General Psychology Trivia

1. In 1951 a social psychologist conducted a series of studies around conformity. His name has become synonymous with conformity experiments. What is it?

From Quiz People Love To Fall In Line - Conformity Studies

Answer: Solomon Asch

Solomon Asch was an American-Polish social psychologist whose biggest contribution to the field was his experiments on group pressure and conformity in the 1950s. He was a Gestalt psychologist, believing that the whole is not only greater than the sum of the parts but that the whole fundamentally changes and influences the individual parts. Asch started his conformity experiments at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania where he taught for nineteen years.

From Quiz The Milgram Experiment - What Would You Do?

Answer: Yale University

These experiments were carried out in the basement of Yale University by psychology professor Stanley Milgram, who wanted to test the limits of obedience to authority, even when or if obedience went against their judgment, belief or conscience. Milgram subsequently wrote a paper based on the experiment in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology and also wrote a book called "Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View." His experiment inspired a number of re-enactments.

From Quiz Will She or Won't She?

Answer: Attraction

Some quality of a person that we meet will draw our attention. Once established, even momentarily, we flirt to draw attention to ourselves and, then, to gauge how interested the other party may be. Researchers have put forward that the attraction becomes the initial trigger. The response, from this point forward, need not be rational, nor does it need to be a conscious decision. After catching their breath men may take actions that will stiffen their stance, draw in their bellies and/or puff out their chest. These are flirting actions designed to draw attention. The female response may be a toss of the hair, a slight giggle or running the tongue lightly across the lips.

From Quiz Body Language With Fred

Answer: Recalling facts

Looking to the left when asked a direct question ("On what day a month ago did you send that parcel?") indicates that Fred is trying to recall or remember certain facts. He may still get them wrong, however. If he looks up to the left, he's telling the truth as he remembers it, if he looks down to the left, he's trying to recall things as they happened. If he looks up to the right, though, he hasn't got a clue about the question and if he looks down to the right, naughty Fred is probably going to tell you a fib. It's important to note this is dependent on whether a person is left or right handed. If Fred looks straight at you when answering, he's being honest OR he's a dishonest person who knows that a straight glance is an indication of honesty. He'll probably give himself away with other body language though if he's being deceptive. If Fred is looking straight at you, and listening to what you are saying, that either indicates a genuine interest - or he is rather attracted to you. Other body language will allow you to interpret this. If he is looking straight at you with dilated pupils, he's VERY attracted to you - or he has a medical condition of the eye - or the room is too dark - or he's on some drug. For centuries, women with a vested interest in looking beautiful, have known that dilated pupils make them look more appealing, so have used belladonna drops in their eyes to make their pupils dilate. Interestingly as well is the fact that the eyes of small children and babies have bigger pupils than older humans. This is not deliberate, but a gift from mother nature, because they're so helpless and vulnerable at that age, to make them look more appealing and helpless and in need of loving care and protection.

From Quiz New to Me, New to You

Answer: Reaching in a drawer to pull out a toy

Intentional actions require the development both of logic--to figure out how to accomplish something--and hand-eye coordination to perform the motion. Babies are moving out of infancy as they learn this and Swiss development psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) said this stage is a sign of "first proper intelligence."

From Quiz Eating Behaviours

Answer: Social learning theory

This theory was originally developed by Bandura, and suggested that we model the eating behaviours and attitudes to food of role models from the media or peers and family. It is seen that celebrities gain money and fame as rewards for dieting or advertising, and therefore we model our attitudes and eating behaviours (such as constantly restraining our diet) on theirs in the hopes of gaining the same rewards of fame and money. This is known as vicarious reinforcement.

From Quiz Romantic Relationships

Answer: Byrne, Clore and Smeaton (1986)

Byrne, Clore and Smeaton suggested that an individual will first sort through all potential partners, narrowing down the list of partners by avoiding those too dissimilar. Then they will sort through who is remaining and choose the individual who is most similar in personality and attitudes. Research has also suggested that a process of 'attitude alignment' occurs, with partners modifying their own attitudes to become even more similar to their partner.

From Quiz Attachment

Answer: The critical period

Bowlby believed there is a critical period to attachment (usually from birth to 3 years old. If an attachment is not formed within the sensitive period, the baby may become damaged both physically and emotionally. He later suggested a sensitive period, lasting up to five years of age.

From Quiz Freudian Festival

Answer: There is no energy concentrated in any one place in the body

In the Latency period, there is no energy concentrated anywhere in the body. During this period, children make opposite-sex friends and develop more physically. Although Freud did classify this as a stage, since there is a lack of "focus", if you like, on any one stage, some of his followers tend to not think of Latency as a stage in itself.

From Quiz A Short Pencil is Better Than a Long Memory

Answer: Elephant

The elephant's brain is more dense than a human brain and also has more "folds", so they can store more information. "Memory like an elephant" is indeed a compliment!

From Quiz Dread of a Normal Depth

Answer: A 45-year old female with extremely narrow pupils

Fear symptoms include an accelerated heart rate, an increased blood pressure, especially for the systolic (upper) value, sweating, tightening of skeletal muscles and dilated pupils. Narrow pupils might indicate a state of shock, but are unlikely to occur during an active fear phase.

From Quiz Themes and Theories of Developmental Psychology

Answer: Developmental Psychology

Child development is a field devoted to understanding human constancy and change from conception through adolescence. It is part of the larger interdisciplinary field Developmental Science, which includes changes throughout the lifespan.

From Quiz The Freudian Mechanisms of Defence

Answer: Repression

Repression is the act of hiding thoughts which cause psychological pain. This may lead to problems such as depression or outbursts of violence, particularly when memories of childhood abuse are repressed.

From Quiz Psychological Studies

Answer: Introvert/Extrovert and Stable/Neurotic

The introvert/extrovert dimension is related to the level of stimulation we seek and is based on the ascending reticular activating system of the brain. The stable/neurotic dimension is related to emotionality and is based on the autonomic nervous system. Eysenck later proposed a third dimension, which he named 'psychotic'.

From Quiz Psychology 101

Answer: Masters and Johnson

The St. Louis-based research pair studied a range of human sexual behavior like arousal, homosexuality, sexual physiology and sexual dysfunction in the 1960's and 1970's.

From Quiz Psychology: The Basics

Answer: When the model and participant were of the same sex

Bandura conducted an experiment into aggression by letting a child watch an adult behave aggressively towards a bobo doll. He then recorded how many children imitated the behaviour if the adult was of the same or opposite gender. The aggressive was more likely to be repeated if the model was the same sex as the child because then the model would be easier to relate to.

From Quiz Freudian Theory

Answer: identification

Freud believes gender roles develop as a result of the Oedipus conflict. Children see themselves as rivals of the same-sex parent for the affection of the opposite-sex parent. Anxiety develops from the ensuing conflict, and eventually the child assumes the gender role of the same-sex parent. Identification is an important part of gender role acquisition.

From Quiz Emotional Perspectives

Answer: polygraph

By recording several physiological functions including GSR (galvanic skin response; how sweaty the skin is), the polygraph reveals the stress a subject is likely to experience when he or she is lying. In fact, the device is sometimes called a lie detector.

From Quiz General Psych Grab Bag

Answer: Broca's aphasia

People with Broca's aphasia have difficulty with speech. Phrases are halting, not fluent, and often grammatically incorrect. Broca's area is found in the frontal lobe of the brain.

From Quiz Kill Your Television

Answer: Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

The study, led by Dimitri Christakis, looked at children 7 years old and above, and found that each hour of TV watched per day from ages 1-3 increased the risk of ADHD by 10% over the average at age 7. It didn't matter what programs the children were watching; all had the same effect. The most frightening result of this study was that TV watching actually "rewires" the brains of children, by speeding up the pace of their perceptions, so that they expect everything to move fast and last only a short time, like a TV scene. Due to this study and others, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under age 2 watch no TV at all.

From Quiz Cognitive Psychology

Answer: Mental processes

The cognitive approach focuses on the effect that the cognitive patterns of the mind have on our behaviour. These include thinking, memory and perception. The learning approach focuses on observable behaviour, the psychodynamic on the unconscious mind and the social approach on the effect that others have on our behaviour.

From Quiz Get Psychoanalyzed!

Answer: Erik Erikson

Erikson respected Freud's theories and considered himself mostly an ego-based analyst versus the id-based (like Freud). Such psychoanalytic-oriented therapists as Melania Klein (1975) and Margaret Mahler (1968) use the labels self psychology or object-relations theory, a term used by Freud, to refer to that which satisfies a need to the significant person or thing that is the object or target of one's feelings or drives. Just as a young child, and later, the adolescent, needs to learn a healthy balance between bonding (attachment) and separation (individuation), couples also are happiest when they feel both independence and attachment. Such couples feel a basic serenity based on a sense of freedom, self -sufficiency, and self-esteem, which then paradoxically allows a truer intimate bonding with someone else.

From Quiz Psychological Terms

Answer: Repression

Perhaps the most powerful defense mechanism. Some say other defense mechanisms do only what repression can't or doesn't.

From Quiz Psychology Theories and Experiments

Answer: Intelligence

Binet is the key figure in the Stanford-Binet test, a popular test for measurement of intelligence. Wechsler developed intelligence tets for adults (WAIS) and for children (WISC). The tests usually involve many diverse areas such as vocabulary, spatial relationships, etc. Tests of this sort must be 'valid' - do they really test intelligence'? - and 'reliable' - will the scores be consistent - so that a re-test of a person will not elicit a widely different score.

From Quiz Personality Theories and Psychology

Answer: Ernest Jones

Jones also applied Freud's Oedipus theory to Hamlet.

From Quiz People Love To Fall In Line - Conformity Studies

Answer: The length of a line

In the first experiment on group pressure, one test subject was placed with seven other male college students. Everyone except for the one test subject was an actor. The students were shown a series of lines - line A and three other lines of varying lengths. One of the other three lines matched the length of line A. Line A was drawn on a separate piece of paper and students were asked which of the other three lines was the same length as line A. The actors were told how to respond ahead of time and in some circumstances gave the correct answer and in others, gave an incorrect answer. The test subject was asked the same question and was being watched to see if they would answer with the group or not.

From Quiz The Milgram Experiment - What Would You Do?

Answer: 1961

The experiment started in July 1961. In the experiments there was an experimenter, teacher and learner. The experimenter and learner were both part of the experiment and the teacher was the test subject. The experimenter and teacher were placed in a room together and the learner was placed in a separate area where the teacher could not see them but could hear them. The teacher knew that the learner was strapped into a chair and would receive electric shocks for incorrect answers to questions. The learner was to give these shocks every time they heard an incorrect answer and to increase the amount of voltage for every incorrect answer.

From Quiz Body Language With Fred

Answer: He is wishing you'd stop talking

The hand across or slightly covering the mouth means one of several things as far as body language goes. 1. If you are talking, Fred wishes you'd dry up for a while and he's bored stiff. Check his feet for further body revelations. Or 2. Fred thinks you're telling a pack of lies. However, if FRED is talking and has his mouth half covered, then he's either 1. Telling lies himself or 2. Not wanting anyone else to hear what he's saying (criminals often use this action). You'll note with children that when they tell you a fib - as in a missing packet of lollies and they have chocolate round their lips - they will openly cover their mouth with a hand when they deny eating them. The adult slightly covering the lips with the hand is the more sophisticated version of this. You may note too, that after Fred inadvertently lets a secret out, or says the wrong thing, he will clasp his hand immediately over his mouth. Children do likewise. Regarding telling a lie in particular, some people who are skilled in this practice and know that the hand partially obscuring the mouth is a dead giveaway (as is touching some other part of the face instead, such as the nose), and will train themselves not to do this. They will keep their hands motionless, for example, or busy them in some other action such as turning the pages of a book instead - and thus believe the lie hasn't been detected. Or so they think. However the body's reaction to a lie is so built in since childhood, that not too long after the lie has been told, one of their hands will, without their realisation, touch their face in some way. A disguised scratch of the nose perhaps, a tug of the ear, a touch of the eyebrow or a flick back of a loose strand of hair for example. By the way, did you know that if Fred often sucks on a pen or pencil, or his thumb, or smokes cigarettes, all are signs that, at heart, he needs comforting and reassurance. This gets right back to the early days of the comfort and feelings of security that breastfeeding or bottle feeding provided. The pen, the thumb or the cigarette represent the nipple or the teat.

From Quiz Psychology Trivia: Why We Do What We Do

Answer: Bystander effect

The bystander effect is often the reason that bullying goes unpunished, because no one wants to take responsibility. People are less likely to provide help when they are in groups than when they are alone. Diffusion of responsibility occurs when a bystander does not help because they believe that someone else will.

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Last Updated Nov 16 2024 5:47 AM

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