PSYCH 2319 Final Study Guide

Implying that we are not as good as another person on some dimension may result in ________ and/or ________.

An ingratiation effect; lower our audience's expectations

Kim is an American but spent much of her childhood in Japan. She is fluent in both English and Japanese. We might reasonably expect her response to the question "Who am I?" to differ depending on the language (Japanese or English) of the question because ________.

A particular language might activate different self-concepts for bilingual people

Which of the following individuals is MOST likely to experience information overload?

A person who is talking on a cell phone while driving a car

A framework that reflects basic concepts, as well as statements about the relationships between these concepts, is known as ________.

A theory

Sue is conducting an experiment in which she is trying to determine the influence of staring at a speaker on how much different speakers stutter. Sue sends people to a speech class with instructions to stare for varied amounts of time at the speaker. The dependent variable is the ________.

Amount of stuttering that occurs

A message intended to reduce cheating among high school students is more likely to be effective if it is delivered by ________.

An attractive and popular student

Recent research on implicit processes demonstrate that such processes ________.

Are quite influential in our social behavior and thought

When you notice something and then remember it, you are involving the processes known as ________ and ________.

Attention; encoding

Social psychologists are primarily interested in understanding the many factors and conditions that shape the social ________ and ________ of individuals.

Behavior; thought

Radha is from India and is Jana's friend. In making a judgment about Radha's reason for being late for coffee, Jana may infer that Radha was late because she had a confusing day, or Jana may decide that Radha doesn't really have much respect for her schedule. This is best explained as an example of a ________.

Cognitive process

According to the elaboration-likelihood and the heuristic-systematic models of persuasion, the two key factors that will determine whether we engage in effortful or effortless processing of information are one's ________.

Capacity to process information and level of motivation

The central route to persuasion involves ________.

Careful consideration of the ideas contained by a message

A correlation exists between two variables when ________.

Changes in the two variables are related to each other

Subliminal conditioning is ________.

Classical conditioning that occurs without our awareness of the stimuli that are used

The tendency to explain others' actions as stemming from dispositions even in the presence of clear situational causes is called the ________.

Correspondence bias

People can become more resistant to attitudinal changes if they are first presented with opposing views and ________.

Counterarguments to the opposing views

In one study, participants were presented with words that were either consistent or inconsistent with their strongly held values. Participants showed quite strong reactions to the value inconsistent words. This suggests that we process information we ____ .

Disagree with quickly

Classical conditioning suggests that people can learn to ________.

Dislike stimuli to which they are initially neutral

In general, we ________ in our detection of deception.

Do only a little better than chance

Gabriel and Jim were involved in a car accident and they both suffered a broken bone. Gabriel told Jim, "Hey at least we only broke a few bones - we could've died!" Jim's response to Gabriel was "Yes, but I'm now thinking about how I can be a better driver so that I never get in an accident again." Gabriel's statement reflects a(n) ________ counterfactual and Jim's response reflects a(n) ________ counterfactual.

Downward; upward

Despite some variation, there appears to be universal mating preferences for certain physical features. This fact suggests that these attractiveness features are influenced by ________.

Evolutionary factors

Wendy, Greta, Tom, and Bill have all made New Year's resolutions to lose weight. Based on the information below, which of them is MOST likely to lose weight?

Greta, who intends to dramatically reduce her fat intake and tells others that she is greatly committed to her diet

Findings examining implicit personality theories regarding birth order are shown to provide some evidence of self-fulfilling prophecy. One study demonstrated that first-born children

Had higher occupational status and more education

Research has shown that people with ____ use Facebook to ____ their self-esteem.

High self-esteem; maintain

An involuntary negative reaction to a member of a stigmatized group is more likely to be the result of an ________ attitude.

Implicit

Self-enhancement involves efforts to ________, while other-enhancement involves efforts to ________.

Increase an individual's appeal to others; make the other person feel good

Introspection is an effective means of understanding ourselves when the ________.

Individual displays an introverted personality configuration

An anti-smoking advertisement that features photographs of diseased lungs, people using oxygen tanks to offset the effects of lung disease, and funerals, but does not include information about quitting smoking, is likely to be ineffective because it will probably ________.

Induce too much fear

High levels of stress and multiple, competing demands for our attention and abilities can reduce our mental processing capacity. These situations can lead to ________.

Information overload

Which list of traits is attributed to single people?

Insecure; unhappy; ugly

Social psychologists sometimes conceal information about the true purpose of a study from the research participants until after the study is completed. This use of deception is justified when ________.

Knowledge of the study's purpose may alter the behavior of the participants

Arlene was always averse to physical contact with pigs, because she thought pigs were essentially dirty animals. Despite her concerns, she was induced to kiss a clean-looking pig on the snout for $ 2.00 while appearing on a television game show. As a result, Arlene has become a staunch advocate of pigs, and soon plans to have one as a pet. The most probable explanation for this change in attitude is the ________.

Less-leads-to-more effect

In an experiment, researchers wanted to know whether changing the level of lighting in a factory would have an effect on the productivity of employees. In order to address this question, employees were randomly assigned to three separate identical work areas, but the lighting was set at a different level in each of the work areas. Then employees in all three work groups began to operate machinery that produced small electrical components. The number of components produced by each group was carefully tallied at the end of each 8-hour shift. In this example, the independent variable is the ________.

Level of lighting

A social group that is perceived to be a threat to the high-status group is frequently characterized as ________ and ________.

Low in warmth; high in competence

One way to manage information overload is to make use of ________.

Mental shortcuts, such as heuristics

Jason is undergoing treatment for depression. His therapist has encouraged Jason to remember as many details as possible about times when Jason was not feeling depressed. Jason is having difficulties remembering a time when he was not depressed. This is probably because of the effects of ________.

Mood dependent memories

A researcher is interested in the relationship between courtship behaviors and physical characteristics of people. If the researcher should establish that there is a correlation of +.37 between physical attractiveness and dating frequency, we can conclude that ________.

More attractive people date more often than less attractive people

The process of giving participants as much information as possible about experimental procedures to be used before the participants agree to participate is known as ________.

Obtaining informed consent

Attitudes are ________.

Our evaluations of different aspects of the social world

Jason has been told that he should make sure to shake hands with the interviewer when he applies for a job, and that this handshake should be firm, vigorous, and last a long time. According to recent research (Chaplin et al., 2000), if Jason follows this advice, the interviewer may think that Jason is ________.

Outgoing and willing to try new things

The "fundamental attribution error" refers to our tendency to ________.

Overestimate the role of dispositions in causing other's behavior

One reason that social scientists put their faith in the scientific method is that the scientific method ________.

Produces more conclusive evidence than other methods

Bethany has been listening to a political speaker who is encouraging people to support a law that would require all people to recycle aluminum cans, and severely penalize those who do not recycle. The speaker is giving strong arguments in favor of this proposed law and is couching his appeal in moral and ethical language. As a result, Bethany is becoming increasingly annoyed and resentful of the speaker and his arguments. She may be experiencing ________.

Reactance

Kayla has decided to get a body piercing. Her expectation is that she might well receive ________ by (from) her mom's mainstream friends. This will likely cause her to ________ identify with ________.

Rejection; more closely; others who have a body piercing

Women are stereotyped as relatively warm but less competent than men. This stereotype is typical of groups who are ________ and ________.

Relatively low in status; not perceived as a threat to the high-status group

Suppose you are telling your friend about a woman you just met. You tell your friend that this person seemed very compassionate and was interested in helping others; however, you couldn't recall whether she said she was a nurse or a businesswoman. On the basis of the ________ heuristic, your friend would probably think that she is a ________.

Representativeness; nurse

Which of the following examples BEST illustrates a situation where there is a gap between our attitudes and behavior?

Roz tells her new boyfriend that she is extremely excited to see the new James Bond movie, even though she truly dreads seeing that film.

The people who complete a survey must be representative of the population about which conclusions are to be drawn. This is known as the issue of ________.

Sampling

The academic performance of certain students dramatically improved when teachers were led to believe that those students were intellectually gifted, regardless of the true ability levels of the students. This result shows the importance of ________.

Schemas and self-fulfilling prophecies

Doug and Belinda are most likely to have higher satisfaction if they ___________.

See each other as similar to one another, have accurate impressions of each other, and see each other in a positive light

Tony disagrees with a certain political commercial. When the commercial comes on, he immediately switches the television channel. This is an example of ________.

Selective Avoidance

Whenever Mike enters his family's den where the sports trophies that he has won are on the mantle, his self-esteem is temporarily boosted. This is best described as caused by the fact that ________.

Self-esteem is responsive to life events

The process during which we interpret, analyze, remember, and use information about the social world is known as ________.

Social cognition

William plays softball on the weekends with a group of friends from work. He believes he is a better pitcher than Tyreke because batters have fewer hits when he pitches than when Tyreke pitches. This type of comparison can best be explained by ________.

Social comparison theory

________ occurs when an individual thinks that she or he may be judged in light of a negative stereotype about his or her social identity.

Stereotype threat

Researchers believe that experiencing strong negative emotions such as fear or anxiety will increase people's need to affiliate. To test this idea, the researchers randomly assigned participants to one of two small groups. Members of Group 1 were left for 10 minutes in a room with no windows. While waiting, the lights went out for a brief period of time and the participants could hear screams from another room. Members of Group 2 were likewise left for 10 minutes in a room with no windows, but the lights were left on and no screams were heard. Researchers observed how frequently members of each group started conversations with other members of their group on non-experiment related topics. In this experiment, the hypothesis is that ________.

Strong negative emotions will increase people's need to affiliate with others

In order to determine whether people have a strong or weak preference for the color of their cookware, a company wants to collect information from many of its past customers. If the number of past customers is very large, the company may want to consider using ________ methods.

Survey

Which is NOT an advantage of using surveys to collect information?

Surveys can be used to determine causal relationships between variables.

A researcher thinks that a person's mood has an effect on how helpful that person is likely to be. To test this, the researcher has participants come to the laboratory where they are first given a difficult test and then either heavily praised or strongly criticized for their test performance. As it happens, the researcher has one of two research assistants, one who is a bit rude and the other more friendly, running each participant through the experimental procedure. After the praise or critical feedback, each participant is asked to help the research assistant in moving some heavy boxes into another room. The researcher observes how many boxes each participant moves in helping the research assistant. One possible confound for this experiment is ________.

The attitude of the assistant

Research indicates that people's online identities often reflect ____________.

The ideal self

The moon is full, and Cristinel has been behaving wildly. Although sober, he's been alternately barking like a dog at strangers on the street and/or asking them, "aren't ya' just happy now?" According to your text, Cristinel's behavior could be due to ________.

The moon as an environmental influence

An attitude is more likely to influence a person's behavior if ________.

The object of the attitude has important consequences for the individual

Having not met any members of a new social group, you hear a person expressing negative views of that group. Your attitude toward the new group would not be likely influenced by hearing this negative message if ________.

The person expressing the attitude is someone you dislike and see as dissimilar to yourself

Jeremy has always been a very eloquent speaker and speech-writer. For his college oratory class, Jeremy was recently required to write and deliver a speech in support of capital punishment. Although Jeremy is strongly opposed to the death penalty, he wrote and delivered a very powerful speech in support of the death penalty. As a result, his professor and several students now believe Jeremy actually supports the death penalty. Why might this be the case?

The professor and students implicitly believe that only someone who really hold a particular opinion can persuasively write or speak about it.

An advertising company has been hired by the Centers for Disease Control to produce TV commercials to increase awareness of breast cancer in males. Advertising executives are considering three different commercials. The first features actual patients who describe the pain they experienced from the disease. The second focuses on medical doctors discussing early detection strategies and treatment options. The third shows grieving family members surrounding a grave. Which is likely to be more effective at changing men's behavior?

The second, focusing on specific information that will reduce fear

Kim knows she needs to go take summer courses, but worries about leaving her new boyfriend for three months. She wonders, will "absence make the heart go stronger" be true, or is "out of sight, out of mind" more applicable? This is an example of ________.

The unscientific nature of conventional wisdom

Suppose a company asked its workers "Now that you have received a raise, how satisfied are you with your job?" and found out that 87% indicated they were "very satisfied" or "satisfied." A major concern of this study would likely be ________.

The way the participants were selected

Heuristics exert a strong influence on our thinking in large measure because ________.

They reduce the mental effort needed to make judgments and decisions

_____ refers to small amounts of information about others we use to form first impressions of them.

Thin slices

Tracy encounters a member of a certain political group whose views and attributes are inconsistent with her schemas about that group. Due to a strong perseverance effect, what is the MOST likely conclusion that Tracy will make?

Tracy will not lose confidence in her ability to create schemas.

Cognitive dissonance arises when we notice a discrepancy between our attitudes and our behaviors. One way we can reduce the dissonance is by ________.

Trivializing the inconsistency by concluding that the attitude or the behavior is not important, so the inconsistency is also unimportant

One evening, after seeing a(n) ________ at the Cineplex, you are on your way home. You drive into a store parking lot, where another driver grabs a parking place you had spotted and were waiting for. You perceive the behavior as very ________.

Violent movie; aggressive

The fact that we can make judgments and evaluations about different aspects of the world in either a controlled, reflective way or an automatic way suggests ________.

We have two systems for evaluating the social world, but they generally work together so that it is difficult to distinguish between the two

Sabiha is left-handed, and prefers left-handed men. She is going to be introduced to Wilbur. Left-handers comprise about 10 percent of the population. She has been truthfully informed that Wilbur is either a left-handed Chinese psycholinguist or a left-handed used car salesman from the Midwestern region of the United States. If Sabiha makes good use of base rates, which of the following outcomes should she expect?

Wilbur is a used car salesman from the Midwestern region of the U.S. who also happens to be left-handed.

Providing members of a group with less favorable treatment because of their group membership is known as ________.

bias tokenism discrimination stereotyping

Research on self-control has demonstrated that engaging in self-regulation _____.

depletes our energy and provides us with limited ability to maintain self-control at a later time.

Implicit personality theories about first-born children include which of the following traits?

ntelligent, responsible, stable, unemotional

When people described themselves as they were five years ago, or as they are today, they saw their past self as more _______, and their present self as more ________.

situationally variable; dispositionally guided

The extent to which experimental results can be generalized to real-life situations is a question of an experiment's ________.

External Validity

Research indicates that if we think about our future possible selves we can be inspired to

Forego current activities that do not help us to achieve an improved future self.

Juanita finds that she has been given too much information about different new cars and their relative merits and drawbacks. She is having a difficult time making a decision about which car to buy because she cannot process all the information she has gathered. This is an example of ________.

Information overload

When Jeremy was recently asked to describe himself to his classmates, he spoke about being a member of the football team and how this helped to make his experiences different from those of other students in the class. Jeremy was primarily making ________ comparisons.

Intergroup

People tend to prefer situations that allow them to ________.

Maintain a match between their attitudes and behavior

The focus of social psychology is on ________.

The behavior and thoughts of individuals

As one of a number of ________, people are quite willing to avoid responsibility for their failures, but all too willing to accept credit for their successes.

Self-serving biases

The self-defeating pattern of attributions exhibited by many depressed individuals can successfully be treated by therapies that encourage people to ________.

Take credit for successful outcomes and to avoid blaming themselves for all negative outcomes

In an experiment, males and females were shown a snack labeled "men's favorite" or "women's favorite." The snack labeled as preferred by their own gender was liked better by high-gender-identified participants more so than by participants who were low-gender-identified. This showed that ________.

Unlike high-gender-identified people, low-gender-identified people will likely exhibit little preference for snacks that are labeled as preferred by their gender

Which of the following values would indicate the "strongest" correlation?

-.72

Suppose a breaking news story has occurred involving an incident of terrorism. A certain news station invites a well-respected terrorism scholar to discuss the event. His views will likely be persuasive because he will be seen as ________.

Credible

According to research, high self-esteem is associated with all of the following EXCEPT

Generosity

An example of interchannel discrepancy during deception would be ________.

Managing one's facial expressions well while not making much eye contact

Attitudes formed on the basis of direct personal experience with the object are generally ________.

More likely to have a strong effect on behavior

Based on the "what is beautiful is good" implicit personality theory, physically attractive people are thought to be __________.

More socially skilled

Social identity theory suggests that we will ________ others who outperform us on an important task, when our group identity is salient.

Move closer to in-group

Jason has been listening to a talk show concerning animal rights. This is an issue that he cares deeply about and he is very knowledgeable about the topic. Jason is most likely to be persuaded by ________.

Strong, convincing arguments

College students report telling on average two lies per day. The reasons for doing so are

1. To advance their own interests 2. To help protect the other person

Mr. Nguyen, a 53-year-old accountant, has just been rejected for a job at a small bank that he believes he was qualified for. He later hears from a friend that the hiring manager was biased against older job applicants. Mr. Nguyen's self-esteem is likely to ________.

First decrease, then increase because of several possible external and internal attributions that can be used to explain his rejection

Researchers believe that experiencing strong negative emotions such as fear or anxiety will increase people's need to affiliate. To test this idea, the researchers randomly assigned participants to one of two small groups. Members of Group 1 were left for 10 minutes in a room with no windows. While waiting, the lights went out for a brief period of time and the participants could hear screams from another room. Members of Group 2 were likewise left for 10 minutes in a room with no windows, but the lights were left on and no screams were heard. Researchers observed how frequently members of each group started conversations with other members of their group on non-experiment related topics. Researchers assigned participants to one of the two groups randomly because ________.

Random assignment ensures that any changes in the dependent variable are caused only by changes in the independent variable

Chelsea and Anita are both required to give a speech supporting a woman's right to abortion on demand in a public-speaking class. Anita believes that Chelsea gave her speech because she is a strong supporter of the right-to-choose movement. Anita is neutral on the topic and only gave her speech because it was assigned. Anita's belief about Chelsea is probably a result of ________.

The actor-observer effect

Trina is a successful manager in a mid-sized male-dominated manufacturing company. She expects immediate compliance when she gives an order and rarely explains the reason for her commands to subordinates. She also tends to focus her attention and efforts on the task at hand, preferring to deal with task-based issues rather than more global concerns. Joyce holds a comparable position with another company. Unlike Trina, Joyce tends to focus her attention on more global concerns and tries to explain the reasoning behind any orders she gives to subordinates. Which of these two managers is more likely to report gender discrimination because of their different leadership styles?

Trina is more likely to report gender discrimination