Psychology 101 Practice Exam
(Answers at the bottom of the page)
1. When Joan touched her infants cheek, he turned his
head toward the side that was touched and opened his mouth. Joan was eliciting
the:
a) Startle reaction
b) Rooting reflex
c) Grasping reflex
d) Attachment reflex
e) Attention reflex
2. Which psychologist was most influential in shaping
our understanding of cognitive development?
a) B.F. Skinner
b) Konrad Lorenz
c) Jean Piaget
d) Sigmund Freud
e) Erik Erikson
3. According to Piaget, an egocentric child can best be
described as:
a) Selfish
b) Conceited
c) Lacking in self-esteem
d) Cognitively Limited
4. At 12 months of age Jeremy shows no more desire to
be held by his own parents than by complete strangers. His behaviour best
illustrates:
a) Object permanence
b) Insecure attachment
c) Habituation
d) Conservation
e) Egocentrism
5. Psychologists describe child-rearing in which the rules
are imposed without explanation as a(n) ___________ style.
a) Authoritative
b) Egocentric
c) Disengaged
d) Authoritarian
6. Formal operational thought is most necessary for the
development of ______ morality.
a) Preoperational
b) Conventional
c) Preconventional
d) Postconventional
7. According to Erikson, committing oneself to meaningful
social roles would be most indicative of the achievement of:
a) Integrity
b) Autonomy
c) Competence
d) Initiative
e) Identity
8. Menopause is associated with a reduction in:
a) Adrenaline
b) Testosterone
c) Estrogen
d) Acetylcholine
e) Dopamine
9. An early sign of Alzheimer’s disease would most likely
be:
a) An inability to recognise oneself in a mirror.
b) The use of profane and abusive language
c) An increase in crystallized intelligence
d) Difficulty in naming familiar objects or people
10. Erik Erikson maintained that the two basic aspects
of life that dominate adulthood are:
a) Identity and Independence
b) Intimacy and Identity
c) Intimacy and generativity
d) Independence and generativity
11. In developing a test of intellectual ability for Parisian
school children, Binet and Simon assumed that:
a) The test would measure capacities that were determined
by heredity and thus unalterable.
b) The test would yield an intelligence quotient consisting
of chronological age divided by mental age multiplied by 100
c) A bright child would preform like a normal child of
an older age
d) Measures of physical and sensory skills would be good
predictors of school achievement
12. A Person with savant syndrome is one who:
a) Is capable of becoming socially and vocationally successful
b) Possesses an amazing specific skill
c) Suffers no obvious physical or emotional defects
d) Is unable to profit from special educational training
e) Is born with an extra chromosome
13. The Flynn effect best illustrates the process of intelligence
testing requires up-to-date:
a) Factor analyses
b) Standardization samples
c) Reliability indices
d) Heritability estimates
14. The stability of children’s intelligence test scores
over time is most positively correlated with their:
a) Chronological age
b) Mental age
c) Head size
d) Brain size
15. Intelligence tests are most likely to be considered
culturally biased in terms of their:
a) Content validity
b) Predictive validity
c) Normal distribution
d) Reliability
16. Which of the following observations provides the best
evidence that intelligence test scores are influenced by environment?
a) Fraternal twins are most similar in their intelligence
scores than are ordinary siblings
b) The intelligence scores of children are positively
correlated with those of their parents
c) Identical twins are more similar in their intelligence
scores than are fraternal twins
d) The intelligence scores of siblings reared together
are positively correlated
e) Different national groups have different average intelligence
scores
17. Prior to his use of free association, Freud had encouraged
patients to retrieve their forgotten memoires by means of:
a) Hypnosis
b) Projective tests
c) Psychoactive drugs
d) Fixation
18. According to Freud, our gender identity develops most
rapidly during the _______stage.
a) Anal
b) Phallic
c) Genital
d) Oral
19. Displacement refers to the process by which people
a) Offer self-justifying explanations in place of real,
but unacceptable, unconscious reasons for action.
b) Consciously express feelings that are the opposite
of unacceptable, unconscious impulses
c) Disguise threatening impulses by attributing them to
others.
d) Retreat to behaviour patterns characteristic if an
earlier stage of development
e) Redirect aggressive or sexual impulses towards less
threatening targets
20. According to Maslow, the psychological need that arises
after all other needs have been met is the need for:
a) Personal control
b) Self-actualisation
c) Self-esteem
d) Unconditional positive regard
21. When people compare themselves with others, they are
most likely to experience:
a) Reciprocal determinism
b) Unconditional positive regard
c) An external locus of control
d) The Barnum effect
e) Positive self-esteem
22. Which perspective on human personality emphasizes
reciprocal determinism?
a) Psychoanalytic
b) Social-cognitive
c) Trait
d) Humanistic
23. The trait of optimism is most closely rated to a strong
sense of:
a) Conditional positive regard
b) Gender identity
c) Ideal self
d) Personal control
e) The pleasure principle
24. According to the social-cognitive perspective, one
of the best ways to predict a person’s future behaviour is to:
a) Identify that the person’s most central traits by having
him or her take a personality inventory
b) Observe the person’s behaviour in various relevant
situations
c) Assess that person’s general level of self-esteem
d) Uncover that person’s hidden motives, as revealed by
projective tests
25. Psychoanalysts would suggest that resistance during
therapy supports and maintains the process of
a) Sublimation
b) Transference
c) Free association
d) Dream interpretation
e) Repression
26. Counterconditioning techniques were derived from principles
first developed by
a) Aaron Beck
b) Ivan Pavlov
c) Carl Rogers
d) B.F. Skinner
e) Sigmund Freud
27. To help Michael overcome hid fear of taking tests,
his therapist instructs him to relax and then to imagine taking a quiz. The
therapist is using:
a) Psychoanalysis
b) Client-centered therapy
c) Cognitive therapy
d) Systematic desensitisation
e) Aversive conditioning
28. A useful feature of group therapy is that it:
a) Ensures that therapists will become more emotionally
involves in a clients’ real-life problems
b) Eliminates the possibility that clients will experience
anxiety during therapy
c) Encourages clients to develop active listening skills
d) Enables severely disturbed individuals to quickly regain
normal social functioning
29. The biomedical treatment most widely used today is:
a) Psychoanalysis
b) Electroconvulsive therapy
c) Psychosurgery
d) Systematic desensitisation
e) Drug therapy
30. Alex feels so hopeless and depressed that he has recently
thought about taking his own life. The drug most likely to prove beneficial
to him is:
a) Valium
b) Prozac
c) Librium
d) Thorazine
31. Aversive conditioning is to behaviour therapy as a
lobotomy is to:
a) Systematic desensitisation
b) Electroconvulsive therapy
c) Psychosurgery
d) The placebo effect
e) Drug therapy
32. Cognitive dissonance theory is most helpful of understanding:
a) The mere exposure effect
b) Group polarization
c) The fundamental attribution error
d) The foot-in-the-door phenomenon
e) The bystander effect
33. Social facilitation is most likely to occur in the
performance of_________tasks.
a) Challenging
b) Unenjoyable
c) Novel
d) Simple
34. Social loafing refers to the tendency for people to:
a) Perform a complex task more poorly when others are
present
b) Exert less effort when they are pooling their efforts
towards a common goal
c) Exert less effort when they are paid by the hour, not
by the amount of work completed
d) Become more distracted from their tasks when working
with friends than when working with strangers
e) Stop working once they have reached their goal
35. The just-world phenomenon often leads people to:
a) Dislike and distrust those who are wealthy
b) Believe that victims of misfortune deserve to suffer
c) Express higher levels of prejudice after suffering
frustration
d) Respond with kindness to those who mistreat them
36. A stressor is a(n):
a) Lower back muscle that frequently produces a feeling
of physical tension
b) Competitive, hard-driving, impatient person
c) Environmental event that threatens or challenges us
d) Exercise program designed to increase our ability to
handle normal stress
e) Hormone released by the adrenal gland during periods
of stress
37. What is the best example of a Type B personality?
a) Tammy, an ambitious, self-confident waitress
b) Mauriucca, a relaxed understanding social worker
c) Tena, a time conscious, competitive lawyer
d) Juanita, an impatient, pessimistic librarian
Questions 38 – 47 were missing on our exam
48. During the manic phase of a bi-polar disorder, individuals are most
likely to experience:
a) High self-esteem
b) Delusions of persecution
c) Uncontrollable grief and despair
d) Visual or auditory hallucinations
49. The medical model of psychologically disordered behaviour is most
likely to be criticised for neglecting the importance of:
a) Anxiety and depression
b) Social circumstances
c) Personality disorders
d) The DSM-IV
e) Genetic abnormalities
50. The tendency for observers to underestimate the impact of the
situation and to overestimate the impact of personal dispositions upon another’s
behaviour is called:
a) The bystander effect
b) The fundamental attribution error
c) Deindividuation
d) Ingroup bias
e) The mere exposure effect.
ANSWERS
01. B 02.
C 03. D 04. A 05. D 06. D 07. E 08.
C 09. D
10. C 11. C 12. B 13. B 14. A 15.
A 16. A 17. A 18. B
19. E 20. B 21. E 22. B 23. D 24.
B 25. E 26. B 27. D
28. C 29. E 30. B 31. C 32. D 33.
D 34. B 35. B 36. C
37. B
48. A 49. B 50. B
