Deck 7: Approaches, Perspectives, Issues and Methods

Question 1

The cognitive approach aims to understand the human mind through comparisons with:

A)Biological processes in nature
B)Humans in the past
C)Machines
D)Animals
E)Other humans

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Two key early cognitive psychologists investigated memory and language. Their names were:

A)Thigpen and Cleckley
B)Maguire and Miller
C)Chomsky and Freud
D)Chomsky and Miller
E)Chomskov and Milling

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Studies taking a 'stage' approach to developmental psychology include:

A)Piaget and Bandura
B)Piaget and Freud
C)Bandura and Freud
D)Baron-Cohen and Freud
E)Freud and Savage-Rumbaugh

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Thigpen and Cleckley's study of Eve could also be said to contain aspects of developmental psychology because:

A)It considered aspects of her childhood in the progression of the disorder
B)It was a case study
C)It includes a discussion of how other people affected her disorder
D)It generated qualitative data
E)It was not very reliable

Question 5

The physiological approach would argue that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance. This is problematic because:

A)Measuring chemicals in the body is not possible
B)Feelings of depression are subjective
C)We have no evidence that chemicals affect behaviour
D)It is too simplistic a view as many factors may contribute to depression
E)There is no valid tool for measuring depression

Question 6

Groupthink' has been described by social psychologists as:

A)Changing our opinions to match what we believe others in a group are thinking
B)A social group holding the same beliefs
C)The fact that we do our most productive thinking in a group
D)Holding the same opinions as the dominant group in a society
E)Refusing to hold the majority view on a topic

Question 7

An early example of research into behaviour in the context of other people investigated:

A)Running speed
B)Cycling speed
C)Talking speed
D)Walking speed
E)Driving speed

Question 8

Trying to improve the quality of human beings through selective breeding is known as:

A)Iatrogenics
B)Social mobility
C)Social engineering
D)Evolution
E)Eugenics

Question 9

An example of a formula for calculating IQ is:

A)Years in education / mental age x 100
B)Mental age / chronological age x 100
C)Mental age / shoe size x 100
D)Mental age / chronological age x 200
E)Chronological age / 100 x years in education

Question 10

Skinner was responsible for developing the idea of:

A)Operational conditioning
B)Behavioural measurement
C)Operant conditioning
D)Classical conditioning
E)Operationalisation

Question 11

Which of the following is NOT true of the psychodynamic perspective?

A)It believes that all dreams are meaningful
B)It focuses on the influence of the unconscious mind
C)It suggests that inner conflicts of the mind form the basis of our behaviour
D)It is based on the ideas of Sigmund Freud
E)It focuses on the things our parents choose to teach us during childhood

Question 12

In psychology, the issue of ethics refers to:

A)The rights and wrongs of discussing research with students
B)A list of rules for participants when they take part in research
C)Ideas about race and culture
D)A code of correct behaviour when dealing with participants
E)A code of correct behaviour for having your work published

Question 13

Hofling's study of nurses could be said to be low in ecological validity because:

A)Nurses would not usually be asked to give an unusually large dose of an unknown drug
B)Nurses usually obey doctors
C)Patients would normally question the dose they were given
D)Doctors would not usually tell nurses which drugs to give
E)The setting was a real-life hospital

Question 14

Attrition can be a problem in longitudinal studies. This means:

A)Participants enjoy it more the longer they are involved in the research
B)Participants drop out over time
C)The experimenters develop new research ideas
D)The materials and equipment get lost over the time of the research
E)Participants start to realise what the study is about and change their behaviour

Question 15

Which of these is an example of quantitative data?

A)Thigpen and Cleckley's notes about Eve Black's character
B)Little Hans' father's letters to Freud
C)Participants' answers to open-ended questions asking them how they feel on a Monday morning
D)Boredom signals in participants watching a video, counted by a researcher
E)Participants' descriptions of what it feels like to be bored

Question 16

The difference between the idiographic and nomothetic approaches is:

A)Idiographic is the study of patterns in groups while nomothetic concentrates on the individual
B)Idiographic is more reliable than nomothetic
C)Idiographic is the study of individuals while nomothetic looks for patterns among groups
D)Nomothetic research is more valid than idiographic
E)Nomothetic researchers believe in nature while idiographic researchers believe in nurture

Question 17

Case studies can be problematic because:

A)They tend to consist of quantitative data
B)They can only give an outsider's view of the participants' experiences
C)The large number of participants tends to make it hard to deal with
D)Often, very little data is available
E)As the participant writes about himself/herself, the data can be biased

Question 18

In psychological research, 'reliability' means:

A)That research is replicable and would produce similar results again
B)The same as validity
C)Accuracy
D)That the researcher can be relied upon to carry out good research
E)That the results can be generalised

Question 19

Piaget's work on conservation implies that he had not really measured the children's ability to conserve, because the questions were misleading. This means it lacks:

A)Quantitative data
B)Generalisability
C)Ecological validity
D)Reliability
E)Validity

Question 20

Which one of these could NOT be said to be a problem with cognitive psychology?

A)The tasks used tend to be rather artificial
B)Generally speaking, it produces data which is too qualitative and hard to analyse
C)Models created by cognitive psychologists do not map directly onto brain structures
D)Tasks are often very boring for participants
E)Studies are rarely replicated to check for reliability

Question 21

The 'talking cure' aims to:

A)To talk about issues that are troubling you with the goal of writing them down
B)Release bottled-up emotions and allow the individual to deal with them
C)Help keep unwanted emotions under control
D)Address problems by changing behaviours
E)Resolve personal problems without needing to see a medical doctor

Question 22

Ethical guidelines from the British Psychological Society are focused around four key areas. These are:

A)Competence, integrity, debriefing and informed consent
B)Competence, respect, fairness and withdrawal
C)Integrity, consequences, kindness and freedom from harm
D)Respect, integrity, speed and motive
E)Respect, integrity, competence and responsibility

Question 23

Three key factors to consider when assessing ecological validity are:

A)The data being collected, the way of recording it and the presence of the researcher
B)The task, the size of the sample and the presence of the researcher
C)The culture of the participant, the setting and the presence of the researcher
D)The task, the setting and the presence of the researcher
E)The task, the setting, the replicability of the procedure

Question 24

Two core studies using a longitudinal approach were by:

A)Bandura and Thigpen and Cleckley
B)Freud and Griffiths
C)Freud and Thigpen and Cleckley
D)Freud and Loftus and Palmer
E)Thigpen and Cleckley and Baron-Cohen

Question 25

Which of these is an example of qualitative data?

A)Milgram's participants' comments whilst shocking the 'learner'
B)Number of aggressive behaviours shown by Bandura's participants
C)Errors shown in conservation by Samuel and Bryant's participants
D)The total count of symbols learned by Kanzi
E)VBM and pixels in Maguire's methodology

Question 26

Many psychologists like to gather quantitative data because:

A)It gives a rich picture of the field being studied
B)It lends itself to analysis and comparison
C)It is very easy to collect
D)They can gain large amounts of data quickly
E)Participants prefer to take part in studies with quantitative measures

Question 27

Looking at the case studies of Genie and David Reimer, which one ethical problem did NOT apply?

A)The participants did not have adequate opportunity to withdraw from the research
B)Fully informed consent was not supplied by either participant
C)Concern for psychological research could be said to have outweighed the participants' welfare
D)The participants went through their experiences just for the sake of the research
E)The researchers arguably did not follow through with adequate ongoing care

Question 28

In psychological research, 'validity' means:

A)That the researchers had good intentions when they set up the research
B)Whether the research is practical
C)Obtaining quantitative data
D)The same as reliability
E)Whether the research actually tested what it meant to

Question 29

For behaviourist psychologists, the key to understanding people is to look at:

A)Behaviours that are common among groups
B)The reinforcers of behaviours only
C)The stimuli and reinforcers of people's behaviour
D)Unusual behaviours
E)The stimulus of behaviours only

Question 30

Galton is a key psychologist credited with inventing:

A)Hazard perception tests, null hypotheses and frequency tables
B)Mazes for rats, case studies and the line graph
C)A mental-testing laboratory, twin studies and the scattergraph
D)Laboratory assistants, the EEG and the bar chart
E)The IQ test, foetus scanning and pie charts

Question 31

Griffiths' study of gambling could be said to include aspects of cognitive psychology because:

A)The researcher investigated how gamblers learned their behaviours
B)It is ethically sound
C)The participants were already gamblers or non-gamblers
D)It generated quantitative data
E)It looks at gamblers' thought processes

Question 32

Childhood is the main focus of developmental psychology because:

A)This is when the most obvious changes take place
B)Children are easier to study than adults
C)Adults are too quick to spot the purpose of a study
D)Adults are less interesting
E)It is easier to devise good research around children's issues

Question 33

Two key researchers have emphasised the importance of attachment in child development. They are:

A)Judith Samuel and Peter Bryant
B)Emma Freud and Peter Bowlby
C)Sigmund Freud and John Bowlby
D)Sigmund Freud and Sue Savage-Rumbaugh
E)Jean Piaget and John Bowlby

Question 34

Mapping functions onto the physical structure of the brain:

A)Has only been achieved on animal brains
B)Has not produced any successful localisation of function
C)Has not been attempted
D)Has not been fully successful because some functions do not seem to sit in one site
E)Has been completed

Question 35

Broca's area of the brain appears to be responsible for:

A)Memory
B)Language
C)Appetite
D)Aggression
E)Sex drive

Question 36

Attribution theory is part of social psychology. It suggests that we tend to make 'fundamental attribution errors'. This means that:

A)We tend to believe that our situation always dictates what we do
B)Some people take full responsibility for their own mistakes
C)Some people believe in attributing mistakes to everyone except themselves
D)We believe that situations are responsible for others' behaviour while we are in control of ours
E)We believe that situations are responsible for our own behaviour, while others have full control over theirs

Question 37

Social psychologists have looked at incompetence and self-delusion. The research focused on:

A)Memory and personality tests
B)Reaction times and maths tests
C)Story-writing and perception tests
D)Joke-telling and logic tests
E)Swimming and IQ tests

Question 38

The individual differences approach assumes that:

A)The differences between people are more significant that general patterns of behaviour
B)The differences between individuals should not be taken into account
C)People's characteristics cannot be measured
D)Nothing valuable can be told by using psychometric tests
E)Psychometric testing is unethical

Question 39

Freud's study of Little Hans may well turn out differently if repeated with a different child participant. This means it is lacking in:

A)Accuracy
B)Generalisability
C)Ecological validity
D)Reliability
E)Validity