AP Psychology Unit 1 Quiz
Questions: 16 · 10 minutes
1. A psychologist argues that psychology should focus only on actions that can be directly observed and measured. Which perspective best matches that position?
Behaviorism
Psychodynamic psychology
Cognitive neuroscience
Humanistic psychology
2. Researchers investigate how a witness's interpretation of an event changes what the witness later remembers. Which perspective is most directly represented?
Behavioral
Cognitive
Biological
Evolutionary
3. A psychologist asks trained participants to describe the basic sensations and feelings they experience while viewing an object. Which early school of psychology does this most closely resemble?
Behaviorism
Functionalism
Structuralism
Psychoanalytic psychology
4. In an experiment, what is the main purpose of randomly assigning participants to conditions?
To ensure that the sample represents the entire population
To guarantee that participants behave naturally
To prevent researchers from measuring a dependent variable
To reduce systematic preexisting differences between the experimental groups
5. Investigators record how often children share toys on a playground without joining the activity or changing the setting. Which method are they using?
Naturalistic observation
A case study
A laboratory experiment
A correlational survey
6. A study examines whether stress affects sleep. Which statement is the clearest operational definition of stress?
Stress is an unpleasant emotional experience
Stress may interfere with healthy sleep
Stress is each participant's score on a specified 10-item stress questionnaire
Some people experience more stress than others
7. Two classes have the same mean exam score. Class A has a standard deviation of 3, while Class B has a standard deviation of 12. What can be inferred?
Class A necessarily has more students than Class B
Class B necessarily earned the higher median
Scores in Class B are more spread out around the mean
Scores in Class A have a wider range in every possible dataset
8. A researcher conducts years of interviews and testing with one person who has an unusual brain injury. Which research method is this?
A survey
Naturalistic observation
A controlled experiment
A case study
9. A study reports a correlation of −0.72 between nightly sleep duration and daytime fatigue. Which conclusion is justified?
Sleep and fatigue have only a weak relationship
More sleep directly causes less fatigue in every participant
More sleep is associated with less fatigue, but the correlation does not establish causation
Seventy-two percent of fatigue is caused by sleep duration
10. A researcher studies how remembering dangerous locations may have helped humans adapt to their environments. This question most closely reflects which early perspective?
Functionalism, because it examines the adaptive purpose of mental processes
Structuralism, because it breaks experience into basic elements
Humanistic psychology, because it emphasizes personal growth
Behaviorism, because it excludes mental processes from study
11. Which procedure best describes a double-blind experiment testing a new treatment?
Participants know their condition, but researchers do not
Neither participants nor the researchers interacting with them know who receives the treatment or placebo
Researchers know each condition, but participants do not
Both groups receive the treatment at two different doses
12. A small company's salary data include one executive salary far above all other salaries. Which measure is generally the better representation of a typical employee's salary?
The mean, because it is unaffected by extreme values
The standard deviation, because it is a measure of central tendency
The range, because it identifies the middle score
The median, because it is less influenced by the extreme salary
13. Students are randomly assigned to receive either caffeine or a caffeine-free drink before taking the same memory test. What is the dependent variable?
Whether each student receives caffeine
Each student's memory-test score
The use of random assignment
The caffeine-free drink
14. A psychologist explains anxiety by considering inherited sensitivity, habitual thought patterns, and ongoing social conflict together. Which approach is being used?
The biopsychosocial approach
The evolutionary approach alone
The behavioral approach alone
The psychodynamic approach alone
15. A researcher wants a survey sample that represents all students at a large high school. Which procedure best supports that goal?
Surveying students who arrive earliest one morning
Posting a link and using everyone who volunteers
Surveying only students enrolled in honors classes
Randomly selecting students from the complete school roster
16. A psychologist believes limited deception is necessary for a study. Which plan is most consistent with standard research ethics?
Use deception whenever it makes data collection easier
Use justified minimal-risk deception only when alternatives are inadequate, obtain appropriate approval, and debrief participants promptly
Skip debriefing if participants' names are removed from the results
Use deception without review as long as participants signed a general consent form