Chapter 11

A(n) _____ is a network of assumptions or beliefs about the relationships among various types of people, traits, and behaviors.

implicit personality theory

_____ is any behavior that helps another person, whether the underlying motive is self-serving or selfless.

Prosocial behavior

Which of the following factors made it easier for the Army Reserve guards to mistreat detainees at Abu Ghraib?

The detainees were members of a different cultural and ethnic group, which made it easier to perceive them as members of a despised and threatening out-group.

If the "teacher" protested that he wished to stop or that he was worried about the "learner's" safety, what did the experimenter do?

The experimenter would say, "The experiment requires that you continue."

Which of the following events spurred social psychologists to begin studying the conditions under which people will help another person?

The fact that none of the people who witnessed the murder of Kitty Genovese tried to help her.

_____ is the tendency of people to believe that the world is fair and that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get.

The just-world hypothesis

The Focus on Neuroscience described an fMRI study in which participants were scanned while looking at photographs of different faces, some looking directly at the viewer (eye-contact) and some looking away (non-eye-contact). What did the results of this study show?

When we make eye contact with an attractive person, the brain area that is associated with the expectation of a reward shows increased activity.

Solomon Asch set up an experimental situation in which participants were asked to identify which of three comparison lines was identical to a standard line. His research was designed to answer a straightforward question, namely:

Would people still conform to the group if the group opinion was clearly wrong?

Of the following factors, which is NOT one that will make you more likely to conform to the group's norms?

You have already expressed commitment to a different idea or opinion.

Kitty Genovese was murdered outside her New York City apartment. This tragic event led to intense psychological research on:

altruism and prosocial behavior.

The belief that one's own culture or ethnic group is superior to all others and the related tendency to use one's own culture as a standard by which to judge other cultures is called:

ethnocentrism.

The _____ effect refers to the fact that when people feel good, successful, happy, or fortunate, they are more likely to help others.

feel good, do good

Jason belongs to a college fraternity and has been told to show up for a hazing ritual to take place later that week. Jason is against the whole idea of hazing but is not sure how to avoid participating. According to your textbook, Jason will find it easier to refuse to participate in the hazing if:

he finds another fraternity member to join him in his refusal to participate.

The social group to which a person belongs is called the _____, and the social group to which a person does not belong is called the _____.

in-group; out-group

The Stanford Prison Experiment:

involved Stanford University students playing the roles of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison.

Relying on social categories:

is a natural, adaptive cognitive process that provides us with considerable basic information about people.

Physical attractiveness is:

not correlated with intelligence, mental health, or self-esteem.

The performance of an action in response to the direct orders of an authority or person of higher status is called:

obedience.

The _____ refers to the tendency to attribute successful outcomes of one's own behavior to internal causes and unsuccessful outcomes to external, situational causes.

self-serving bias

How long did the Stanford Prison Experiment last before the situation became "out of control"?

six days.

The study of the mental processes people use to make sense of their social environment is called:

social cognition.

According to your textbook, _____ is an area of social psychology that studies the effect of situational factors and other people on an individual's behavior.

social influence

The branch of psychology that studies how people think, feel, and behave in social situations is called:

social psychology.

Which of the following is NOT a common attributional bias?

the bystander effect

The phenomenon in which the greater the number of people present means the less likely each individual is to help someone in distress is called:

the bystander effect.

Milgram, along with other researchers, identified several aspects of his original obedience experiment that had a strong impact on the subjects' willingness to obey the experimenter. Which of the following is NOT a factor that increased the subjects' willingness to obey?

the freedom of the teacher to choose the level of shock

The Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrated the powerful influence of:

the indirect pressure of situational roles and implied social rules.

Conformity is defined as:

the tendency to adjust one's behavior, attitudes, or beliefs to group norms in response to real or imagined group pressure.

_____ is the mental process of classifying people into groups on the basis of common characteristics.

Social categorization

_____ is to how we interpret the meaning of other people's behavior as _____ is to how our behavior is affected by situational factors and other people.

Social cognition; social influence

The American social psychologist who is best known for his controversial series of studies investigating destructive obedience to an authority is:

Stanley Milgram.

If you were a subject in Milgram's original obedience experiment, it is very likely that:

you would play the role of the teacher and get to "shock" the learner.

In Milgram's original obedience experiment, subjects who were assigned the role of "teacher":

were deceived about the real role of the learner and the level of shock that he actually received.

Muzafer Sherif 's work with 11-year-old boys at a summer camp demonstrated that:

when situations were created that required cooperation and the joint efforts of both groups, conflict and hostility between them were reduced.

Which of the following is a basic principle involved in person perception?

All of the above are involved in person perception.

The textbook provides several practical suggestions to defend against being manipulated by various persuasion techniques. Which of the following is NOT one of the practical suggestions you can use making important decisions?

Always go with your first impulse and don't look back.

What were the basic results of psychologist Stanley Milgram's original obedience study?

Despite hearing protests from the learner in another room, two-thirds of the subjects continued to administer shocks all the way to the full 450-volt level.

_____ refers to the phenomenon in which the presence of other people makes it less likely that any individual will help someone in distress because the obligation to intervene is shared among all the onlookers.

Diffusion of responsibility

According to the textbook, what helped John Gacy escape detection as a ruthless murderer for so many years?

Gacy's behavior in many situations contradicted the implicit personality theory that people have for a mass murderer.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted by psychologist:

Philip Zimbardo.

_____ is defined as a negative attitude toward people who belong to a specific group.

Prejudice

Your textbook suggests that the sheer number of bystanders who observed the death of Kitty Genovese may have been a factor in these people's decision not to give her assistance because of:

diffusion of responsibility.

When Raphael was in the elevator, he couldn't help but notice a man and a woman in conversation. He decided that the woman in the suit was probably a college administrator and the gray-haired man in the glasses was probably a professor. Raphael was engaged in the process of:

social categorization.

_____ is a cluster of characteristics that are associated with all members of a specific social group, often including qualities that are unrelated to the objective criteria that define the group.

stereotype

The common tendency in individualistic cultures to attribute the behavior of others to internal, personal characteristics, while ignoring or underestimating the effects of external, situational factors is called:

the fundamental attribution error.

A(n) _____ is a learned tendency to evaluate some object, person, or issue in a particular way that may be either positive, negative, or ambivalent.

attitude

Attitudes:

can have cognitive, behavioral, and emotional components.

Stereotypes and in-group/out-group bias form the _____ basis for prejudicial attitudes.

cognitive

Muzafer Sherif helped clarify the conditions that produce intergroup _____ and _____.

conflict; harmony

The tendency to adjust one's behavior, attitudes, or beliefs to group norms in response to real or imagined group pressure is called:

conformity.