Principles of Psychology Exam Practice Tests

Course Introduction

Principles of Psychology provides an introduction to the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes. The course covers fundamental topics including perception, learning, memory, motivation, emotion, personality, development, and psychological disorders. Students will explore major psychological theories, research methods, and the application of psychology to everyday life. Through lectures, discussions, and practical examples, this course offers a foundational understanding of how psychologists investigate the mind and behavior, and encourages critical thinking about psychological concepts and findings.

Recommended Textbook

Psychological Science 4th Edition by Michael Gazzaniga

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15 Chapters

2828 Verified Questions

2828 Flashcards

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Page 2

Chapter 1: The Science of Psychology

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133 Verified Questions

133 Flashcards

Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20126

Sample Questions

Q1) Which of the following statements best reflects the contributions of women to early psychological science?

A) Women were not strong contributors to psychological science research until recently.

B) Women were most likely to contribute as secondary researchers, but not primary researchers, until the twentieth century.

C) Women's contributions to early psychological science have typically been underappreciated.

D) Women's contributions to early psychological science were, in contrast to the other sciences, always highly appreciated.

Answer: C

Q2) Which cultural group is most likely to focus on single elements of the foreground in an image rather than on the entire image?

A) Eastern cultures

B) Western cultures

C) both Western and Eastern cultures

D) neither Western nor Eastern cultures

Answer: B

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Chapter 2: Research Methodology

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160 Verified Questions

160 Flashcards

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Sample Questions

Q1) A psychologist wants to create two groups that are as similar as possible at the beginning of an experiment.To do this,she should use:

A) random sampling

B) random assignment

C) self-report methods

D) participant observation

Answer: B

Q2) The Hawthorne effect refers to changes in behavior associated with:

A) reactivity

B) observer bias

C) experimenter expectancy

D) informed consent

Answer: A

Q3) George is looking for a research project.He could make use of theory because:

A) theories are shown to be true, so subsequent research is successful

B) one of the benefits of theories is that they lead to testable hypotheses

C) a theory can be successfully replicated by researchers

D) theories are likely to result in serendipity, which leads to successful research

Answer: B

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Page 4

Chapter 3: Biology and Behavior

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214 Verified Questions

214 Flashcards

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Sample Questions

Q1) The Human Genome Project has made the surprising discovery that:

A) humans have millions of genes in common with insects

B) humans have about the same number of genes as other living creatures

C) there are single, separate genes for each human psychological characteristic

D) the genome is too complex to map at this time

Answer: B

Q2) You might think of the pituitary gland as the master gland because it:

A) is in the brain, the master of the body

B) allows for the mastery of skills

C) facilitates cognitive mastery of problems

D) controls the release of hormones throughout the system

Answer: D

Q3) The term genetics is used to describe how:

A) physical characteristics are passed on through inheritance

B) behavioral and personality characteristics are passed on through inheritance

C) physical, behavioral, and personality characteristics are passed on through inheritance

D) physical and behavioral characteristics are passed on through inheritance

Answer: C

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Chapter 4: Sensation and Perception

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179 Verified Questions

179 Flashcards

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Sample Questions

Q1) Master chefs are likely to have _____ than other people.

A) more kinds of taste buds

B) a different distribution of taste buds

C) a larger number of taste buds

D) more responsive taste buds

Q2) When you are on a small bluff,the ocean sand looks smooth and uniform,but when you sit down on the sand you can see all the bumps and colors.This difference is an example of which depth cue?

A) position relative to the horizon

B) figure to ground

C) texture gradient

D) motion parallax

Q3) Cameron has an inner ear infection.In addition to the pain in his ear,Cameron is most likely to:

A) develop double vision

B) have trouble locating himself in space

C) lose his appetite

D) feel dizzy

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Chapter 5: Consciousness

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152 Verified Questions

152 Flashcards

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Sample Questions

Q1) Dreams occurring during REM sleep are _____; dreams occurring during non-REM sleep are _____.

A) dull and mundane; bizarre and highly emotional

B) bizarre and highly emotional; dull and mundane

C) likely to include visual hallucinations and illogical content; likely to include auditory hallucinations

D) likely to include auditory hallucinations and loss of time and space; likely to include visual hallucinations and illogical content

Q2) Which of the following actions is LEAST likely to occur unconsciously?

A) swinging your arms

B) chewing gum

C) walking to the store

D) following GPS directions

Q3) Which of the following brain areas is responsible for secreting melatonin?

A) pineal gland

B) suprachiasmic nuclei

C) reticular formation

D) substantia nigra

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Chapter 6: Learning

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177 Verified Questions

177 Flashcards

Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20131

Sample Questions

Q1) According to Watson,children are born as a blank slate,or tabula rasa.Which of the following characteristics should a child then possess from birth?

A) the potential for cognition, but not the experiences necessary to use cognitive thought

B) basic reflexes through which he or she can have sensory experiences

C) associations between action and effect

D) the ability to free associate through nonverbal response

Q2) Setting dates exactly one month apart for exams is an example of testing on a:

A) variable interval

B) variable ratio

C) random assignment

D) fixed interval

Q3) According to the work of Shepard Siegel,an addict's usual large dose is most likely to produce an overdose in which setting?

A) in a novel setting

B) in a familiar setting

C) the setting is unimportant

D) none of the above

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Chapter 7: Attention and Memory

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194 Verified Questions

194 Flashcards

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Sample Questions

Q1) Harry was reading the textbook for his potions class and was trying to relate the material to his own experiences.According to the levels of processing model of memory,this would be considered:

A) deep processing

B) consolidation

C) shallow processing

D) transfiguration

Q2) Trey's girlfriend wants to bake a birthday cake and Trey is buying the ingredients.His girlfriend told him to buy flour,sugar,baking powder,eggs,chocolate,baking soda,and vanilla.Trey also buys frosting because he is sure it was on the list.This type of misremembering is an example of:

A) confabulation

B) false recognition

C) absentmindedness

D) memory bias

Q3) The process of getting information out of memory storage is called:

A) encoding

B) rehearsal

C) retrieval

D) storage

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Chapter 8: Thinking and Intelligence

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213 Verified Questions

213 Flashcards

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Sample Questions

Q1) Research on the brain development of mice that are raised in environments offering different degrees of stimulation suggests that the increased intelligence seen in children raised in more stimulating environments is due to:

A) activation of genes involved in forming new neurotransmitters

B) increases in the kinds of neurons formed

C) increases in the number of new neurons formed

D) more synaptic connections

Q2) Shannon and Sayid go out for coffee.He holds the door for her,pulls out her chair,and takes the check.He is very confused when she becomes irritable with him for doing these things.You could help him understand Shannon's reactions by explaining that they probably have conflicting _____ for a man and woman going out.

A) concepts

B) scripts

C) prototypes

D) heuristics

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Chapter 9: Human Development

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203 Verified Questions

203 Flashcards

Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20134

Sample Questions

Q1) Recent studies have shown that an infant:

A) cannot tell the difference between her or his mother's voice and a stranger's until about 6 months old

B) can alter his or her sucking pattern to hear his or her mother's voice

C) can tell the difference between her or his mother's voice and a male stranger's but not a female stranger's

D) cannot process speech until he or she begins to talk

Q2) Children who suffer severe neglect have brains that are smaller and that develop abnormally.These results are most likely due to:

A) a lack of synaptic connections

B) a lack of synaptic pruning

C) plasticity

D) environmental enrichment

Q3) Very few synaptic connections between neurons will be made in the brain if:

A) myelination has not occurred

B) the child is not adequately stimulated

C) the child is in the preoperational stage

D) all teratogens have been avoided

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Chapter 10: Emotion and Motivation

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191 Verified Questions

191 Flashcards

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Sample Questions

Q1) Comparisons of sexual motivation in men and women have found that:

A) men and women have roughly equal sexual motivation

B) women have equal sexual motivation, but are more culturally constrained

C) men have a higher level of sexual motivation

D) differences between men and women are culture specific

Q2) During recess,children are trying to get the two ends of a seesaw perfectly balanced.If one side is too low,a heavier child will get off and be replaced by a lighter child; if one side is too high,a lighter child will be replaced by a heavier one.By analogy to a biological state,the children are trying to create _____,by mimicking a process of

A) drive satisfaction; arousal

B) arousal; needs

C) equilibrium; homeostasis

D) homeostasis; negative feedback

Q3) The purpose of homeostatic behaviors is to:

A) generate a drive to satisfy a need

B) stabilize conditions in the body

C) create a state of arousal

D) both A and C

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Page 12

Chapter 11: Health and Well-Being

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182 Verified Questions

182 Flashcards

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Sample Questions

Q1) The fact that when you are sick you will almost always get better defines:

A) problem-focused coping

B) a facet of positive psychology

C) the medical model of health

D) the principle of regression to the mean

Q2) According to Selye,the general adaptation syndrome consists of three stages that occur in the following order:

A) exhaustion, resistance, alarm

B) resistance, alarm, exhaustion

C) alarm, exhaustion, resistance

D) alarm, resistance, exhaustion

Q3) If Amy is committed to her life tasks,feels challenged by barriers,and feels in control of her fate,she would be described as:

A) Type A

B) Type B

C) hardy

D) an externalizer

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Chapter 12: Social Psychology

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174 Verified Questions

174 Flashcards

Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20137

Sample

Questions

Q1) Yolanda is interviewing for a job as an engineer.She is doing very well until the interviewer,a man,asks her if she believes that a woman can handle the responsibilities of being an engineer.After that,she stumbles over answers and becomes distracted.Yolanda is showing the effects of:

A) self-serving bias

B) attributional bias

C) prejudiced attitudes

D) stereotype threat

Q2) Stanley Milgram's experiment illustrated the phenomenon of:

A) stereotypes

B) obedience

C) resistance

D) none of the above

Q3) Which of the following statements is NOT a reason that stereotypes tend to be maintained?

A) People pay more attention to stereotype-consistent information.

B) People remember stereotype-consistent information better.

C) People have more stereotype-consistent experiences.

D) People make stereotype-consistent attributions.

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Page 14

Chapter 13: Personality

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209 Verified Questions

209 Flashcards

Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20138

Sample Questions

Q1) Naoko is a college student from Japan.As part of a psychology research study,she has just taken a personality trait assessment.How is Naoko likely to rate herself on the dimensions of agreeableness and neuroticism,compared to the average college student in the United States?

A) higher on agreeableness and lower on neuroticism

B) higher on both dimensions

C) lower on both dimensions

D) lower on agreeableness and higher on neuroticism

Q2) Martha knows she can succeed at getting into medical school.She says,"All I have to do is figure out how other people got in,select the strategies I can successfully use,and then implement my plan." Martha is showing high levels of:

A) self-esteem

B) external locus of control

C) internal locus of control

D) openness to experience

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Chapter 14: Psychological Disorders

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209 Verified Questions

209 Flashcards

Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20139

Sample Questions

Q1) The diathesis-stress model of mental disorders argues that:

A) stress is the primary cause of mental disorders

B) genetic factors that make us unable to cope with stress are the primary cause of mental disorders

C) we can have predispositions to mental disorders without ever developing a disorder

D) trauma is the primary cause of mental dysfunction

Q2) Delusions are a positive symptom and social isolation is a _____ symptom; both are associated with _____.

A) negative; schizophrenia

B) positive; schizophrenia

C) positive; bipolar disorder

D) negative; bipolar disorder

Q3) Which of the following phenomena is NOT a biological marker for depression?

A) decreased activity in the left prefrontal cortex

B) decreased monoamine activity

C) disturbance in normal biological rhythms

D) increased testosterone and oxytocin production

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Chapter 15: Treatment of Psychological Disorders

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238 Verified Questions

238 Flashcards

Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20140

Sample Questions

Q1) Your textbook authors argue that although transcranial magnetic stimulation has fewer side effects than electroconvulsive therapy for treating depression,it will never fully replace the former because:

A) it is much more expensive to administer

B) the two approaches may work with different kinds of patients

C) patients prefer the latter

D) electroconvulsive therapy is effective with patients who have not responded to drug treatments, whereas transcranial magnetic stimulation is not

Q2) Karine completed a behavioral treatment for her spider phobia.From what you know about behavioral treatment for phobias,which was the most effective part of the treatment?

A) creating a fear hierarchy

B) undergoing relaxation training

C) being exposed to the feared object

D) induced hyperventilation

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