RepetoWhat probability does a p-value give under the null model and its assumptions?
The probability of a test statistic at least as extreme as the observed one.
Psychology: key concepts
320 questions in English on research, learning, memory, development and social behaviour.
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What kind of signaling substance is cortisol?
A glucocorticoid hormone involved in energy regulation and stress responses.
What does an operational definition specify?
Exactly how a construct is measured or manipulated in a particular study.
Does a heritability estimate of 60% mean that 60% of one person's trait is genetic?
No. Heritability describes variation among people, not a person's genetic percentage.
In an experiment testing whether background noise affects recall, which variable is dependent?
The measured recall performance.
Why should a self-report personality inventory not be treated as a complete direct view into someone's mind?
Responses depend on self-knowledge, interpretation, context and response biases.
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Question Answer
What probability does a p-value give under the null model and its assumptions? The probability of a test statistic at least as extreme as the observed one.
What kind of signaling substance is cortisol? A glucocorticoid hormone involved in energy regulation and stress responses.
What does an operational definition specify? Exactly how a construct is measured or manipulated in a particular study.
Does a heritability estimate of 60% mean that 60% of one person's trait is genetic? No. Heritability describes variation among people, not a person's genetic percentage.
In an experiment testing whether background noise affects recall, which variable is dependent? The measured recall performance.
Why should a self-report personality inventory not be treated as a complete direct view into someone's mind? Responses depend on self-knowledge, interpretation, context and response biases.
How should Gardner's multiple-intelligences proposal be distinguished from a proven set of independent mental abilities? It is an influential theoretical framework, not established proof that each proposed intelligence is an independent psychometric system.
What does secondary appraisal evaluate in a stressful situation? Available coping options and resources.
What can an epigenetic change alter without changing the DNA base sequence? Regulation of gene activity.
What is a cohort effect in an age comparison? A difference associated with groups' historical experiences rather than age alone.
Why is explaining a mental disorder as only too much or too little of one neurotransmitter usually inadequate? Mental disorders involve interacting biological, psychological and social processes rather than one universal chemical deficit.
What is an attitude in social psychology? An evaluation of a person, object, group or issue.
What three structures are named in the HPA stress-response axis? Hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal glands, with the adrenal cortex releasing cortisol.
What does measurement reliability concern? Consistency of scores or observations under appropriate repeated conditions.
Must lower needs in Maslow's hierarchy always be completely satisfied before higher pursuits appear? No. The hierarchy is an influential model, not a universal fixed sequence supported in every context.
Which autonomic division commonly supports digestion and recovery under resting conditions? The parasympathetic division.
Does having one panic attack by itself establish panic disorder? No. Panic disorder requires a broader pattern assessed in clinical context.
Is dementia an inevitable part of normal aging? No.
What does a tip-of-the-tongue state illustrate? A temporary retrieval difficulty despite a sense that the information is known.
In Freud's historical model, what did the id represent? Instinctual demands seeking immediate satisfaction.
What sequence defines the foot-in-the-door technique? A small initial request is followed by a larger related request.
Why is calling the amygdala simply the brain's fear center incomplete? It participates in broader learning and evaluation of emotionally significant events within networks.
What does pragmatics add beyond literal sentence meaning? How context, speaker intentions and social conventions shape interpretation.
In Piaget's terminology, what is accommodation? Changing a mental framework to account for new experience.
Which structures make up the central nervous system? The brain and spinal cord.
A learned response occurs to a new sound resembling the trained sound. What process does this illustrate? Stimulus generalization.
What chemical messengers are released by presynaptic terminals at chemical synapses? Neurotransmitters.
Why is money already spent usually irrelevant to choosing which future option has the best consequences? The past cost cannot be recovered by the current choice; future costs and benefits should guide that comparison.
What does standardizing a psychological test involve? Using consistent procedures for administering, scoring and interpreting the test.
How can a dissenting group member affect conformity pressure? Breaking unanimity can make independent responding easier.
What question does construct validity ask about a psychological measure? Whether the measure supports the intended interpretation of the underlying construct.
Why is attention important for learning from a demonstration? Relevant actions must be noticed before they can be encoded and reproduced.
What is the median of the scores 2, 3, 4, 8 and 30? 4.
What must a consequence do to count as punishment in behavioral terminology? Decrease the future likelihood of the behavior it follows.
What pattern does a self-serving attributional bias describe? Taking personal credit for success while explaining failure more through external circumstances.
What does comorbidity mean in mental-health research? Two or more conditions occur in the same person during a specified period.
Why does a correlation between screen use and poor sleep not establish that screen use caused the poor sleep? Reverse causation or other variables could explain the association.
Ice-cream sales and sunburn both rise in summer. What kind of explanation does hot sunny weather provide? A third-variable explanation for their association.
What is sensory transduction? Conversion of physical stimulus energy into signals the nervous system can use.
Can a person's appearance or body size alone rule an eating disorder in or out? No. Eating disorders occur across body sizes and require assessment of symptoms and functioning.
What is vicarious punishment? An observer becomes less likely to perform behavior after seeing someone else punished for it.
Why should an inverted-U account of arousal and performance not be treated as one universal optimal stress level? Task complexity, the person and how arousal is measured change the relationship.
The first response after each varying time interval is rewarded. Which reinforcement schedule is this? Variable interval.
What is attachment in developmental psychology? An enduring emotional bond, often studied between a child and caregiver.
How can intermittent reinforcement affect later extinction compared with continuous reinforcement? Behavior can persist longer when reinforcement stops after an intermittent history.
What does motivation help explain about behavior? Its initiation, direction and persistence.
Does a stronger stimulus normally make an individual action potential taller? No. Intensity is represented partly through firing rate and the population of neurons recruited.
What is figure–ground organization in vision? Separating a focal object from its surrounding background.
Why should a facial expression not be treated as a perfect readout of a person's inner emotion? Expression depends on context, culture, regulation and individual differences.
Why should one implicit-association score not be treated as a definitive diagnosis of an individual's character or future conduct? Measurement limitations and context constrain what a single score can predict.
Does hemispheric specialization justify dividing people into purely left-brained and right-brained personality types? No. Most complex activities depend on interacting networks across both hemispheres.
Which memory system supports general knowledge, such as knowing what a triangle is? Semantic memory.
What memory difficulty defines anterograde amnesia? Difficulty forming new lasting declarative memories after the impairment begins; some nondeclarative learning, such as skills, can remain intact.
What is latent learning? Learning that is acquired before it is clearly expressed through performance.
Why do similarities between identical twins not isolate genes perfectly from every environmental influence? Twins can share environments and experiences, and the design depends on assumptions about environmental similarity.
Why does extinction not necessarily erase the original association? The conditioned response can return, showing that new learning can suppress rather than delete the earlier association.
What did the cognitive approach bring into systematic psychological study? Processes such as attention, memory, reasoning and language.
How can social support relate to coping with stress? It can provide practical assistance, information, emotional connection and a sense of available resources.
What is neglected when someone judges likelihood from a vivid description while ignoring how common the event is? The base rate.
What does perceptual closure allow an observer to do? Perceive a complete form despite gaps in the sensory pattern.
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How does a stereotype function as a social belief? It generalizes characteristics to members of a group, often overlooking individual differences.
What is inattentional blindness? Failing to notice a visible but unexpected event while attention is engaged elsewhere.
What judgment shortcut estimates category membership from similarity to a typical example? The representativeness heuristic.
Which neuron structures commonly receive input from other neurons? Dendrites.
Which part of a typical neuron carries action potentials away from the cell body? The axon.
What does a just-noticeable difference estimate? The smallest stimulus difference detected with a specified level of accuracy.
A person's lateness is explained by a canceled train. What kind of attribution is being made? A situational attribution to external circumstances.
What is vicarious reinforcement? An observer becomes more likely to perform behavior after seeing someone else rewarded for it.
What does Weber's law approximately predict about detecting a change in stimulus intensity? The needed change is often proportional to the starting intensity within a useful range.
How should Piaget's stage theory be used in an introductory course? As an influential developmental model whose fixed stages and age estimates have been revised and challenged by later research.
Why is it misleading to treat a learned behavior as having no biological basis? Learning itself involves changes in neural systems interacting with experience.
What understanding is tested when a child is asked whether equal amounts remain equal after a change in appearance? Conservation of the relevant quantity.
A person's lateness is explained as laziness. What kind of attribution is being made? A dispositional attribution to a personal characteristic.
What is a sensitive period in development? A time when experience has especially strong effects on a developing system.
Why is unusual behavior alone insufficient to establish a mental disorder? Clinical assessment considers distress, impairment, development, culture and other explanations.
What does a norm-referenced intelligence score compare a person with? A specified reference group, often people of similar age.
What does chunking do to information being held in memory? Groups separate elements into meaningful units.
Why can linking new material to existing knowledge support memory? It creates meaningful connections and additional retrieval routes.
How should Freud's psychoanalytic explanations be presented in an introductory course? As historically influential theories, many of whose specific claims lack strong empirical support.
What does a drive-reduction account emphasize? Behavior motivated to reduce an internal physiological need or tension.
Why does experiencing psychosis not by itself identify one specific diagnosis? Psychotic symptoms can occur in different mental or medical conditions and other contexts.
Why does a treatment study need an appropriate comparison condition? Improvement may reflect time, expectations or other influences rather than the intervention's specific effect.
What is homeostasis? Regulation that keeps internal conditions within a workable range.
What can controlled modeling studies show without proving that every observer will imitate every modeled action? Observed behavior can influence later behavior under the studied conditions.
Why is asking whether development is entirely nature or entirely nurture misleading? Genetic, biological and environmental processes interact throughout development.
What does it mean to call a psychological trait polygenic? Many genetic variants contribute, typically with individually small effects.
What is appraisal in emotion research? Evaluation of an event's significance for one's goals, concerns or well-being.
A newly learned route makes an older route harder to recall. Which interference pattern is this? Retroactive interference: newer learning disrupts older information.
What does cognitive dissonance refer to? An uncomfortable inconsistency among relevant beliefs, attitudes or actions that can motivate change.
Does greater peer influence in adolescence imply that parents and other adults no longer matter? No. Multiple relationships continue to influence development.
How does working memory go beyond simple short-term storage? It maintains and manipulates information for an ongoing task.
How does discrimination differ from prejudice? Discrimination concerns differential behavior or treatment; prejudice concerns evaluative attitudes toward a group.
What does groupthink describe as a decision-making risk? Pressure for agreement can suppress critical evaluation of alternatives.
What can prevent someone from using a familiar object in a novel way to solve a problem? Functional fixedness: focusing on its customary use.
What does operant conditioning connect a behavior with? Its consequences.
Why report an effect size in addition to a p-value? It describes the magnitude of a difference or association, which significance alone does not provide.
What three broad kinds of influence does a biopsychosocial approach consider? Biological, psychological and social influences.
What makes evidence empirical? It comes from systematic observation or measurement rather than authority or intuition alone.
Why can self-reported behavior differ from actual behavior? Memory limits, interpretation and impression management can influence responses.
Under what broad condition can the presence of others improve performance? It can strengthen well-learned or easy responses, while potentially impairing difficult or unfamiliar performance.
What does fluid intelligence emphasize? Reasoning through unfamiliar problems without relying mainly on previously acquired knowledge.
Does a positive depression screening result establish a diagnosis? No. A positive screen calls for further assessment to determine whether depression is present.
What does sensory memory briefly retain? Information from sensory input before much further processing.
Why can a door seem rectangular even while its retinal image changes as it opens? Perceptual constancy helps preserve an object's perceived shape across viewing conditions.
In observational learning, what is a model? A person or other represented agent whose behavior is observed.
What mood-episode histories distinguish bipolar I and bipolar II disorders? Bipolar I involves mania; bipolar II involves hypomania and major depression without a manic episode.
What procedure typically reduces a conditioned response in classical conditioning? Repeatedly presenting the conditioned stimulus without the expected unconditioned stimulus.
What is spontaneous recovery after extinction? Reappearance of a conditioned response after time has passed without further training.
What important memory function involves the hippocampus? Forming and organizing new declarative memories, within a broader memory network.
Does normal aging cause every cognitive ability to decline at the same rate? No. Different abilities show different trajectories, and individuals vary.
How does obedience differ from general conformity? It involves responding to a direct demand from an authority figure.
What does bottom-up processing build perception from? Incoming sensory information.
Does an intelligence-test score measure a person's overall worth or every valuable ability? No. It measures performance on selected cognitive tasks, not total human value or every competence.
Why is the common fMRI BOLD signal an indirect measure of neural activity? It reflects changes in blood oxygenation associated with neural activity rather than directly recording spikes.
What did early behaviorist approaches emphasize when studying psychology? Observable behavior and its relationship to environmental events.
What is a phoneme? A speech-sound category that can distinguish meaning within a language.
In a standard detection task, what does the absolute threshold estimate? The stimulus intensity detected on about half of the trials under specified conditions.
Why can a cue present during learning help later recall? Retrieval is often improved when available cues overlap with how information was encoded.
What is encoding in memory? Transforming information into a representation that can be retained.
Does failing to perform an observed behavior prove that no learning occurred? No. Motivation, opportunity and ability affect performance separately from learning.
A sound comes to elicit salivation after predicting food. What is the sound now called? A conditioned stimulus.
What is the purpose of debriefing after research involving justified deception? To explain the study and deception and address participants' questions or concerns.
Does experiencing chronic stress guarantee that someone will develop a specific illness? No. Stress can contribute to risk through several pathways, but outcomes depend on multiple influences.
Which autonomic division commonly increases physiological readiness during a threat? The sympathetic division.
Does the bystander effect mean that additional witnesses always reduce the chance that anyone helps? No. Effects depend on context, danger, relationships and how helping is measured.
How does change blindness differ from simply having poor eyesight? A person can fail to detect a scene change because attention and comparison are limited, even with adequate vision.
How do obsessions differ from compulsions in OCD? Obsessions are intrusive recurring thoughts or urges; compulsions are repetitive behaviors or mental acts linked to distress or rigid rules.
What does personality describe? Relatively characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving across time and situations.
Why can a clear, specific goal guide action better than an undefined wish? It makes the target and progress toward it easier to identify.
Why is replication important when evaluating a psychological finding? It tests whether the result recurs under specified conditions rather than depending on one study.
In Freud's historical model, what was the ego's proposed role? Managing demands from impulses, internal standards and external reality.
What judgment shortcut relies on how easily examples come to mind? The availability heuristic.
Why can language and educational opportunity matter when interpreting cognitive-test performance? They influence what the test demands and what experience the examinee has had.
Does exposure to a traumatic event mean that a person will develop PTSD? No. Many people do not develop PTSD, and outcomes vary.
What kinds of processes commonly involve prefrontal networks? Planning, working memory and regulation of goal-directed behavior.
How is a mood commonly distinguished from an emotion? A mood is often more diffuse and longer-lasting, with a less specific object or trigger.
What is a morpheme? A smallest meaningful unit in a language, such as a word root or meaningful affix.
What is learned when a response occurs to one predictive cue but not to a similar nonpredictive cue? Stimulus discrimination.
Does a correlation near zero rule out every relationship between two variables? No. A nonlinear relationship can exist despite little linear correlation.
What does shaping reinforce? Successive approximations toward a target behavior.
How does an algorithm differ from a heuristic in problem solving? An algorithm follows a defined procedure; a heuristic is a shortcut that may work without guaranteeing success.
How does recognition differ from recall? Recognition identifies previously encountered information among cues; recall generates information with fewer direct prompts.
In trait research, what does neuroticism describe rather than diagnose? A tendency toward experiencing negative emotions and emotional instability.
Why do ambiguous-stimulus personality tests require careful evidence for each intended interpretation? An interpretation's reliability and validity cannot be assumed from the test's format or clinical popularity.
A reward follows every fifth completed response. Which reinforcement schedule is this? Fixed ratio.
How does binocular disparity contribute to depth perception? The two eyes receive slightly different images, providing information about relative distance.
Does understanding another person's feelings require agreeing with their beliefs or actions? No. Empathy concerns understanding or sharing experience, not necessarily endorsement.
Can adults continue to learn and show neural adaptation? Yes. Learning and plasticity continue, although their forms and constraints change with age.
What does syntax govern? How words and other elements are combined into grammatically structured expressions.
How does puberty differ from adolescence? Puberty refers to biological sexual maturation; adolescence is a broader developmental and social period.
In Erikson's historical framework, what task is especially associated with adolescence? Exploring and developing a sense of identity.
What distinguishes a stage account from a continuous account of development? A stage account proposes qualitatively different phases; a continuous account emphasizes more gradual change.
What does a diagnostic classification system provide without automatically explaining causes? Shared descriptions and criteria for grouping clinical presentations.
What makes behavior prosocial? It is intended to benefit another person or group.
How does sensation differ from perception? Sensation detects and transduces stimulation; perception organizes and interprets sensory information.
How does random sampling differ from random assignment? Sampling selects people from a population; assignment allocates participants to conditions.
Must every grieving person pass through the same five stages in a fixed order? No. Grief varies, and a rigid universal sequence is not supported.
How does a dimensional trait model differ from a strict personality-type system? It places people along continua rather than assigning everyone to separate all-or-none categories.
What makes motivation extrinsic? The activity is pursued for an outcome separable from the activity itself.
In substance-use research, what does tolerance mean? Repeated use produces less effect from the same amount, or more is needed for a comparable effect.
Which form of long-term memory supports learned skills such as typing familiar patterns? Procedural memory.
What sequence did the James–Lange theory propose for emotional experience? In the theory, perceiving an event triggers bodily changes; feeling those changes constitutes the emotional experience.
Which Big Five dimension concerns organization, persistence and self-discipline? Conscientiousness.
What is salivation to the previously neutral predictive sound called? A conditioned response.
What does object permanence mean? Understanding that an object continues to exist when it is out of sight.
Is a p-value the probability that the null hypothesis is true? No.
What does selective attention prioritize? Some information or tasks over competing inputs.
How does a scientific hypothesis differ from a theory? A hypothesis is a specific testable prediction; a theory organizes a broader body of explanations and evidence.
What is neuroplasticity? The nervous system's capacity to change its structure or functioning with experience, development or injury.
Why may very old participants in a long-running study not represent everyone from their original birth cohort? Survival and continued participation can select a healthier or otherwise different subgroup.
How does phenotype differ from genotype? Phenotype is an expressed characteristic shaped by genetic and environmental influences; genotype is genetic makeup.
What does random assignment place participants into by chance? Experimental conditions or groups.
Which Big Five dimension broadly concerns curiosity and receptiveness to ideas and experience? Openness to experience.
Do universal symbol dictionaries provide a scientifically established way to decode every dream? No. A fixed universal symbolic interpretation is not established.
How does implicit memory differ from explicit memory? Implicit effects can appear without conscious recollection; explicit memory involves conscious recollection or recognition.
Why can a passage feel familiar during rereading even when later unaided recall is poor? Familiarity with visible material is not the same as being able to retrieve it independently.
Which non-REM stage is associated with prominent slow-wave activity? N3 sleep.
What is conformity? Changing behavior or expressed beliefs in response to group influence.
What makes a variable a confound in an experiment? It varies systematically with the manipulated factor and offers an alternative explanation for the outcome.
Does evidence establish that matching instruction to a self-reported visual or auditory learning style improves learning generally? No. Preferences exist, but the claimed matching advantage lacks adequate supporting evidence.
What makes learning observational? It occurs through watching others or the consequences they experience.
In Piaget's terminology, what is assimilation? Interpreting new experience using an existing mental framework.
What does temperament describe in early development? Relatively characteristic patterns of emotional reactivity and self-regulation.
Which retinal photoreceptors support color vision and high-acuity vision in bright light? Cones.
Old login details make a new password harder to remember. Which interference pattern is this? Proactive interference: older learning disrupts newer information.
Why can failure to recall something now differ from permanent loss of the memory? The stored information may be inaccessible with the current retrieval cues.
A child says 'goed' instead of 'went.' What developmental pattern does this illustrate? Overregularization: applying a learned rule to an irregular case.
What does a cross-sectional developmental study compare? Different age groups measured at approximately the same time.
Why does someone conform under normative social influence? To gain acceptance or avoid social rejection.
What must informed consent provide beyond a participant's signature? Understandable information and a voluntary opportunity to decide whether to participate.
How does homeostatic sleep pressure generally change during sustained wakefulness? It increases, creating a stronger tendency to sleep.
What distinguishes REM sleep from typical deep non-REM sleep? Rapid eye movements and a relatively activated brain pattern, usually with strong suppression of skeletal muscle tone.
Does one failed replication prove that the original effect never occurs? No. Methods, sampling, precision and context must be examined alongside the broader evidence.
What did Asch's line-judgment studies demonstrate without showing that everyone always conforms? A unanimous group's incorrect judgments can influence some people's public responses under the studied conditions.
What are emotional display rules? Socially learned expectations about when and how emotions should be expressed.
What does heritability estimate for a specified population and environment? The proportion of observed variation in a trait associated with genetic differences.
Why is independent ethics review used before human-participant research begins? To evaluate participant protections, risks and the justification for the proposed procedures.
What does psychology study as a scientific discipline? Behavior and mental processes.
What cognitive function is particularly vulnerable to insufficient sleep? Sustained attention, including maintaining consistent alertness over time.
Does dreaming occur only during REM sleep? No. Dream experiences can also occur during non-REM sleep.
What is a concept in cognitive psychology? A mental category used to organize objects, events or ideas.
What is learned in a basic classical-conditioning procedure? A relationship between stimuli, so one stimulus comes to predict another.
What does compliance involve in social psychology? Agreeing to a request from another person.
Does an early attachment classification determine a person's entire future personality or every later relationship? No. Development remains influenced by later experiences and changing contexts.
What does retrieval practice require the learner to do? Attempt to bring information to mind instead of only reviewing it.
What does Vygotsky's zone of proximal development describe? The gap between what a learner can do independently and with suitable assistance.
How does confidentiality differ from anonymity in research data? Confidentiality protects identifiable information; anonymity means responses are not linked to identifiable participants.
Why is evidence that similarity predicts attraction not a guarantee about any particular relationship? Average associations leave substantial room for individual differences and context.
Why is the autism spectrum not well represented by one line from mildly to severely autistic? People differ across multiple dimensions of characteristics, strengths and support needs.
Which Big Five dimension broadly concerns cooperation, compassion and interpersonal trust? Agreeableness.
Why is negative reinforcement different from punishment? Reinforcement increases behavior; negative refers to removing a stimulus, not reducing behavior.
What is a framing effect in decision research? Equivalent options can elicit different choices when described in different ways.
Why does a difference between two group averages not determine every individual's score? The groups can overlap substantially, and individuals vary within each group.
What does the peripheral nervous system connect to the central nervous system? The body's sensory receptors, muscles, organs and other peripheral tissues.
How is a critical period usually distinguished from a sensitive period? A critical period implies a more restricted window required for typical development; the evidence depends on the system studied.
What happens when depolarization reaches the threshold needed to trigger an action potential? A regenerative electrical spike is initiated.
How can selective dropout bias a longitudinal study? Those who remain may differ systematically from those who leave.
Why may a steady background odor become less noticeable over time? Sensory responsiveness can decrease during sustained stimulation.
What is social loafing? Reduced individual effort when working collectively, especially when contributions are hard to identify.
How does a modest linguistic-relativity claim differ from linguistic determinism? Language can influence some thought processes without making other thoughts impossible.
Why can two people with similar sensory sensitivity report different numbers of detections? They may use different decision criteria because of expectations or costs of errors.
Why might an individual feel less personally responsible to help when several others are present? Responsibility may seem shared across the group.
A seat-belt alarm stops when a driver buckles up, making prompt buckling more likely. Which process is illustrated? Negative reinforcement: an aversive event is removed and the behavior increases.
What does scalp EEG primarily record? Voltage differences produced mainly by synchronized electrical activity in populations of cortical neurons.
What does retention contribute to observational learning? A representation of the observed behavior remains available for later use.
What is the defining feature of naturalistic observation? Behavior is recorded in its ordinary setting without experimental manipulation.
What did humanistic personality approaches emphasize? Subjective experience, agency, growth and the development of personal potential.
Why should a scientific claim allow observations that could count against it? A claim protected from every possible contradictory observation cannot be meaningfully tested.
Why is remembering unlike replaying an unchanged recording? Recall combines retained information with current knowledge, expectations and cues.
What is retrieval in memory? Accessing information that has been retained.
What environmental signal is especially important for aligning human circadian timing? Light, detected by pathways connecting the eyes to the brain's timing system.
Does high heritability imply that an environmental intervention cannot change a trait? No. Genetic contribution to variation does not imply immutability.
What does group polarization describe? Discussion can shift a group's average position toward a more extreme version of its initial tendency.
How does a longitudinal design study developmental change? It follows the same individuals across time.
What does calling something a risk factor imply about a mental-health outcome? It is associated with a higher probability of the specified adverse outcome, without guaranteeing it or by itself establishing causation.
What interacts in Bandura's concept of reciprocal determinism? Personal factors, behavior and the environment.
Why is ADHD described as neurodevelopmental rather than simply as occasional distraction? It involves a persistent developmental pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity associated with functional difficulties.
Why do developmental psychologists distinguish physical, cognitive and psychosocial domains? They organize different aspects of development while recognizing that the domains influence one another.
What observation motivates the psychometric general factor called g? Performance on different cognitive tests tends to correlate positively.
How does dimensional assessment differ from only assigning a diagnostic category? It describes the degree or profile of symptoms rather than only category membership.
What interacting components are commonly distinguished in emotion? Subjective experience, physiological responses, expression and action tendencies.
Why are physiological dependence and addiction not identical concepts? Dependence involves adaptation and withdrawal; addiction includes a broader pattern of compulsive use despite harmful consequences.
Why should Milgram's obedience findings not be reduced to a universal percentage for all people and settings? Obedience changed across procedures and contexts, and the studies had specific samples and ethical limitations.
How does expressive suppression differ from reappraisal? Suppression limits outward expression; reappraisal changes the meaning assigned to the situation.
Why should emerging adulthood not be treated as a universal life stage experienced identically worldwide? Its form and availability depend on social, cultural and economic conditions.
What does cognitive behavioral therapy broadly examine? Connections among thoughts, feelings and behaviors, using structured methods to change unhelpful patterns.
How does chronic stress differ from an acute stress response? It involves prolonged or repeatedly sustained demands and responses rather than a short-lived episode.
What is social-desirability responding? Answering in ways perceived as socially acceptable rather than fully reporting one's experience or behavior.
What tendency is often called the fundamental attribution error? Overweighting personal causes and underweighting situational influences when explaining others' behavior, with cultural and contextual variation.
Is schizophrenia the same as having multiple separate personalities? No. That description confuses distinct concepts and misrepresents schizophrenia.
Why should an intelligence-test score not be treated as an exact measurement of a fixed essence? Measurement error, testing conditions and developmental influences affect scores and their interpretation.
What does an internal locus-of-control belief emphasize? That one's actions can influence outcomes, rather than outcomes depending only on outside forces.
A learner receives praise after completing practice, and practice increases. Which process is illustrated? Positive reinforcement: a consequence is added and the behavior increases.
What does lifespan developmental psychology examine? Patterns of change and continuity from conception through later life.
What role can a prototype play in categorization? It provides a typical or representative example against which other instances are compared.
Does an average age for acquiring a skill define a deadline that every child must meet? No. Individual variation and the skill's context must be considered.
What is storage in memory? Maintaining information over time.
What is the synaptic cleft? The small gap between a presynaptic terminal and the receiving cell.
Why can one extremely high score raise the mean more than the median? The mean uses every score's magnitude; the median depends on ordered position.
How should psychoanalytic defense mechanisms be introduced as explanations? As theoretical ways of describing responses to conflict, not diagnoses that can be read directly from one behavior.
Does high confidence guarantee that a particular recollection is accurate? No. Confidence and accuracy can diverge, and their relationship depends on how and when they are measured.
What is the misinformation effect in memory research? Misleading information encountered after an event can alter later reports of that event.
Why can feedback matter after an unsuccessful retrieval attempt? It supplies or corrects the target information so an error is not left unaddressed.
What makes motivation intrinsic? The activity is pursued for its inherent interest or satisfaction.
Which inner-ear receptor cells convert mechanical vibration into neural signals for hearing? Hair cells in the cochlea.
Why is adolescence not accurately described as the same inevitable crisis for everyone? Experiences vary with individuals, relationships, culture and social conditions.
In Rogers's model, what does congruence concern? Consistency between a person's self-concept and their lived experience.
Why can a detailed case study not by itself establish how common a pattern is in a population? A small, selected case does not provide a representative frequency estimate.
Which retinal photoreceptors are especially useful in dim illumination? Rods.
What does neurotransmitter reuptake do? It transports released transmitter back into cells, helping regulate its availability in the synapse.
What does problem-focused coping try to change? The stress-producing situation or the practical demands it creates.
Why can a trait description fail to predict a single action perfectly? Behavior depends on the situation as well as the person's characteristic tendencies.
In a standard example where food naturally elicits salivation, which event is the unconditioned stimulus? The food.
Under the Gestalt principle of proximity, which elements tend to be perceived as belonging together? Elements located near one another.
Why might a child understand a demonstrated action yet be unable to perform it immediately? The motor skills or other abilities needed to reproduce it may not yet be available.
Does a statistically nonsignificant result prove that an effect is exactly zero? No. The study may be too imprecise to distinguish the effect from zero.
How does spaced practice differ from massed practice? Learning episodes are separated over time rather than concentrated in one uninterrupted session.
What is confirmation bias? A tendency to seek, interpret or remember information in ways that favor existing beliefs.
What is the mere-exposure effect? Repeated exposure can increase liking for a familiar stimulus under suitable conditions.
What does emotion-focused coping primarily try to manage? The emotional response to a stressful situation.
What must a consequence do to count as reinforcement? Increase the future likelihood of the behavior it follows.
What two elements does the Schachter–Singer theory combine to explain emotional experience? Physiological arousal and interpretation of that arousal in context.
What does crystallized intelligence emphasize? Knowledge and skills accumulated through education and experience.
Does a treatment's average benefit in a study guarantee benefit for every participant or future patient? No. Individual responses vary, and the study's sample and conditions limit generalization.
What does a negative correlation indicate? Higher values of one variable tend to accompany lower values of the other.
What does self-efficacy concern? A person's belief about their ability to perform a particular task or manage a situation.
Why is explaining language development as only imitation incomplete? Children generalize rules and produce novel expressions through interacting biological and social-learning processes.
Can personality traits show both stability and change over the lifespan? Yes. Relative differences can persist while average levels and individuals also change.
What does acquisition describe in conditioning? The initial development of the learned response or association.
What is a gene–environment interaction? The effect of a genetic difference depends on the environment, or the environmental effect depends on genetic differences.
What does semantics concern? Meaning in words, phrases and sentences.
How does a stressor differ from a stress response? A stressor is a demand or challenge; the response is the person's psychological and physiological reaction.
What did controlled retrieval-practice studies show about later retention, beyond the immediate appearance of fluency? Attempted retrieval can improve delayed retention compared with additional study under the tested conditions.
Why is a signed language a language even though it is not spoken? Language depends on a structured symbolic system, not on using vocal sound.
In appraisal models of stress, what does primary appraisal evaluate? Whether an event is irrelevant, beneficial, threatening, harmful or challenging.
What did the Cannon–Bard theory propose about emotional experience and bodily arousal? They can arise in parallel rather than emotion requiring perception of bodily change first.
How does myelin affect signaling along many axons? It supports faster, more efficient propagation between gaps in the sheath.
Which two experiences commonly anchor descriptions of a depressive episode? Persistent depressed mood and/or loss of interest or pleasure, assessed with other symptoms and clinical context.
What is an attribution in social psychology? An explanation for why a behavior or event occurred.
What does productivity mean as a property of language? A finite set of elements and rules can support novel expressions.
Why can a clinical explanation consider social conditions alongside brain and psychological processes? These influences interact and can contribute to symptoms and functioning.
Why can the same neurotransmitter have different effects at different synapses? Its effect depends on receptor types and the receiving cell's signaling machinery.
In Freud's historical model, what did the superego represent? Internalized moral standards and ideals.
Can a measure be consistent while failing to measure its intended construct? Yes. Reliability alone does not establish validity.
Which memory system supports remembering a personally experienced event in its context? Episodic memory.
How do central and peripheral routes of persuasion differ in the elaboration-likelihood model? Central processing evaluates arguments closely; peripheral processing relies more on cues outside the argument's substance.
What distinguishes an experiment from a purely observational study? The researcher manipulates an independent variable to study its effects.
What does a circadian rhythm describe? A roughly 24-hour cycle in biological activity.
Which five broad dimensions make up the Big Five model? Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
What does cognitive reappraisal change during emotion regulation? The interpretation of a situation, which can alter its emotional impact.
Why does someone conform under informational social influence? They treat others' judgments or behavior as evidence about reality.
What does an incentive account emphasize about motivation? External goals or anticipated outcomes can attract and guide behavior.
How can top-down processing influence what a person perceives? Prior knowledge, expectations and context shape interpretation of sensory input.
What does standard deviation summarize about a set of scores? Their spread around the mean.
What memory difficulty defines retrograde amnesia? Loss or impaired retrieval of memories formed before the onset of the impairment.
Which Big Five dimension broadly concerns sociability, assertiveness and energetic engagement? Extraversion.
What is scaffolding in learning and development? Temporary support adjusted to help a learner perform beyond current independent ability.
What does source monitoring help a person distinguish? Where remembered information came from, such as direct experience, imagination or another person's account.
Why is working-memory capacity better described as limited than as one universal fixed item count? Performance varies with the task, material, chunking and individual differences.
What do psychometric theories of intelligence study? Patterns of performance across cognitive tasks and the abilities those patterns may reflect.
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