PSYCH 100 UIUC Exam 1 Questions With Verified Answers

What are the two modes of thinking & their descriptions? - Answer 1. Intuitive - instant, unconscious, automatic, and emotional thinking. 2. Analytical - slow, rational, conscious, reflective, reasoning, and deliberate thinking. Heuristic - Answer A simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms. Nautralistic Observation - Answer Looking at a population in their natural habitat. (useful for people who can't follow instructions in an experiment; animals, infants & people with a disability. HIGH external validity LOW internal validity External Validity - Answer Generalizability of the results to the real world. Internal Validity - Answer Extent to which we can draw cause-and-effect inferences from a study. Case Study - Answer Watching one person, who usually has something unusual about them, and recording what they do different. LOW external validity Surveys & Self-report - Answer Use of questionnaires to assess characteristics such as personality traits, mental illness, interests, motivations, opinions, and attitudes. Important Terms: 1. Random Selection 2. Reliability 3. Validity Random Selection - Answer A way of ensuring that a sample of people is representative of a population by giving everyone in the population an equal chance of being selected for the sample. Reliability - Answer The extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternate forms of the test, or on retesting. Important Terms: 1. Test-retest 2. Inter-rater Test-retest - Answer A method for determining the reliability of a test by comparing a test taker's scores on the same test taken on separate occasions. Inter-rater - Answer If the criteria set forward is reliable, different judges or readers should give a very similar score. (e.g., A gymnast judge should give a similar score in comparison to another judge) Validity - Answer The extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to. (e.g., A test regarding depression with questions about anxiety on it --> invalid) Can an invalid test be reliable? - Answer Yes, a test may be reliable without being valid, but a test cannot be valid unless it is reliable Reliability vs. Validity - Answer Consistency vs Accuracy. Correlational Design - Answer Research design that examines the extent to which two variables are associated. B could cause A; A could cause B; there could be a third variable, C, which causes A & B. Is correlation causation? - Answer No. What is the one method we can use to infer cause and effect? - Answer Experiments, we are actively manipulating something so we can infer that any difference in the groups is caused by the change that we initiated. Random Assignment - Answer Assigning participants to experimental and control conditions by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between those assigned to the different groups. Random Assignment vs. Random Selection - Answer Assigning participants to experimental and control conditions by random assignment vs. selecting people to participate in a study from a larger population. Experimental Group - Answer The group in an experiment that receives the variable being tested Control Group - Answer The group that does not receive the experimental treatment. Independent Variable - Answer The experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied. Dependent Variable - Answer The outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable. Confounding Variables - Answer Factors that cause differences between the experimental group and the control group other than the independent variable. Placebo Effect - Answer Experimental results caused by expectations alone; any effect on behavior caused by the administration of an inert substance or condition, which the recipient assumes is an active agent. Nocebo Effect - Answer Harm resulting from the mere expectation of harm. (e.g., voodoo doll phenomenon) Experimenter Expectancy Effect - Answer Phenomenon in which researchers' hypotheses lead them to unintentionally bias the outcome of a study. To prevent this, experimenters use double blind studies. Demand Characteristics - Answer Those aspects of an observational setting that cause people to behave as they think someone else wants or expects. Ethics - Answer The principles of right and wrong that guide an individual in making decisions. Descriptive Statistics - Answer Central Tendency: mean, median, mode. Spread: range, standard deviation. Mean - Answer Average. Median - Answer The middle score in a distribution; half the scores are above it and half are below it. Mode - Answer The most frequently occurring score(s) in a distribution. Range - Answer The difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution. Standard Deviation - Answer A measure of variability that describes an average distance of every score from the mean. Neurons - Answer A nerve cell; the basic building block of the nervous system Dendrites - Answer Branchlike parts of a neuron that are specialized to receive information. Axon - Answer The extension of a neuron, ending in branching terminal fibers, through which messages pass to other neurons or to muscles or glands Cell Body - Answer Largest part of a typical neuron; contains the nucleus and much of the cytoplasm Axon Terminal - Answer The endpoint of a neuron where neurotransmitters are stored. Synpase - Answer Gap between neurons. Glial Cells - Answer Cells that make up the myelin sheath, hold the nerve cells in place, get rid of waste & nourish the brain. Action Potentials - Answer Electrical messages sent by axons