Psychological Perspectives
Which psychological perspective focuses on the brain, nervous system, and hormones?
Biological perspective
WHY: The biological perspective explains behavior through physical processes such as brain activity, genetics, neurotransmitters, and hormones.
A psychologist closely examines one individual with an unusual memory ability. What research method is being used?
Case study
WHY: A case study involves an in-depth investigation of one individual or a small group, often to understand an unusual condition or behavior.
In a study testing whether caffeine improves memory, what is the independent variable?
The caffeine condition or amount of caffeine administered.
WHY: The independent variable is what researchers deliberately manipulate to investigate its effect on another variable.
A study reports a correlation coefficient of r = −0.85. What is the direction and strength of this relationship?
Strong negative correlation
WHY: The negative sign shows an inverse relationship. The magnitude, 0.85, is close to 1, indicating a strong linear relationship.
Calculate the mean of the following scores: 4, 6, 8, 10, 12.
8
WHY: Add the five scores to get 40, then divide by 5. Mean = 40 ÷ 5 = 8.
Participants are informed about a study's procedures and potential risks before agreeing to participate. What ethical principle is being followed?
Answer: Informed consent
WHY: Participants must receive enough relevant information about the study to make a voluntary, informed decision about participating.
A student studies harder because their teacher rewards strong performance. Which psychological perspective best explains this behavior?
Behavioral/Learning perspective
WHY: This perspective focuses on learned behavior. The teacher's reward reinforces studying, making the behavior more likely to happen again.
Researchers observe children playing at recess without interfering with their behavior. What research method is being used?
Naturalistic observation
WHY: Researchers observe behavior in its natural environment without manipulating the situation.
Researchers define academic success as a student's GPA at the end of the semester. What is this an example of?
Operational definition.
WHY: An operational definition explains exactly how a variable will be measured or manipulated. In this case, the researchers are measuring academic success using GPA.
A study finds r = +0.15 between exercise and stress. How would you describe this relationship?
Very weak positive correlation
WHY: The positive sign indicates that the variables tend to increase together, but 0.15 is close to zero, so the linear relationship is very weak.
Find the median of the following scores: 3, 5, 7, 9, 30.
7
WHY: The median is the middle value when scores are arranged in order. Seven is the third value of five.
Participants are told they can leave a psychological study at any time without penalty. What ethical principle is being followed?
Right to withdraw
WHY: Participation must remain voluntary. Participants are free to discontinue their involvement without being punished.
A psychologist examines how memories and thought patterns influence decision-making. Which perspective is being used?
Cognitive perspective
WHY: The cognitive perspective examines mental processes, including memory, attention, thinking, perception, and problem-solving.
A psychologist distributes a questionnaire asking teenagers about their sleeping habits. What research method is being used?
Survey
WHY: Surveys collect self-reported information by asking participants questions about their behaviors, experiences, or attitudes.
Researchers use a random process to place participants into experimental and control groups. What is this procedure called?
Random assignment
WHY: Random assignment gives participants a chance of being placed in either condition, helping reduce preexisting differences between groups.
A scatterplot shows points closely clustered around a line sloping downward from left to right. Describe the relationship.
Strong negative correlation.
WHY: The downward slope indicates a negative relationship—as one variable increases, the other tends to decrease. The points being closely clustered indicates that the relationship is strong.
Find the range of the following scores: 5, 8, 12, 15, 21.
16
WHY: The range is the highest score minus the lowest score: 21 − 5 = 16.
A researcher uses coded identification numbers instead of participant names when reporting sensitive information. What ethical principle is being protected?
Confidentiality
WHY: Researchers must protect identifying information and prevent unauthorized disclosure of participants' private data.
A psychologist argues that unconscious conflicts from childhood influence adult relationships. Which perspective is being used?
Psychodynamic/Psychoanalytic perspective
WHY: This perspective emphasizes how unconscious motives, internal conflicts, and early experiences can influence later behavior.
Researchers statistically combine results from 25 published studies examining stress and academic performance. What research method is being used?
Meta-analysis
WHY: A meta-analysis uses statistical techniques to combine findings from multiple studies to estimate an overall effect or relationship. This can provide stronger evidence than relying on a single study.
A sleep experiment gives one group a quiet room and another group a noisy room. What problem could this create in the experiment?
A confounding variable.
WHY: Room noise could affect the measured outcome independently of the sleep condition. Researchers would not know whether differences were caused by sleep or noise.
Ice cream sales and drowning incidents both increase during the summer. What third variable could explain this relationship?
Hot weather or summer temperatures.
WHY: Hot weather can increase both ice cream purchases and swimming activity. The two variables may be related without one causing the other.
Two classes have the same mean test score. Class A has a standard deviation of 2, while Class B has a standard deviation of 9. Which class has more variability in its scores?
Class B
WHY: Standard deviation measures how spread out scores are around the mean. A larger standard deviation indicates greater variability. Class B's SD of 9 means its scores are more spread out than Class A's scores (SD = 2).
After a study involving justified deception, researchers explain the true purpose of the investigation to participants. What is this process called?
Debriefing
WHY: Debriefing explains the study's purpose and procedures, including any deception, and gives participants an opportunity to ask questions.
Explain how a biological psychologist and a sociocultural psychologist might differently explain test anxiety.
A biological psychologist might focus on stress hormones or nervous-system activity, while a sociocultural psychologist might focus on social expectations, cultural pressures, or family expectations.
WHY: Different perspectives explain the same behavior using different factors. Biological explanations focus on physical processes; sociocultural explanations focus on social and cultural influences.
A researcher predicts that students who sleep eight hours will remember more words than students who sleep four hours. What makes this hypothesis scientifically testable?
It is falsifiable.
WHY: Researchers can measure word recall and determine whether the prediction is supported or contradicted by evidence.
A researcher recruits only students from one AP Psychology class to represent all American teenagers. Explain one limitation.
Answer: Limited generalizability.
WHY: Students in one AP Psychology class may not represent all American teenagers. Their age, academic interests, and educational experiences may differ from those of the larger population, making it difficult to apply the findings broadly.
Researchers find that social media use is positively correlated with anxiety. Explain why they cannot conclude that social media causes anxiety.
Correlation does not establish causation.
WHY: Anxiety could influence social media use, social media use could influence anxiety, or another variable could influence both. A correlation alone cannot distinguish these explanations.
A student scores at the 85th percentile on a memory assessment. What does this mean?
The student scored as well as or better than approximately 85% of the reference group.
WHY: Percentile rank tells us how a student's performance compares with others. It does not mean the student answered 85% of the questions correctly.
A researcher proposes deliberately exposing participants to severe psychological distress without appropriate safeguards. Explain which ethical principle is being violated.
Protection from harm
WHY: Researchers must minimize foreseeable physical and psychological risks and ensure that risks are justified and appropriately managed.