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

a.	children enjoy verbal communication more than adults.
b.	children learn language from peers, not from parents.
c.	the notion of a “sensitive period” for the acquisition of language.
d.	that the over-learning of one cognitive skill inhibits the learning of others.
e.	that across languages, mastery of one grammar makes it difficult to learn another grammar.

____ 26. A broad range of research has supported the notion that the correlation between emotion and memory is

a.	negative; events that arouse us also lead to distortions in memory.
b.	research has not supported any statistically significant link between emotion and memory.
c.	positive; emotional arousal facilitates recall.
d.	positive in the case of females, negative in the case of males.
e.	neutral overall; we remember positive events better but have a poorer memory for negative ones.

____ 27. In class, you went through an exercise that improves your ability to cope with a stressful situation through muscle relaxation. This is similar to which of the following principles of emotion:

a.	Schachter-Singer theory	d.	emotion specificity
b.	facial/body feedback	e.	James-Lange theory
c.	misattribution

____ 28. Your roommate was recently in a car accident. Now, every time you get ready to go to run errands in your car, your roommate tells you to be careful, because you will most likely be in a car accident too! This is best explained by your roommate’s use of:

a.	availability heuristic	d.	insight
b.	algorithmic heuristic	e.	normative logic
c.	representativeness heuristic

____ 29. How are interpretation strategies for dealing with traumatic events similar to the Whorffian hypothesis?

a.	Creating multiple interpretations reduces the amount of attention we can put toward the events	d.	Interpretation strategies are normative solutions to the problem
b.	These strategies force us to focus more on bodily cues	e.	The labels we use for events influence how we think about those events.
c.	Reinterpreting an event results in reduced memory for that event.

____ 30. In class, Brent presented data on how people can reappraise a situation and change their experienced emotions. The researchers used fMRI techniques to analyze emotions because:

a.	fMRI is the only true indicator of emotion.	d.	Images of the brain are neat.
b.	Self-reports may not always be accurate.	e.	They wanted to show that reappraisal is not a conscious process.
c.	The prefrontal cortex provides the initial emotional response.

____ 31. You want to go to the movies, and you ask your roommate if he wishes to go along. You should expect him to decide more quickly if

a.	he is in a good mood.
b.	there are many movies to choose from versus just a few.
c.	he has just been turned down for a date.
d.	he has just had a fight with his parents.
e.	Speed of decision making is unaffected by psychological factors.

____ 32. One of the problems with IQ tests is that

a.	the tests are too broad in scope.
b.	different cultures believe different skills are important.
c.	the tests are too easy for adults and thus are not a good measure of ability.
d.	the information is too hard for younger children.
e.	the tests have not been shown to be valid predictors of later performance.

____ 33. Often, we are confronted with negative stimuli that we cannot avoid. One strategy we can use is to reappraise the meaning of such stimuli so that they feel less negative. Brain imaging studies of this reappraisal activity have shown that:

a.	the prefrontal cortex is involved in regulating amygdala activity	d.	the amygdala tracks subjective feelings of happiness
b.	the prefrontal cortex is more active in people with depression	e.	the amygdala is involved in regulating negative emotion
c.	people with lesions in the orbitofrontal cortex are expert regulators

____ 34. A sign in a telephone solicitation office reads “Smile, the client can hear it in your voice.” This advice is

a.	consistent with findings that facial expressions can create as well as reflect emotional states.
b.	consistent with the fact that smiles cannot be faked and if you are smiling you are necessarily happy.
c.	inconsistent with what we know about the relationship between facial expressions and feeling states.
d.	probably intended to make workers self-aware since this will make them feel better.
e.	misguided because it will make workers resentful of management.

____ 35. A snarling tiger bursts into the lecture hall. You feel a sudden surge of physiological arousal. According to the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion, this arousal:

a.	causes the presence of fear	d.	has no influence on which emotion you experience
b.	increases emotional inhibition	e.	creates emotional ambiguity
c.	can increase the intensity of fear

____ 36. Misattribution of arousal, as shown in the famous bridge study, is similar to which of the following memory phenomena:

a.	Reconstructive memory	d.	Proactive interference
b.	Instrumental conditioning	e.	Observational learning
c.	Chunking

____ 37. You are on a search for some new running shoes. You ask a few of your fellow runner friends what kind they use and base your purchase on their answer. What kind of reasoning technique have you chosen to use to make your decision?

a.	deductive reasoning
b.	scientific reasoning
c.	inductive reasoning
d.	expected utility reasoning
e.	functional reasoning

____ 38. Which of the following is the best example of psychosomatic illness?

a.	thinking you are sick when in fact nothing is physically wrong with you	d.	suppressing negative experiences causes you to get high blood pressure
b.	feeling physical pain makes you angry	e.	feeling upset can cause you to get a stomach ache
c.	activation in your hypothalamus can make you get sick often

____ 39. The Thematic Apperception Test, or TAT, is best used to test people’s

a.	reaction times by flashing pictures of circles, squares, and triangles. The faster that people can apperceive the items, the better their reaction times.	d.	ability to develop themes in stories. By coming up with story themes in response to pictures, TAT experts can determine the ways people construct stories in the daily lives.
b.	color vision. The TAT (sometimes called the TITT-4-TATT), evaluates the degree to which seeing shades of color can reflect people’s feelings for aggression.	e.	intelligence by having them describe prictures of objects or other scenes. The more detailed they are in their descriptions, the more intelligent they are.
c.	personality by evaluating the words they use in describing ambiguous pictures. The words people use in telling their stories reveals a great deal about their social and psychological worlds.

____ 40. You are taking someone out on a first date. Given what you know about how people misattribute physiological responses to emotions, where should you go if you want your date to feel excited by you?

a.	Ice cream shop	d.	Horror movie
b.	Bowling	e.	Comedy club
c.	a yoga exhibit where you are given a relaxation exercise

____ 41. The grocery store owners make sure that every few days a different product is displayed at the front of the aisle so that people will see it and think the item is either special or being sold at an unusually low price. This technique is known as

a.	the inductive reasoning technique.
b.	the spontaneous effect.
c.	the bargain effect.
d.	the deductive reasoning technique.
e.	the framing effect.

____ 42. Imagine that you are traveling to New Guinea on a geological field trip later this year. On the basis of what psychologists know about the facial communication of emotion you should

a.	not expect people from New Guinea to know how you are feeling based on what you express facially.
b.	generally not worry about being misinterpreted if you let your face show how you actually feel.
c.	listen more carefully to what is said than what the face is expressing since facial expressions are more easily faked than are verbal statements.
d.	not trust what you see on the faces of the natives since the relationship between facial expressions and emotion is entirely learned.
e.	trust your interpretation of facial expressions of disgust and fear but not of happiness.

____ 43. Which of the following is not a critique of multiple intelligences?

a.	Some of the intelligences may just be special talents.
b.	There is a lack of cross cultural validity of the theory of multiple intelligences.
c.	Some of the special abilities are outside the realm of intelligence.
d.	There are no standardized ways to test the theory of multiple intelligences.
e.	Individuals high in specific abilities may also be high in general intelligence.

____ 44. What conclusion can we draw from the fact that women in this society are more emotionally expressive than are men?

a.	Women experience all emotions more intensely than men.
b.	Women may feel emotions more intensely or may be responding to social norms about what they should show and feel.
c.	Women are better at deceiving others regarding how they actually feel.
d.	Women generally know how they feel but men do not.
e.	Women cannot suppress their emotions as well as men.

____ 45. Donavan’s mom tries in vain to get him to study for a Monday math test before leaving on a weekend trip. He tells her that his friend had the class last year and did fine on the test without studying. Though Donavan needs to study to do well, he took one instance and generalized the outcome to be true for him. This heuristic is called

a.	the confirmation bias.
b.	the calculation bias.
c.	the base rate effect.
d.	the framing effect.
e.	the delay effect.

*******************************

Answers:

1. a

2. d

3. d

4. e

5. e

6. b

7. c

8. a

9. a

10. e

11. e

12. a

13. b

14. a

15. d

16. c

17. c

18. e

19. e

20. b

21. e

22. a

23. a

24. c

25. c

26. c

27. b

28. a

29. e

30. b

31. a

32. b

33. a

34. a

35. d

36. a

37. c

38. d

39. c

40. d

41. e

42. b

43. b

44. b

45. a