PSY 203 Comprehensive Exam 1
Questions And Correct Answers.
ways of knowing - Answer authority, common sense, intuition, rationalism, empiricism (best), personal
experience
authority - Answer when someone influential says so
common sense - Answer what everyone knows, backed by personal experience
intuition - Answer "feeling of knowing" something but not quite sure where the knowledge came from
rationalism - Answer a priori (before results) method; knowledge derived from reasoning or logic
empericism - Answer knowledge from experience or observation; relies on data (same results over and
over again)
personal experience - Answer heavily selective, colored by expectations and biases; selective
information: incomplete info, only successes not failures, cannot reach conclusion
confirmation bias - Answer cherry-picking data or only presenting confirming evidence and hiding
disconfirming evidence
availability heuristic - Answer something particularly memorable or salient skews your view of the
world
ex: plane crashes can make people afraid of flying; however, the likelihood of dying in a car accident is far
higher than dying as a passenger on an airplane
determinism - Answer all behavior has a cause and thus is predictable
,statistical determinism - Answer laws of probability can be used to predict the likely # of events of a
given kind that will occur in a given population under certain defined conditions
placebo effects - Answer when a person's health appears to improve after taking a placebo treatment
(shouldn't have had an effect)
scientific method - Answer self-corrective method
claims and predictions falsifiable
empirical questions & solvable problems
science assumes determinism
discoverability (empirical questions) - Answer data-driven questions that can be answered by collecting
data and are falsifiable
systematic empiricism - Answer collecting data in a structured manner in order to evaluate claims or
hypotheses (distinguish between different POVs)
publicly available information & objectivity - Answer when methods and data are objective (not
influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts) and available to the
public eye
tentative conclusions - Answer conclusions drawn from data are always tentative, subject to revision
based on future research
conclusions are not absolute but there is confidence that research gets closer and closer to the truth
replication - Answer providing others with enough info so they can reproduce methods and get the
same results (hopefully)
peer review - Answer independent experts review articles before they are published
null hypothesis - Answer states that there is no relationship between two variables
, alternative hypothesis - Answer looking at whether there's enough change (or relationship between
variables) to be able to reject the null hypothesis
theory - Answer an idea about how something works
set of logically consistent statements about some phenomenon that: summarizes existing knowledge of
the phenomenon, organizes the knowledge into precise statements of relationships among variables,
proposes an explanation for the phenomenon, and serves as a basis for making predictions about
behavior
claims and predictions falsifiable - Answer should be able to collect data that goes against hypothesis
self-correcting mechanism - Answer objective process that incorporates new info and updates beliefs
about the world depending on the available evidence
ex: Wakefield study said there was a link between vaccines and autism, but Lancet eventually retracted
this paper and lost his license; MMR vaccine is given when a child is 18 months old, which is the same
time when signs of autism can reliably be diagnosed
PT Barnum effect - Answer when individuals believe that personality descriptions apply specifically to
them, even though the description is filled with info that applies to a lot of people
characteristics of pseudoscience - Answer uses language of science & mimics the procedure, shifts
burden of proof when claims are challenged, uses anecdotal evidence or testimonials, uses currently
unexplained phenomena as evidence, complains of shunning, misuses rules of evidence
using language of science and mimicking the procedure - Answer when pseudoscience sounds like real
science and uses designs that look like they could be real science
a person could emphasize data collection when they actually just use testimonials
shifting burden of proof when claims are challenged - Answer the fallacy of putting the burden of proof
on the person who denies or questions the assertion being made; assumption that something is true
unless proven otherwise
anecdotal evidence or testimonials - Answer info is highly selective and people hear about successes
not failures
Questions And Correct Answers.
ways of knowing - Answer authority, common sense, intuition, rationalism, empiricism (best), personal
experience
authority - Answer when someone influential says so
common sense - Answer what everyone knows, backed by personal experience
intuition - Answer "feeling of knowing" something but not quite sure where the knowledge came from
rationalism - Answer a priori (before results) method; knowledge derived from reasoning or logic
empericism - Answer knowledge from experience or observation; relies on data (same results over and
over again)
personal experience - Answer heavily selective, colored by expectations and biases; selective
information: incomplete info, only successes not failures, cannot reach conclusion
confirmation bias - Answer cherry-picking data or only presenting confirming evidence and hiding
disconfirming evidence
availability heuristic - Answer something particularly memorable or salient skews your view of the
world
ex: plane crashes can make people afraid of flying; however, the likelihood of dying in a car accident is far
higher than dying as a passenger on an airplane
determinism - Answer all behavior has a cause and thus is predictable
,statistical determinism - Answer laws of probability can be used to predict the likely # of events of a
given kind that will occur in a given population under certain defined conditions
placebo effects - Answer when a person's health appears to improve after taking a placebo treatment
(shouldn't have had an effect)
scientific method - Answer self-corrective method
claims and predictions falsifiable
empirical questions & solvable problems
science assumes determinism
discoverability (empirical questions) - Answer data-driven questions that can be answered by collecting
data and are falsifiable
systematic empiricism - Answer collecting data in a structured manner in order to evaluate claims or
hypotheses (distinguish between different POVs)
publicly available information & objectivity - Answer when methods and data are objective (not
influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts) and available to the
public eye
tentative conclusions - Answer conclusions drawn from data are always tentative, subject to revision
based on future research
conclusions are not absolute but there is confidence that research gets closer and closer to the truth
replication - Answer providing others with enough info so they can reproduce methods and get the
same results (hopefully)
peer review - Answer independent experts review articles before they are published
null hypothesis - Answer states that there is no relationship between two variables
, alternative hypothesis - Answer looking at whether there's enough change (or relationship between
variables) to be able to reject the null hypothesis
theory - Answer an idea about how something works
set of logically consistent statements about some phenomenon that: summarizes existing knowledge of
the phenomenon, organizes the knowledge into precise statements of relationships among variables,
proposes an explanation for the phenomenon, and serves as a basis for making predictions about
behavior
claims and predictions falsifiable - Answer should be able to collect data that goes against hypothesis
self-correcting mechanism - Answer objective process that incorporates new info and updates beliefs
about the world depending on the available evidence
ex: Wakefield study said there was a link between vaccines and autism, but Lancet eventually retracted
this paper and lost his license; MMR vaccine is given when a child is 18 months old, which is the same
time when signs of autism can reliably be diagnosed
PT Barnum effect - Answer when individuals believe that personality descriptions apply specifically to
them, even though the description is filled with info that applies to a lot of people
characteristics of pseudoscience - Answer uses language of science & mimics the procedure, shifts
burden of proof when claims are challenged, uses anecdotal evidence or testimonials, uses currently
unexplained phenomena as evidence, complains of shunning, misuses rules of evidence
using language of science and mimicking the procedure - Answer when pseudoscience sounds like real
science and uses designs that look like they could be real science
a person could emphasize data collection when they actually just use testimonials
shifting burden of proof when claims are challenged - Answer the fallacy of putting the burden of proof
on the person who denies or questions the assertion being made; assumption that something is true
unless proven otherwise
anecdotal evidence or testimonials - Answer info is highly selective and people hear about successes
not failures
