A 500-Point Drop in the DJIA Was a Big Drop

question 1

Multiple Choice

A 500-point drop in the DJIA was a big drop when the DJIA was at 2246 in October of 1987 and a much smaller drop when the DJIA reached 11,421 in September of 2008. The percent by which stock prices fall is a more meaningful measure. The lesson here is that

• A) rates are often more meaningful than counts.
• B) it is easy to make a mistake calculating a percent.
• C) the DJIA is a categorical variable.
• D) confidentiality has been violated.

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Definitions:

Self-Monitoring

A self-management technique where individuals observe and record their own behaviors, thoughts, or emotions as a means to improve self-awareness or modify behavior.

Locus of Control

A psychological concept referring to an individual’s belief about the extent to which outcomes of their actions are under their own control versus external forces.

Self-Management

A term that generally refers to the range of activities, both overt and covert, in which students may engage that increase or decrease the probability of appropriate behaviors occurring. Self-management is a more encompassing term than self-control in that it avoids the designation of locus of control. It encompasses techniques considered to be both internal (i.e., self-control) and external (i.e., environmental).

Self-Control

A hypothetical construct referring to "will power" that involves two responses: (1) the target response to be controlled (e.g., eating, completing math problems, or throwing temper tantrums) and (2) the response emitted in order to control the rate of the target behavior (e.g., recording everything eaten, the number of math problems completed correctly, or the number of temper tantrums thrown during the day). Self-control is assumed to reflect an internal process that occurs without the presence of immediate and obvious external contingencies.