
c.	Women; they think more about their psychological states

____ 17. Which is not a reason people with a low g factor might not live as long as people with a high g factor?

a.	because they may not follow medical directions very well
b.	because they may not make good decisions regarding health issues
c.	because they might have less stressful careers.
d.	because they might have more dangerous careers
e.	because they may have worse access to health care

____ 18. A friend is particularly poor at telling how fearful others are based on their facial reactions. A plausible explanation is that she has damage to the

a.	cerebellum.
b.	prefrontal cortex.
c.	hippocampus.
d.	cingulate gyrus.
e.	amygdala region of her brain.

____ 19. Emotions are associated with various autonomic responses. Given what we know from research,

a.	the pattern of autonomic responses allows us to accurately infer the particular emotion being felt by an individual.
b.	emotions can be determined based on the pattern of autonomic responses but the relationship is specific to each individual.
c.	the autonomic responses associated with particular emotions vary across cultures.
d.	the intensity of autonomic responding is more important than the pattern of autonomic responding in determining what emotion is being felt.
e.	with the possible exception of anger and fear, emotions cannot be distinguished from one another simply on the basis of autonomic measures.

____ 20. According to loss aversion theory, would a person rather gamble $2.00 with the possibility of winning $4.00, or gamble .50 cents with the possibility of winning $1.00?

a.	With loss aversion people try to ignore their possible losses, and would choose to gamble $2.00.
b.	Loss aversion states that people are more concerned with loss, so they would choose to gamble only .50 cents so they couldn’t lose very much money.
c.	Loss aversion states that if there is any loss involved at all, people will avoid it entirely and would thus refuse to play the gambling game at all.
d.	Following loss aversion theory, people will only choose to gamble .50 cents instead of $2.00, if the likelihood of winning is high, thus minimizing loss.
e.	Following loss aversion theory, people hate to lose if they can’t win big, so they would choose to gamble $2.00 so they can possibly win the larger amount.

____ 21. You are driving into school and witness a horrible plane accident. You run to the scene and see hundreds of mangled bodies. The police tell you there is nothing that can be done. Over the next 24 hours, you think about the plane scene all the time. The best thing most people could do to cope with this experience in the first 24 hours would be to:

a.	Write about the experience and explore their deepest thoughts and feelings	d.	Force yourself to cry to help extinguish feelings of sadness
b.	Eat food high in salt – which is known to be depleted during stress	e.	Distract themselves
c.	Force yourself to ”put on a happy face‘ such as smile a lot, sing happy songs, etc

____ 22. According to lecture, if you are trying to quit smoking, the best emotion regulatory strategy you can apply would be to:

a.	avoid situations that remind you of smoking	d.	give yourself a frontal lobotomy
b.	move to France and open a Café	e.	suppress all thoughts of smoking
c.	distract yourself by thinking of other things

____ 23. You have a terrible headache. You want to stay home and rest, but your friends drag you out to see a movie. Throughout the movie you do not notice any pain. This is most likely due to:

a.	cue competition for attention	d.	automaticity inhibition
b.	placebo effects	e.	body feedback
c.	proactive interference

____ 24. Your sister has just received a sweater that she doesn’t like from your grandmother for Christmas and smiles broadly as she looks at it. Her behavior is probably

a.	intended to ingratiate herself to your grandmother.
b.	an attempt to persuade herself that she really likes the sweater.
c.	following a display rule.
d.	a fixed-action pattern.
e.	an uncontrollable behavior on her part.

____ 25. It is a common observation that when families move to a new culture, their children master the new language more quickly and thoroughly than do the parents. A psychological argument consistent with this observation is