Exam 4: Social Cognition and Attitudes

People naturally use mental "shortcuts" to simplify their social world. These shortcuts are known as: a. impact bias b. heuristics c. attitudes d. priming

b. heuristics

The area of social psychological that focuses on how people think about others and about the social world is called social __________. a. influence b. affect c. cognition d. facilitation

c. cognition

When being considered for a job opening, people being interviewed often mirror the interviewer's behavior. This can be explained by what concept? a. emotional nervousness b. need for closure c. planning fallacy d. chameleon effect

d. chameleon effect

What is a potential positive outcome of the planning fallacy? a. People might attempt projects that otherwise might have been avoided had the amount of effort or time needed been understood. b. It causes people to finish projects ahead of deadlines, which can make for happy customers and/or allow other projects to be initiated. c. It reduces the need for anticipatory planning and leads to more creative problem-solving approaches. d. It can help people to break free of the need to use various heuristics for problem-solving situations.

a. People might attempt projects that otherwise might have been avoided had the amount of effort or time needed been understood.

Which of the following is the most accurate statement about affective forecasting? a. People tend to be accurate with predicting whether an event will result in positive or negative feelings but inaccurate regarding the strength or duration of these emotions. b. People tend to be accurate with predicting whether an event will result in positive or negative feelings and how strong those emotions will be, but inaccurate regarding the duration of these emotions. c. People tend to be accurate with predicting whether an event will result in positive or negative feelings and how long those emotions will last, but inaccurate regarding the strength of these emotions. d. People tend to be inaccurate with predicting whether an event will result in positive or negative feelings, and will also be inaccurate regarding the strength or duration of these emotions.

a. People tend to be accurate with predicting whether an event will result in positive or negative feelings but inaccurate regarding the strength or duration of these emotions.

Which of the following is a possible outcome when individuals' implicit and explicit attitudes do not match? a. They are unaware they hold an actual bias, such as a bias towards an ethnic minority. b. They are quicker at evaluating or categorizing attitude objects. c. Their direct, self-reports will best predict behavior such as their choice to purchase designer jeans. d. They will show resistance when being primed about a topic.

a. They are unaware they hold an actual bias, such as a bias towards an ethnic minority.

A(n) __________ is a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a target with a degree of favor or disfavor. a. attitude b. attribution c. assessment d. opinion

a. attitude

Calvin is interested in measuring his school's willingness to do volunteer work around the community. He sends out a self-report survey that asks students to directly fill out their _________ attitudes on the topic. a. explicit b. implicit c. ambiguous d. automatic

a. explicit

Mood-congruent memory is occurring in which of the following scenarios? a. Jasmine is feeling anxious but is having a difficult time recalling how nervous she was to give a public speech. b. John is currently sad and can more easily recall a time when he got in trouble for a late assignment. c. The sunny day is making Jaden happy, helping him to recall what he ate for breakfast this morning when he was in a hurry. d. Yesterday Janis was remembering all the hardships she's been through in her life but today she felt happy after getting engaged.

b. John is currently sad and can more easily recall a time when he got in trouble for a late assignment.

Which heuristic would you likely use if you were asked, "are there more words in the English language that start with the letter "k" or that have "k" as the third letter in the word?" a. systematic heuristic b. availability heuristic c. representativeness heuristic d. fluency heuristic

b. availability heuristic

Randy has joined a new social club on campus. Is it likely that Randy will: a. carefully form the impressions he makes of these club members only after repeated meetings b. form the impressions he makes of these club members after only one meeting c. not form impressions of these club members on physical characteristics d. form the most positive impressions of those with whom he interacted least

b. form the impressions he makes of these club members after only one meeting

The ________ heuristic is one in which the likelihood of an object belonging to a category is evaluated based on the extent to which the object appears similar to one's mental conceptualization of the category. a. availability b. representativeness c. similarity d. compare and contrast

b. representativeness

People are usually motivated in some way when making social judgments and decisions. What often occurs as a result of having directional goals? a. People may ignore base-rates when judging representativeness. b. People may overestimate the intensity of future feelings. c. People may be skeptical about evidence that goes against their directional goal. d. People may wait to make a decision on where to eat if they have a need for closure.

c. People may be skeptical about evidence that goes against their directional goal.

The durability bias occurs when a person overestimates how long their feelings might last. This bias is a type of a. schema b. availability heuristic c. affective forecasting d. directional goal

c. affective forecasting

Which of the following is an example of the planning fallacy? a. Corrine finished a group project and during peer evaluations stated that she did most of the work and deserves the highest grade. She is surprised when her group members do not agree. b. Herald is graduating next week and believes the happiness he will feel will last for the next year. Herald is surprised when his happiness returns to normal level only a day after graduation. c. Faith is shopping at a hardware store and asks for help. The sales clerk suggests several tools that, if used correctly, will shorten her project time by two hours. d. Gerard believes he can complete a term paper within a one-week time frame. He is surprised when he cannot complete the project as quickly as he anticipated.

d. Gerard believes he can complete a term paper within a one-week time frame. He is surprised when he cannot complete the project as quickly as he anticipated.

How is it that schemas help people save time as they have new experiences or encounter new people or objects on a daily basis? a. Schemas allow us to immediately determine whether a new event is or is not significant in our lives. b. The use of schemas allow us to bypass memory processes as we have new experiences each day. c. Schemas are the same as our episodic memories, so they are only useful when we're having a repeated experience. d. We compare new experiences to previously stored schemas and this allows us to put forth less effort to assess those new encounters.

d. We compare new experiences to previously stored schemas and this allows us to put forth less effort to assess those new encounters.

Which of the following is an implicit attitude task: the task presents images of faces of men and women and then measures the time it takes the research participant to label the photo as good or bad? a. chameleon effect task b. mood-congruent memory task c. automaticity attitude task d. evaluative priming task

d. evaluative priming task