MAJOR FIELD PSYCHOLOGY COMPREHENSIVE EXAM
2026/2027 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS RATED A+
✔✔collective unconscious - ✔✔a common reservoir of images derived from our species
universal experiences (carl jung).
✔✔projective tests - ✔✔ask test-takers to describe an ambiguous stimulus or tell a story
about it
✔✔Carl Rogers - ✔✔Growth-promoting climate required three conditions: 1) genuiness
2) acceptance - unconditional positive self regard and 3) empathy
✔✔traits - ✔✔people's characteristic behavior patternsn and conscious motives
✔✔external locus of control - ✔✔the perception that chance or outside forces determine
your fact
✔✔internal locus of control - ✔✔the perception that they can control their own destiny
✔✔learned helplessness - ✔✔the hopelessness an animal or human learns when
unable to avoid repeated aversive events
✔✔spotlight effect - ✔✔overestimating others and noticing and evaluating our
appearance, performance and blunders
✔✔self-serving bias - ✔✔our readiness to perceive ourselves favorable
✔✔anxiety disorder - ✔✔marked by distressing persistent anxiety or dysfunctional
anxiety-reducing behaivor
✔✔somatoform disorders - ✔✔the distressing symptoms take a somatic form without
apparent physical causes
✔✔conversion disorder - ✔✔anxiety presumably is converted into a physical symptom
(blindness)
✔✔dissociative disorders - ✔✔disorders in which conscious awareness becomes
separated from previous memories
✔✔major depressive disorder - ✔✔a mood disorder in which a person experiences in
the absence of drugs or a medical condition two or more weeks of significantly
depressed moods, feelings of worthlessness
,✔✔bipolar disorder - ✔✔a mood disorder in which the person alternates between mania
and depression
✔✔eclectic approach - ✔✔using a blend of therapies
✔✔psychodynamic therapists - ✔✔try to help people understand their current symptoms
by focusing on themes across important relationships
✔✔insight therapies - ✔✔psychoanalytic and humanistic therapies attempt to help
troubled people by reducing their inner conflicts and increasing self-understanding
✔✔client-centered therapy - ✔✔carl rogers: the therapist listens to the persons
conscious self-perceptions without judging, interpreting, or directing the client toward
certain insights
✔✔exposure therapy - ✔✔behavior therapy: that treats anxieties by exposing people to
the things they fear and avoid
✔✔systematic desensitization - ✔✔a type of exposure therapy that associates a
pleasant relaxed state with gradually increased anxiety-triggering stimuli
✔✔aversive conditioning - ✔✔opposite of systematic desensitization- its goal is to
substitute a negative response for a positive response to a harmful stimulus
✔✔cognitive-behavioral therapy - ✔✔aims not only to alter the way people things but
also alter the way they act
✔✔biomedical therapy - ✔✔physically changing the brains functioning by altering its
chemistry with drugs, or affecting its circuitry with various kinds of direct stimulation
✔✔attribution theory - ✔✔we usually attribute others behavior either to their internal
dispositions or their external situations
✔✔fundamental attribution error - ✔✔overestimating the influence of personality and
underestimating the influence of situations
✔✔foot in the door phenonomen - ✔✔a tendency for people to first agree to a small
action to comply later with a larger one
✔✔cognitive dissonance theory - ✔✔the theory that we act to reduce the discomfort we
feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent
✔✔conformity - ✔✔adjusting our behavior or thinking toward some group standard
(aschs line experiments)
, ✔✔obedience - ✔✔milgrams experiments
✔✔social facilitation - ✔✔stronger performance in others presence
✔✔social loafing - ✔✔the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when
pooling their efforts than when individually accountable
✔✔group polarization - ✔✔the enhancement of a groups prevailing inclinations through
discussion within the group
✔✔groupthink - ✔✔the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a
decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives
✔✔altruism - ✔✔the unselfish regard for the welfare of others
✔✔ Introspection - ✔✔Focusing on inner sensations, images and feelings.
Wundt used this approach as did James with the stream of consciousness.
✔✔Behaviorists - ✔✔John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner dismissed introspection and
redefined psychology as the scientific study of observable behavior.
✔✔Humanistic Psychology - ✔✔Rebelled against both Behaviorism and Freudian
psychology. Pioneers Carl Rogers and Maslow emphasized the importance of current
environmental influences on our growth potential.
✔✔Psychology - ✔✔Science of behavior and mental processes.
✔✔Nature-nurture issue - ✔✔The controversy over the relative contributions of biology
and experience to the development of our traits and behaviors.
✔✔Biopsychosocial approach - ✔✔Considers the influences of biological,
psychological, and social-cultural factors.
✔✔Applied research - ✔✔practical research- industrial organizational psychologists
✔✔Hindsight bias - ✔✔The tendency to believe after learning an outcome, that we
would have foreseen it. The I knew it all along phenomenon)
✔✔Overconfidence - ✔✔Humans tend to think they know more than they do.
✔✔Theory - ✔✔An explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes
observations and predicts behaviors or events
2026/2027 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS RATED A+
✔✔collective unconscious - ✔✔a common reservoir of images derived from our species
universal experiences (carl jung).
✔✔projective tests - ✔✔ask test-takers to describe an ambiguous stimulus or tell a story
about it
✔✔Carl Rogers - ✔✔Growth-promoting climate required three conditions: 1) genuiness
2) acceptance - unconditional positive self regard and 3) empathy
✔✔traits - ✔✔people's characteristic behavior patternsn and conscious motives
✔✔external locus of control - ✔✔the perception that chance or outside forces determine
your fact
✔✔internal locus of control - ✔✔the perception that they can control their own destiny
✔✔learned helplessness - ✔✔the hopelessness an animal or human learns when
unable to avoid repeated aversive events
✔✔spotlight effect - ✔✔overestimating others and noticing and evaluating our
appearance, performance and blunders
✔✔self-serving bias - ✔✔our readiness to perceive ourselves favorable
✔✔anxiety disorder - ✔✔marked by distressing persistent anxiety or dysfunctional
anxiety-reducing behaivor
✔✔somatoform disorders - ✔✔the distressing symptoms take a somatic form without
apparent physical causes
✔✔conversion disorder - ✔✔anxiety presumably is converted into a physical symptom
(blindness)
✔✔dissociative disorders - ✔✔disorders in which conscious awareness becomes
separated from previous memories
✔✔major depressive disorder - ✔✔a mood disorder in which a person experiences in
the absence of drugs or a medical condition two or more weeks of significantly
depressed moods, feelings of worthlessness
,✔✔bipolar disorder - ✔✔a mood disorder in which the person alternates between mania
and depression
✔✔eclectic approach - ✔✔using a blend of therapies
✔✔psychodynamic therapists - ✔✔try to help people understand their current symptoms
by focusing on themes across important relationships
✔✔insight therapies - ✔✔psychoanalytic and humanistic therapies attempt to help
troubled people by reducing their inner conflicts and increasing self-understanding
✔✔client-centered therapy - ✔✔carl rogers: the therapist listens to the persons
conscious self-perceptions without judging, interpreting, or directing the client toward
certain insights
✔✔exposure therapy - ✔✔behavior therapy: that treats anxieties by exposing people to
the things they fear and avoid
✔✔systematic desensitization - ✔✔a type of exposure therapy that associates a
pleasant relaxed state with gradually increased anxiety-triggering stimuli
✔✔aversive conditioning - ✔✔opposite of systematic desensitization- its goal is to
substitute a negative response for a positive response to a harmful stimulus
✔✔cognitive-behavioral therapy - ✔✔aims not only to alter the way people things but
also alter the way they act
✔✔biomedical therapy - ✔✔physically changing the brains functioning by altering its
chemistry with drugs, or affecting its circuitry with various kinds of direct stimulation
✔✔attribution theory - ✔✔we usually attribute others behavior either to their internal
dispositions or their external situations
✔✔fundamental attribution error - ✔✔overestimating the influence of personality and
underestimating the influence of situations
✔✔foot in the door phenonomen - ✔✔a tendency for people to first agree to a small
action to comply later with a larger one
✔✔cognitive dissonance theory - ✔✔the theory that we act to reduce the discomfort we
feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent
✔✔conformity - ✔✔adjusting our behavior or thinking toward some group standard
(aschs line experiments)
, ✔✔obedience - ✔✔milgrams experiments
✔✔social facilitation - ✔✔stronger performance in others presence
✔✔social loafing - ✔✔the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when
pooling their efforts than when individually accountable
✔✔group polarization - ✔✔the enhancement of a groups prevailing inclinations through
discussion within the group
✔✔groupthink - ✔✔the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a
decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives
✔✔altruism - ✔✔the unselfish regard for the welfare of others
✔✔ Introspection - ✔✔Focusing on inner sensations, images and feelings.
Wundt used this approach as did James with the stream of consciousness.
✔✔Behaviorists - ✔✔John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner dismissed introspection and
redefined psychology as the scientific study of observable behavior.
✔✔Humanistic Psychology - ✔✔Rebelled against both Behaviorism and Freudian
psychology. Pioneers Carl Rogers and Maslow emphasized the importance of current
environmental influences on our growth potential.
✔✔Psychology - ✔✔Science of behavior and mental processes.
✔✔Nature-nurture issue - ✔✔The controversy over the relative contributions of biology
and experience to the development of our traits and behaviors.
✔✔Biopsychosocial approach - ✔✔Considers the influences of biological,
psychological, and social-cultural factors.
✔✔Applied research - ✔✔practical research- industrial organizational psychologists
✔✔Hindsight bias - ✔✔The tendency to believe after learning an outcome, that we
would have foreseen it. The I knew it all along phenomenon)
✔✔Overconfidence - ✔✔Humans tend to think they know more than they do.
✔✔Theory - ✔✔An explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes
observations and predicts behaviors or events
