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General Psychology Midterm Three key elements of the scientific attitude are - Curiosity, skepticism, and humility Psychology is currently best defined as the science of - Behavior and mental processes The nature-nuture issue refers to the debate over the relative contributions that what two things make to the development of psychological traits. - Biology and experience Processing information at the same time on separate conscious and unconscious tracks is called - Dual processing The hindsight bias refers to people's tendency to - Exaggerate their ability to have foreseen an outcome A hypothesis is a - Testable prediction that gives direction to research The case study is a research method in which - A single individual or group is studied in great depth A descriptive technique for obtaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a representative sample of a population is known as a - Survey Correlation is a measure of the extent to which to factors - Vary together What method is most helpful for clarifying cause-effect relationships? - The experiment An inactive substance that may be administered instead of a drug to see if it produces any of the same effects as the drug is called a - Placebo The testing effect refers to the _______ ______ that accompanies repeated retrieval of learned information. - Enhanced memory Students learn and remember course materials best when they - Process class information actively Neurons are best described as - Nerve cells that function as the building blocks of the nervous system Neuron-produced chemicals that carry messages to other neurons or to muscles and glands are called - Neurotransmitters The two major divisions of nervous system are the central nervous and the _______ nervous system - peripheral The two parts of the peripheral nervous system are the - Somatic nervous system and the autonomic nervous system Hormones are the chemical messengers of the - Endocrine system The master gland of the endocrine system is the - Pituitary gland Moral reasoning Our sense of self defines our - Identity A period from about age 18 to the mid-twenties when many in Western cultures have not yet achieved full independence as adults is called - Emerging adulthood Menopause refers to the - Cessation of menstruation As men advance through middle adulthood, they experience a gradual decline in - Ejaculation speed, testosterone level, and sperm count The aging brain partly compensates for a loss of brain cells by recruiting and reorganizing existing neural networks. This best illustrates - Plasticity The terminal decline phenomenon involves a decrease in mental ability that accompanies the approach of - Death Which term refers to the biologically influenced characteristics by which people define male, female, and intersex? - Sex Which term refers to the behavioral characteristics that people associate with boy, girl, man, and woman? - Gender Most of us receive ___ chromosomes from each parent. - 23 How many of our chromosomes are considered unisex? - 45 The sex chromosome found in both males and females is called the __ chromosome - X The main male hormone is - Testosterone The period of sexual maturation during which a person becomes capable of reproducing is called - Puberty The body structures that enable reproduction are the - Primary sex characteristics What is an example of a secondary sex characteristic? - Male facial hair The term spermarche refers to the - First ejaculation A girl's first menstrual period is called - Menarche A gender role refers to - A set of expected behaviors, attitudes, and traits for men and for women Sexual aggression is defined as - Any physical or verbal behavior of a sexual nature that is intended to harm someone physically or emotionally Making unwanted sexual advances, obscene remarks, or requests for sexual favors, often toward women in the workplace, is the definition of - Sexual harassment Social learning theory is the - Theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating others Those who prefer to express a blend of traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine psychological characteristics demonstrate - Androgyny Children tend to organize their worlds into male and female categories. This best illustrates their use of - Gender schemas One's sexual orientation refers to - The direction of one's sexual attraction Those who are NOT sexually attracted to others are described as - Asexual The first stage of the sexual response cycle is - An excitement stage A problem that consistently interferes with a person's ability to complete the sexual response cycle is called a - Sexual dysfunction The human immunodeficiency virus has been found to be the cause of - AIDS Gustation The sense of smell is known as - Olfaction Our sense of the position and movement of individual body parts is called - Kinesthesia Nancy insists that her dreams frequently enable her to perceive and predict future events. Nancy is claiming to possess the power of - Precognition Most learning involves the process of associations. In classical conditioning, an organism learns to associate - Two stimuli In classical conditioning, ________ is the unlearned, naturally occurring response to the unconditioned stimulus. (US) - Unconditioned response The acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events or watching others or through language is called - Cognitive learning If people have a frightening experience immediately after hearing a strange sound, their fear may occur when they hear that sound again. This illustrates - Classical conditioning What is the term that means the weakening of a response in both classical and operant conditioning? - Extinction In classical conditioning, the learned stimulus/response to a previously neutral stimulus is called the - Conditioned response (CR) ________ is an operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide actions as they become closer and closer to a desired behavior. - Shaping In operant conditioning, any event that strengthens behavior is called a(n) - reinforcer The law of effect is highlighted by - B. F. Skinner's experiments on reinforcement ________ is the view that psychology should be an objective science that studies behavior without reference to mental processes. - Behaviorism John B. Watson believed that psychology should be the science of - Observable behavior Children who are promised a payoff for playing with an interesting toy have later been observed to play with the toy less than those who are not promised the reward. These findings provide support for the role of _____ in operant behavior. - Cognitive processes Positive, constructive, and helpful behavior is called ________ behavior - Prosocial This is the opposite of aggressive behavior. - Prosocial behavior An empathic husband who observes his wife in pain will exhibit some of the same brain activity she is showing. This illustrates the functioning of - Mirror neurons One learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events - Classical conditioning A process of learning associations - Conditioning An event or situation that evokes a response - Stimulus One learns to associate an action and its consequence. - Operant conditioning What is Ivan Pavlov famous for studying? - Classical conditioning A stimulus that evokes no response before conditioning - Neutral stimulus A stimulus that unconditionally, naturally, and automatically triggers a response. - Unconditioned stimulus An unlearned and naturally occurring response to an unconditioned stimulus - Unconditioned response A learned response to a previously neutral but now conditioned stimulus - Conditioned response An irrelevant stimulus that triggers a conditioned response after association with an unconditioned stimulus - Conditioned stimulus