Research Methods
The principle requiring participants to be told the true purpose of a study after it ends.
What is debriefing?
The classic debate over whether our traits are shaped more by genes or experience.
What is nature vs. nurture?
Remy seeing colors while tasting food is an example of this.

What is Synesthesia?
A theory of intelligence, developed by Robert Sternberg, proposes that intelligence consists of three distinct but interconnected parts: analytical, creative, and practical.
What is the triarchic theory of intelligence?
A parenting style that is demanding but responsive.
What is authoritative parenting?
Following direct orders from an authority figure.
What is obedience?
A disorder characterized by lack of empathy and disregard for others’ rights.
What is Antisocial Personality Disorder?
The brain’s ability to reorganize after injury or experience.
What is plasticity / neuroplasticity?
A numerical measure that describes the strength and direction of a relationship between two variables.
What is a correlation coefficient?
The division that calms the body after stress.
What is the parasympathetic nervous system?
Competing theory explaining afterimages and color pairs like red–green.
What is opponent-process theory?
This type of processing requires attention and conscious effort, like studying flashcards.
What is effortful processing?
The automatic response infants show when something touches their cheek.
What is the rooting reflex?
The Big Five AKA Five Factor theory of personality consists of these traits.
What are:
Contentiousness
Agreeableness
Neuroticism/Emotional Stability
Openness
Extraversion
Mark believes he has been chosen to become the next president of the world and insists he has special powers that make him more important than everyone else, despite no evidence supporting these beliefs.
This is an example of _______symptom of schizophrenia.
What are delusions of grandeur?
This phase of sleep is when the brain is least active.
What is NREM 3?
A research method that examines one individual or group in depth.
What is a case study?
This disease is caused by a deterioration of the myelin sheath and causes the failure of the central nervous system to communicate with the peripheral nervous system.
What is Multiple Sclerosis?
The height of sound waves that determines loudness.
What is amplitude?
A component of working memory that temporarily stores and manipulates visual and spatial information, such as visualizing a route or mentally rotating an object.
What is the Visuospatial Sketchpad ?
Understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of sight.
What is object permanence?
Helping behavior with no expectation of reward.
What is altruism?
This theory suggests schizophrenia involves overactive dopamine systems.
What is the dopamine hypothesis?
The brief electrical charge that travels down an axon.
What is an action potential?
The variable that is measured in an experiment.
What is the dependent variable?
Drugs that block neurotransmitter receptor sites.
What are antagonists?
The structure that focuses light by changing shape/accommodation.
What is the lens?
This nonconscious activation of associations - such as seeing the word “yellow” making you think of “banana.”
What is priming?
Learning by watching others rather than through direct experience.
What is observational learning?
After failing three exams in one day, you go home to blow off steam by playing Grand Theft Auto. This is an example of_________.
What is displacement?
A therapist using the humanistic approach listens carefully, reflects the client’s feelings, and provides unconditional positive regard without judging them. They want the client to reach their own solutions and often repeats things back to them. This is also called ____________.
What is person-centered therapy?
A measure of internal consistency where a test is divided into two halves, and the scores of the two halves are correlated to determine how well they measure the same concept.
What is Split-Half Reliability?
This statistical term represents the middle point of a data set.
What is the median?
An oversupply of this transmitter can lead to migraines.
What is Glutamate?
The tendency to see an unbroken whole even when parts are missing.

What is closure?
We can remember more easily words at the beginning or end of a list - we tend to forget the words in the middle.
What is the serial position effect?
After getting food poisoning from shrimp, Maya feels nauseous every time she smells seafood - even years later. This is an example of ________.
What is taste aversion?
This theory proposes that people are motivated to maintain an optimal level of alertness and excitement.
What is Arousal Theory?
Repetitive behaviors performed to reduce anxiety.
What are compulsions?
When a child believes that “boys should not cry” because of cultural expectations, this belief reflects this concept.
What is a gender role?
The standard deviation of this Bell Curve is ____.

What is 3?
Also known as sleepwalking, this disorder causes individuals to move or walk around during deep NREM sleep.
What is somnambulism?
The mental framework that influences how we interpret stimuli.
What are schemas OR perceptual set?
When misleading information changes or distorts your memory of an event.
What is the misinformation effect?
The principle stating that behaviors followed by favorable consequences are more likely to recur.
What is the Law of Effect?
Persuasion that uses strong arguments and thoughtful processing.
What is central route persuasion?
Theory describing the body’s response to prolonged stress.
What is General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)?
A person working with the researcher who poses as a participant but whose actions and responses are predefined.
What is a confederate?
The committee that reviews psychological research for ethical concerns before it’s conducted.
What is the Institutional Review Board (IRB)?
This term describes the proportion of variation among individuals that can be attributed to genes.
What is heritability?
Failure to notice something obvious when focused elsewhere.
What is inattentional blindness?
This memory system holds about 7 items for around 20 seconds without rehearsal.
What is short-term memory?
The smallest units of meaning in language.
What are morphemes?
When we blame others’ actions on their character but blame our own on the situation.
What is actor-observer bias?
Freud’s technique in which clients say whatever comes to mind.
What is free association?
After receiving good news, a student becomes more creative, open to ideas, and socially engaged.
What is the Broaden-and-Build Theory?
This concept refers to your score relative to others - e.g., scoring 90 means you did better than 90% of people.
What is percentile rank?
The structure that connects the two hemispheres of the brain.
What is the corpus callosum?
A binocular cue where the brain compares slightly different retinal images.

What is retinal disparity?
This fast-thinking error occurs when people mistakenly believe prior outcomes affect future ones, like thinking a coin “must” land heads after many tails.
What is the gambler’s fallacy?
The reappearance of a conditioned response after a rest period following extinction.
What is spontaneous recovery?
After her heart starts racing on a roller coaster, Maya interprets the feeling as excitement because she knows she’s at an amusement park.
What is the Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory?
A behavioral therapy using gradual exposure to feared stimuli.
What is systematic desensitization?
Vivid experiences that occur as a person falls asleep. They can involve visual, auditory, or physical sensations, and can be quite intense and realistic.
What are hypnagogic sensations?