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500+ Psychology Trivia Questions & Answers

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I've sorted all 500+ multiple choice questions into five levels, from super easy to really hard, so you can start simple and work your way up. Get ready to learn cool facts, quiz your friends, and discover more about Psychology trivia - all while having a great time!

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Very Easy Psychology Trivia Questions

These Psychology trivia questions are perfect for beginners, young kids, and toddlers. If you want to play Psychology trivia with children, try these very easy difficulty questions to get started.

1.) What is the study of the mind and behavior called?

  • Anthropology
  • Biology
  • Psychology
  • Sociology

2.) What do psychologists primarily study?

  • Chemical reactions
  • Human behavior and mind
  • Plant growth
  • Solar system

3.) What is the basic unit of communication in the brain called?

  • Atom
  • Cell
  • Gene
  • Neuron

4.) What is the scientific study of mental processes and behavior called?

  • Anthropology
  • Biology
  • Psychology
  • Sociology

Easy Psychology Trivia Questions

These Psychology trivia questions are perfect for kids in elementary school. If you want to play Psychology trivia with schoolchildren, try these easy difficulty questions to get started.

5.) What is the term for a fear of being in social situations?

  • Acrophobia
  • Arachnophobia
  • Claustrophobia
  • Social anxiety

6.) What is the first stage of Freud's psychosexual development?

  • Anal stage
  • Latency stage
  • Oral stage
  • Phallic stage

7.) What is the term for a deep and persistent fear of spiders?

  • Acrophobia
  • Agoraphobia
  • Arachnophobia
  • Xenophobia

8.) What mental health condition is characterized by the presence of two or more distinct personality states within one individual?

  • Bipolar disorder
  • Dissociative identity disorder
  • Major depressive disorder
  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder

9.) What is the term for learning through association, discovered by Pavlov?

  • Classical conditioning
  • Cognitive learning
  • Observational learning
  • Operant conditioning

10.) In psychology, what is it called when a reward or punishment is given following a behavior?

  • Impression
  • Inhibition
  • Projection
  • Reinforcement

11.) What framework in psychology focuses on how the brain processes information?

  • Behavioral psychology
  • Cognitive psychology
  • Developmental psychology
  • Humanistic psychology

12.) In psychology, what is the process of strengthening behavior by using rewards called?

  • Extinction
  • Regression
  • Reinforcement
  • Suppression

13.) What does PTSD stand for in psychology?

  • Patient treatment stress disorder
  • Persistent trauma stress disorder
  • Post-traumatic stress disorder
  • Post-treatment stress disorder

14.) What is the term for a mental health professional who can prescribe medication?

  • Counselor
  • Psychiatrist
  • Psychologist
  • Therapist

15.) What is the fear of open or crowded spaces called?

  • Agoraphobia
  • Arachnophobia
  • Hydrophobia
  • Xenophobia

16.) What term describes the mood disorder characterized by chronic, severe periods of depression?

  • Bipolar disorder
  • Generalized anxiety disorder
  • Major depressive disorder
  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder

17.) What therapy emphasizes the human potential for growth and self-improvement?

  • Behavioral therapy
  • Cognitive therapy
  • Humanistic therapy
  • Psychoanalysis

18.) What does the 'O' stand for in the personality model OCEAN?

  • Objectivity
  • Openness
  • Optimism
  • Orderliness

19.) Whose hierarchy of needs is topped by self-actualization?

  • Erikson
  • Freud
  • Maslow
  • Rogers

20.) Who is known as the father of psychoanalysis?

  • B.F. Skinner
  • Carl Jung
  • Jean Piaget
  • Sigmund Freud

21.) In psychology, what is the term for a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, situation, or activity?

  • Delusion
  • Mania
  • Paranoia
  • Phobia

22.) Which psychologist is famous for the hierarchy of needs theory?

  • Abraham Maslow
  • Erik Erikson
  • Ivan Pavlov
  • John Bowlby

23.) What term is used for the defense mechanism where individuals refuse to accept reality or fact?

  • Denial
  • Projection
  • Repression
  • Sublimation

24.) Who developed the theory of cognitive development in children?

  • Albert Bandura
  • Carl Rogers
  • Jean Piaget
  • Sigmund Freud

25.) Who is the psychologist known for his experiment with dogs that demonstrated classical conditioning?

  • B.F. Skinner
  • Carl Rogers
  • Ivan Pavlov
  • John Watson

26.) What psychological perspective focuses on the need for love and acceptance?

  • Behaviorism
  • Cognitivism
  • Humanism
  • Psychoanalysis

27.) Which psychological disorder is characterized by alternating periods of high and low mood?

  • Bipolar disorder
  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder
  • Panic disorder
  • Schizophrenia

28.) What is the term for the body's response to any demand or challenge?

  • Burnout
  • Fatigue
  • Strain
  • Stress

29.) Who proposed the theory of multiple intelligences?

  • Daniel Goleman
  • Howard Gardner
  • Jean Piaget
  • Robert Sternberg

Medium Psychology Trivia Questions

These Psychology trivia questions are perfect for older kids, teenagers, and adults. If you want to play Psychology trivia with friends and family, try these medium difficulty questions

30.) What term describes a temporary, involuntary lull in conversation during a group setting?

  • Awkward silence
  • Groupthink
  • Mental lapse
  • Panic attack

31.) Who is considered the father of modern psychology?

  • Carl Jung
  • Ivan Pavlov
  • Sigmund Freud
  • Wilhelm Wundt

32.) What is the area of the brain responsible for regulating emotions and memory called?

  • Brainstem
  • Cerebellum
  • Cerebral cortex
  • Limbic system

33.) What field of study involves exploring the unconscious thoughts of individuals?

  • Behaviorism
  • Phrenology
  • Psychoanalysis
  • Psychotherapy

34.) What is the concept of blocking unwanted thoughts from consciousness called?

  • Denial
  • Projection
  • Regression
  • Repression

35.) What is the term used for the method of analyzing dreams to uncover the unconscious mind?

  • Cognitive appraisal
  • Dream analysis
  • Hypnosis
  • Sleep study

36.) What term describes the scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to each other?

  • Behavioral psychology
  • Cognitive psychology
  • Neuropsychology
  • Social psychology

37.) What is a mild, chronic form of depression often characterized by low energy and lack of interest called?

  • Anxiety disorder
  • Bipolar disorder
  • Dysthymia
  • Schizophrenia

38.) What psychological term describes the intense emotional bond between a child and caregiver?

  • Alliance
  • Attachment
  • Dependency
  • Symbiosis

39.) What is the term for the psychological theory that focuses on observable behaviors and disregards mental activities?

  • Behaviorism
  • Cognitivism
  • Humanism
  • Psychoanalysis

40.) What type of reinforcement involves removing an unpleasant stimulus to increase the likelihood of a behavior?

  • Extinction
  • Negative reinforcement
  • Positive reinforcement
  • Punishment

41.) In Freudian psychology, what part of the mind operates on the pleasure principle?

  • Conscious
  • Ego
  • Id
  • Superego

42.) What is the term for the mental process of filtering out unnecessary sensory information to focus on a small amount of information?

  • Perceptual salience
  • Selective attention
  • Signal detection
  • Subliminal perception

43.) Which psychological concept refers to the influence of both a person's disposition and their situation on their behavior?

  • Behaviorism
  • Interactionism
  • Reductionism
  • Structuralism

44.) What is the name of the stage in Erik Erikson's theory of psychosocial development for adolescents?

  • Autonomy vs. shame and doubt
  • Generativity vs. stagnation
  • Identity vs. role confusion
  • Intimacy vs. isolation

45.) What is the term for a relatively enduring change in behavior as a result of experience?

  • Adaptation
  • Cognition
  • Learning
  • Teaching

46.) In psychology, which term describes the repetition of a study with different subjects or different conditions to verify the findings?

  • Reduction
  • Referencing
  • Regression
  • Replication

47.) What is the name of the phenomenon where exposure to one stimulus influences the response to another stimulus?

  • Anchoring
  • Conditioning
  • Facilitation
  • Priming

48.) What is the term for a mental disorder characterized by symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized thinking?

  • Bipolar disorder
  • Generalized anxiety disorder
  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder
  • Schizophrenia

49.) Which concept in psychology refers to the way perceptions and behaviors are influenced by stimuli that happen on the unconscious level?

  • Hyper perception
  • Linear perception
  • Subliminal perception
  • Superliminal perception

50.) What psychological principle suggests people are motivated by incentives and rewards?

  • Drive-reduction theory
  • Humanistic theory
  • Incentive theory
  • Instinct theory

51.) Who is credited with developing the theory of operant conditioning?

  • Albert Bandura
  • B.F. Skinner
  • Carl Jung
  • John Watson

52.) What psychological effect describes the tendency to perform better when others are watching?

  • Conformity
  • Groupthink
  • Social facilitation
  • Social loafing

53.) In memory studies, what term describes consciously repeating information to aid retention?

  • Reflection
  • Regression
  • Rehearsal
  • Repression

54.) What term describes the tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others agree with their beliefs or behaviors?

  • Bandwagon effect
  • Confirmation bias
  • False consensus effect
  • Hindsight bias

Hard Psychology Trivia Questions

These Psychology trivia questions are perfect for teenagers and adults. If you want to play Psychology trivia with family and friends, try these hard difficulty questions for a fun challenge.

55.) What term did Carl Jung use to describe the part of the unconscious mind shared among beings of the same species?

  • Collective unconscious
  • Personal unconscious
  • Subconscious
  • Superconscious

56.) Who introduced the concept of 'flow,' a state of being completely immersed in an activity?

  • Daniel Kahneman
  • Edward Deci
  • Martin Seligman
  • Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

57.) Which psychologist proposed the idea of 'learned helplessness'?

  • B.F. Skinner
  • Jean Piaget
  • Martin Seligman
  • Rollo May

58.) In which field of psychology did Elisabeth Kübler-Ross make significant contributions?

  • Behavioral Psychology
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Social Psychology
  • Thanatology (study of death and dying)

59.) Which psychologist developed the triarchic theory of intelligence?

  • Charles Spearman
  • David Wechsler
  • Howard Gardner
  • Robert Sternberg

60.) Who developed the concept of locus of control in personality psychology?

  • Gordon Allport
  • Hans Eysenck
  • Julian Rotter
  • Walter Mischel

61.) What is the term for the ability to modify one's cognitive processes in the context of changing environments?

  • Cognitive flexibility
  • Heuristic processing
  • Metacognition
  • Neuroplasticity

62.) Which psychological phenomenon describes the tendency to attribute one's successes to personal attributes and failures to external factors?

  • Actor-observer bias
  • Fundamental attribution error
  • Halo effect
  • Self-serving bias

63.) What is the name of the philosophical theory proposed by Edmund Husserl that influenced existential psychology?

  • Behavioral phenomenology
  • Cognitive phenomenology
  • Interpretive phenomenology
  • Phenomenological philosophy

64.) In Erikson's stages of psychosocial development, what is the primary conflict in adolescence?

  • Identity vs. Role Confusion
  • Industry vs. Inferiority
  • Intimacy vs. Isolation
  • Trust vs. Mistrust

65.) What psychological principle did Philip Zimbardo explore through the Stanford prison experiment?

  • Development of moral reasoning
  • Group decision making
  • Reinforcement and punishment
  • Role of situational variables in influencing behavior

66.) In developmental psychology, which stage according to Erik Erikson involves the challenge of 'integrity vs. despair'?

  • Adolescence
  • Infancy
  • Late adulthood
  • Young adulthood

67.) What is the name of the heuristic that describes the tendency to attribute other people's actions to their character, but our own actions to the situation?

  • Confirmation bias
  • Fundamental attribution error
  • Recency effect
  • Self-serving bias

68.) Which clinical condition involves experiencing both depression and manic episodes at the same time?

  • Cyclothymia
  • Dysthymia
  • Mixed episode
  • Schizoaffective disorder

69.) What is the name of the psychometric test used to measure psychopathology and personality structure, particularly in clinical settings?

  • Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
  • Neo Personality Inventory
  • Rorschach Inkblot Test
  • Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

70.) What cognitive bias explains the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control events?

  • Anchoring bias
  • Confirmation bias
  • Illusion of control
  • Self-serving bias

71.) In psychoanalysis, what is the term for shifting emotions from their original source to a substitute target?

  • Displacement
  • Projection
  • Regression
  • Sublimation

72.) In neuropsychology, what is the term for the inability to recognize faces, commonly due to brain damage?

  • Agnosia
  • Alexia
  • Anosognosia
  • Prosopagnosia

73.) Which psychologist is associated with the concept of unfulfilled subconscious urges influencing behavior, also known for his 'Drive Theory'?

  • B.F. Skinner
  • Carl Jung
  • Konrad Lorenz
  • Sigmund Freud

74.) What term refers to a condition in psychology manifested by deep-seated beliefs of inferiority and a constant striving for superiority?

  • Inferiority complex
  • Regression
  • Social anxiety
  • Supremacy bias

75.) In psychology, what is the term for a mental conflict where someone holds contradictory beliefs or actions?

  • Attachment theory
  • Classical conditioning
  • Cognitive dissonance
  • Operant conditioning

76.) What psychological approach emphasizes the importance of individuals' subjective experiences?

  • Behaviorist approach
  • Gestalt approach
  • Phenomenological approach
  • Psychoanalytic approach

77.) Which psychologist introduced the concept of 'flow', a state of optimal experience?

  • Carl Rogers
  • Karen Horney
  • Martin Seligman
  • Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

78.) In Freud's theory, which part of the mind is concerned with moral conscience?

  • Ego
  • Id
  • Preconscious
  • Superego

79.) What branch of psychotherapy is based on the assumption that the problems are due to irrational thoughts?

  • Existential therapy
  • Gestalt therapy
  • Psychoanalysis
  • Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT)

Very Hard Psychology Trivia Questions

These Psychology trivia questions are perfect for adults, college students, and advanced students. If you want to play Psychology trivia with friends, family, or colleagues, try these very hard questions to test your knowledge about Psychology at its limits.

80.) Which psychological theory suggests that attractiveness in a partner comes from the perceived fit of one's self-concept and that of the partner?

  • Cognitive dissonance theory
  • Self-determination theory
  • Self-verification theory
  • The halo effect theory

81.) Who introduced the parallel distributed processing model in cognitive psychology?

  • Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman
  • David Rumelhart and James McClelland
  • Herbert Simon and Allen Newell
  • Ulric Neisser and Jerome Bruner

82.) What is the name of the physiological response involving three stages of stress leading to eventual deterioration from prolonged stress activation?

  • Burnout
  • Chronic stress disorder
  • General adaptation syndrome
  • Learned helplessness

83.) Which psychological theory posits that dreams serve to preserve and protect brain pathways?

  • Activation-synthesis theory
  • Cognitive development theory
  • Physiological function theory
  • Psychodynamic theory

84.) What psychological assessment discusses a battery of neuropsychological tests for analyzing brain-behavior relationships?

  • Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Battery
  • Raven's Progressive Matrices
  • Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales
  • Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

85.) What is the term for a memory error in which information that is 'relearned' better appears to have been understood all along?

  • Flashbulb memory
  • Hindsight bias
  • Implicit memory error
  • Self-serving bias

86.) Which hypothesis suggests that human emotions are universally distributed but expressed differently across various cultures?

  • Cultural display rules hypothesis
  • Cultural relativism hypothesis
  • Emotional contagion hypothesis
  • Universal emotional expression hypothesis

87.) What is the psychological and philosophical theory that suggests emotions are judgments about the world, not physiological reactions?

  • Affective theory
  • Cognitive appraisal theory
  • James-Lange theory
  • Two-factor theory

88.) Which personality theory framework focuses on the intersection of motivational profiles and emotional regulation styles?

  • Big Five Personality Traits
  • Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
  • Personality Systems Interaction theory
  • Type A and B Personality Theory

89.) Who posited the Self-Determination Theory, focusing on intrinsic motivation driven by basic psychological needs?

  • Abraham Maslow
  • Carl Rogers
  • Edward Deci and Richard Ryan
  • Rollo May

90.) In cognitive psychology, what term describes the error where someone mistakenly remembers internal events (thoughts) as external events (real occurrences)?

  • Flashbulb memory
  • Implicit memory fallacy
  • Reconsolidation error
  • Source monitoring error

91.) What is the term in psychology for the process by which skills or responses that were once automatic become controlled and require effort?

  • Cognitive restructuring
  • De-automation
  • Desensitization
  • Habituation

92.) Which cognitive bias is characterized by the tendency to attribute situational characteristics to an individual or group, despite the actual cause being clearly external?

  • Confirmation bias
  • Framing effect
  • Self-serving bias
  • Ultimate attribution error

93.) What is the term in psychological studies for the subtle, often unconscious, cues that experimenters give participants influencing their behavior?

  • Confounding variables
  • Demand characteristics
  • Response bias
  • Social desirability bias

94.) What is the concept developed by Jacques Lacan that refers to the recognition of oneself in the mirror as an infant?

  • Mirror Stage
  • Object Relations Theory
  • Self-Efficacy
  • Stranger Anxiety

95.) Which perspective in psychology, founded by Brentano and furthered by Husserl, emphasizes the subjective experience of consciousness?

  • Behaviorism
  • Existential Psychology
  • Gestalt Psychology
  • Phenomenology

96.) What is the concept in psychology that suggests every mental experience has subjective intensity despite its objective measure?

  • Adaptation-Level Theory
  • Signal Detection Theory
  • Stevens' Power Law
  • Weber's Law

97.) What concept in family therapy focuses on personal differentiation and avoiding blurring emotional and intellectual boundaries between family members?

  • Bowen's Family Systems Theory
  • Kinship Network Theory
  • Minuchin's Structural Theory
  • Narrative Therapy

99.) What concept in family therapy focuses on personal differentiation and avoiding blurring emotional and intellectual boundaries between family members?

  • Bowen's Family Systems Theory
  • Kinship Network Theory
  • Minuchin's Structural Theory
  • Narrative Therapy

+403 more Psychology trivia questions

Looking for even more Psychology trivia?

TriviaBear has over 500 Psychology trivia questions and answers for you to enjoy, ranging from easy to very difficult, and we're adding more every day.

Psychology trivia is all about fun and interesting questions related to how our minds work! Have you ever wondered why people behave a certain way or what makes us feel happy or sad? In this category, you'll find cool trivia questions and answers that explore different topics in Psychology. Join me in discovering amazing facts about our thoughts and feelings while testing your knowledge with some awesome trivia challenges!

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