Social Psychology
According to research mentioned in this chapter, when researchers discontinued rewards and prizes, why did elementary school children spend less time playing math games? The children probably reasoned,
"If I no longer win prizes, why should I play with these games?"
How is social psychology different from other social sciences
- focuses on the individual in the context of a social situation - identify psychological properties that make almost everyone susceptible to social influence, regardless of social class or culture
Elliot Aronson and Judson Mills (1959) explored the link between effort and dissonance reduction
. In their experiment, college students volunteered to join a group that would be meeting regularly to discuss various aspects of the psychology of sex. To be admitted to the group, they volunteered to go through a screening procedure. For one-third of the participants, the procedure was demanding and unpleasant; for another third, it was only mildly unpleasant; and the final third was admitted to the group without any screening at all. Each participant was then allowed to listen in on a discussion being conducted by the members of the group he or she would be joining. Although the participants were led to believe that the discussion was live, they were listening to a prerecorded tape. The taped discussion was designed to be as dull as possible. After the discussion was over, each participant was asked to rate it in terms of how much he or she liked it, how interesting it was, how intelligent the participants were, and so forth. As you can see in Figure 6.2, participants who expended little or no effort to get into the group did not enjoy the discussion much. They were able to see it for what it was—a dull and boring waste of time. Participants who went through a severe initiation, however, convinced themselves that the same discussion, though not as scintillating as they had hoped, was dotted with interesting and provocative tidbits and was therefore, in the main, a worthwhile experience.
Cover Story
A description of the purpose of a study, given to participants, that is different from its true purpose and is used to maintain psychological realism
Attribution Theory
A description of the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other people's behavior
________ is defined by the authors of your text as an experiment conducted in natural settings rather than in the laboratory
A field experiment
Archival Analysis
A form of the observational method in which the researcher examines the accumulated documents, or archives, of a culture (e.g., diaries, novels, magazines, and newspapers
Institutional Review Board (IRB)
A group made up of at least one scientist, one nonscientist, and one member not affiliated with the institution that reviews all psychological research at that institution and decides whether it meets ethical guidelines; all research must be approved by the IRB before it is conducted
Introspection
A method of self-observation in which participants report their thoughts and feelings
Ben Franklin Effect
A person who has performed a favor for someone is more likely to do another favor for that person than they would be if they had received a favor from that person.
Metaphors about the Body and Mind and Automatic Thinking
A physical sensation (smelling something clean, feeling a hot beverage, holding something heavy) activated a metaphor that influenced judgments about a completely unrelated topic or person. This research shows that it is not just schemas that can be primed in ways that influence our judgments and behavior; priming metaphors about the relationship between the mind and the body can too
External Justification
A reason or an explanation for dissonant personal behavior that resides outside the individual (e.g., to receive a large reward or avoid a severe punishment)
Behaviorism
A school of psychology maintaining that to understand human behavior, one need only consider the reinforcing properties of the environment
Gestalt psychology
A school of psychology stressing the importance of studying the subjective way in which an object appears in people's minds rather than the objective, physical attributes of the object, focused on how people construe or interpret a situation/thing - did the bunny or duck photo
Correlation Coefficient
A statistical technique that assesses how well you can predict one variable from another—for example, how well you can predict people's weight from their height
Meta-Analysis
A statistical technique that averages the results of two or more studies to see if the effect of an independent variable is reliable
Schachter-Singer Theory
A theory of emotion that states that both physiological arousal and cognitive appraisal must occur before an emotion is consciously experienced (angry person in room, calm person in room, adrenaline, etc)
Kelley's Covariation Model
A theory that states that to form an attribution about what caused a person's behavior, we note the pattern between when the behavior occurs and the presence or absence of possible causal factor. You will examine multiple behaviors from different times and situations to answer this question
Analytic Thinking Style
A type of thinking in which people focus on the properties of objects without considering their surrounding context; this type of thinking is common in Western cultures
Independent View of the Self
A way of defining oneself in terms of one's own internal thoughts, feelings, and actions and not in terms of the thoughts, feelings, and actions of other people, Western
Interdependent View of the Self
A way of defining oneself in terms of one's relationships to other people, recognizing that one's behavior is often determined by the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others
Counterattitudinal Behavior
Acting in a way that runs counter to one's private belief or attitude
Informed Consent
Agreement to participate in an experiment, granted in full awareness of the nature of the experiment, which has been explained in advance
Assume that you are a participant in Latané and Darley's (1968) experiment examining when people help. You believe that there are four other people participating with you in a discussion, although you are isolated in a booth to ensure privacy. When you are listening to one of the other participants talk, you hear him beginning to have a seizure. If you behave like the typical subject in Latané and Darley's research, what are you most likely to do? Leave the experiment because of psychological stress. Run out of the booth to find the experimenter for help. Anxiously remain in the booth and hope for the best. Try yelling through the walls to see if he is all right.
Anxiously remain in the booth and hope for the best.
Yuri Miyamoto, Richard Nisbett, and Takahiko Masuda Photograph Study
As predicted, the people who saw the photos of Japanese cities were more likely to detect changes in the background of the test pictures, whereas people who saw the pictures of the American cities were more likely to detect changes in the main object of the pictures. This finding suggests that people in all cultures are capable of thinking holistically or analytically (they have the same tools in their mental toolbox), but that the environment in which people live, or even which environment has been recently primed, triggers a reliance on one of the styles
Psychologists distinguish between two types of cognitive processing. ________ thinking is nonconscious and unintentional, whereas ________ thinking is conscious and intentional.
Automatic; controlled
Jessica Tracy and David Matsumoto Pride Study
Blind people and seeing people emote the same way, meaning it is innate
Which person would have the most difficulty exerting self-control? Luke, who is exercising Leah, who just arrived at her first class of the day Cassie, who is watching her diet Tony, who just drank a milkshake
Cassie, who is watching her diet
Stacey Sinclair Study
College students took part individually, and half of the time the experimenter wore a T-shirt that expressed antiracism views ("eracism") and half of the time she did not. The question was, did the participants unconsciously "tune" their views to the experimenter, such that they adopted her anti-racist views when she was wearing the "eracism" T-shirt? The researchers hypothesized that this would only occur when participants liked the experimenter and wanted to get along with her. It was correct.
g experiment by Leon Festinger and J. Merrill Carlsmith
College students were induced to spend an hour performing a series of excruciatingly boring and repetitive tasks. The experimenter then told them that the purpose of the study was to determine whether or not people would perform better if they had been informed in advance that the tasks were interesting. They were each informed that they had been randomly assigned to the control condition—that is, they had not been told anything in advance. However, he explained, the next participant, a young woman who was just External Justification A reason or an explanation for dissonant personal behavior that resides outside the individual (e.g., to receive a large reward or avoid a severe punishment) Internal Justification The reduction of dissonance by changing something about oneself (e.g., one's attitude or behavior) Counterattitudinal Behavior Acting in a way that runs counter to one's private belief or attitude A devotee participates in a ritual as part of the Hindu festival of Thaipusam. 158 Chapter 6 arriving in the anteroom, was going to be in the experimental condition. The researcher said that he needed to convince her that the task was going to be interesting and enjoyable. Because it was much more convincing if a fellow student rather than the experimenter delivered this message, would the participant do so? Thus, with his request, the experimenter induced the participants to lie about the task to another student—this was the counterattitudinal behavior. Half of the students were offered $20 for telling the lie (a large external justification), while the others were offered only $1 for telling the lie (a small external justification). After the experiment was over, an interviewer asked the lie-tellers how much they had enjoyed the tasks they had performed earlier in the experiment. The results validated the hypothesis: The students who had been paid $20 for lying—that is, for saying that the tasks had been enjoyable—rated the activities as the dull and boring experiences they were. But those who were paid only $1 for saying the task was enjoyable rated the task as significantly more enjoyable. In other words, people who had received an abundance of external justification for lying told the lie but didn't believe it, whereas those who told the lie without much external justification convinced themselves that what they said was closer to the truth
Child's self-concept
Concrete References to characteristics like age, sex, neighborhood, and hobbies
Elliot Aronson and hypocrisy induction
Condoms
Limits of Correlational Method
Correlation does not equal causation! -Correlational method tells us only that two variables are related Social psychology's goal -Identify causes of social behavior Be able to say that A causes B, not just that A is correlated with B
Field Experiments
Experiments conducted in natural settings rather than in the laboratory
Debriefing
Explaining to participants, at the end of an experiment, the true purpose of the study and exactly what transpired
What did Paul Ekman study?
Facial expressions, concluded display rules/emblems
Charles is motivated to see himself accurately. What kind of social comparison is he most likely to make?
He will compare himself to people with a similar background to his own.
Social Cognition
How people think about themselves and the social world; more specifically, how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgments and decisions
Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson Self Fulfilling Prophecy
In an elementary school they administered a test to all the students in the school and told the teachers that some of the students had scored so well that they were sure to "bloom" academically in the upcoming year which was a lie. Those students succeeded compared to their peers due to self fulfilling prophecy
Automatic Goal Pursuit
In our everyday lives there are often competing goals, and the one we choose to follow can happen automatically. People often act on goals that have been recently primed.
Shame and culture
Individualistic cultures do not display shame publicly
Self-observation techniques
Introspection, feedback from others, social comparison, behavior evaluation/self-perception theory, environment
Your roommate questions how charitable you really are. She says to you, "Give me just one example of the last time you gave money to a homeless person." Odds are that her challenge will convince you that you really are a generous person. Based on research by Schwarz and his colleagues (1991), why is that?
It's easy to bring to mind one example that supports your self-schema.
Who displays fewer emotions in general? Itsuki, from Japan Michael, from the United States Logan, from Canada Oliver, from Great Britain
Itsuki, from Japan
Emblems
Nonverbal gestures that have well-understood definitions within a given culture, usually having direct verbal translations, such as the OK sign
Korsakov's Syndrome
People with this disorder lose the ability to form new memories and must approach every situation as if they were encountering it for the first time, even if they have actually experienced it
Implementation Intentions
People's specific plans about where, when, and how they will fulfill a goal and avoid temptations
reported self-handicapping
Rather than creating obstacles to success, people devise ready-made excuses in case they fail. We might not go out partying before an important exam, but we might complain that we are not feeling well
Cross-Cultural Research
Research conducted with members of different cultures, to see whether the psychological processes of interest are present in both cultures or whether they are specific to the culture in which people were raised
Performance-Contingent Rewards
Rewards that are based on how well we perform a task
Task-Contingent Rewards
Rewards that are given for performing a task, regardless of how well the task is done
Limits of Observational Method
Social psychologists want to do more than just describe behavior; they want to predict and explain it. To do so, other methods are more appropriate.
Jones and Harris Castro Essay Study
Specifically, students were asked to read an essay about what was, in that era, a hot-button issue: whether to support or oppose the regime of Fidel Castro in Cuba. After reading an essay that either supported or opposed Castro, the participants had to guess how the author of the essay really felt about Castro. When told the author chose the topic they assumed the author supported Castro when told it was assigned they were less likely to assume assign that attribution
Joan Miller Cross Cultural Study
Studied Indians living in India and Americans living in the United States, found that collectivist cultures prefer situational attributions and individualist cultures prefer dispositional attributions
Applied Research
Studies designed to solve a particular social problem
Basic Research
Studies that are designed to find the best answer to the question of why people behave as they do and that are conducted purely for reasons of intellectual curiosity
self-control
The ability to subdue immediate desires to achieve long-term goals, the way we make plans and execute decisions, such as your decision to read this book right now instead of going out for ice cream;
Hypocrisy Induction
The arousal of dissonance by having individuals make statements that run counter to their behaviors and then reminding them of the inconsistency between what they advocated and their behavior. The purpose is to lead individuals to more responsible behavior
Evolutionary Psychology
The attempt to explain social behavior in terms of genetic factors that have evolved over time according to the principles of natural selection
Naïve Realism - Lee Ross
The conviction that we perceive things "as they really are," underestimating how much we are interpreting or "spinning" what we see
Insufficient Punishment
The dissonance aroused when individuals lack sufficient external justification for having resisted a desired activity or object, usually resulting in individuals devaluing the forbidden activity or object
Social Influence
The effect that the words, actions, or mere presence of other people have on our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behavior
Psychological Realism
The extent to which the psychological processes triggered in an experiment are similar to psychological processes that occur in everyday life
Two-Factor Theory of Emotion
The idea that emotional experience is the result of a two-step self-perception process in which people first experience physiological arousal and then seek an appropriate explanation for it
Self-Affirmation Theory
The idea that people can reduce threats to their self-esteem by affirming themselves in areas unrelated to the source of the threat
Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory
The idea that people experience dissonance when someone close to us outperforms us in an area that is central to our self-esteem. This dissonance can be reduced by becoming less close to the person, changing our behavior so that we now outperform them, or deciding that the area is not that important to us after all
Leon Festinger's Social Comparison Theory
The idea that we learn about our own abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves to other people
Ethnography
The method by which researchers attempt to understand a group or culture by observing it from the inside, without imposing any preconceived notions they might have
Experimental Method
The method in which the researcher randomly assigns participants to different conditions and ensures that these conditions are identical except for the independent variable (the one thought to have a causal effect on people's responses)
Social Tuning
The process whereby people adopt another person's attitudes
Ingratiation
The process whereby people flatter, praise, and generally try to make themselves likable to another person, often of higher statu
Internal Justification
The reduction of dissonance by changing something about oneself (e.g., one's attitude or behavior)
Social Psychology
The scientific study of the way in which people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people
Self-Handicapping
The strategy whereby people create obstacles and excuses for themselves so that if they do poorly on a task, they can avoid blaming themselves
Social Perception
The study of how we form impressions of and make inferences about other people
Observational Method
The technique whereby a researcher observes people and systematically records measurements or impressions of their behavior
Correlational Method
The technique whereby two or more variables are systematically measured and the relationship between them (i.e., how much one can be predicted from the other) is assessed
Planning Fallacy
The tendency for people to be overly optimistic about how soon they will complete a project, even when they have failed to get similar projects done on time in the past
Hindsight Bias
The tendency for people to exaggerate, after knowing that something occurred, how much they could have predicted it before it occurred
Belief Perseverance
The tendency to stick with an initial judgment even in the face of new information that should prompt us to reconsider
Bias Blind Spot
The tendency to think that other people are more susceptible to attributional biases in their thinking than we are
Basic Dilemma of the Social Psychologist
The trade-off between internal and external validity in conducting research; it is very difficult to do one experiment that is both high in internal validity and generalizable to other situations and people
Nonverbal Communication
The way in which people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words, including via facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body position, movement, touch, and gaze
Construal
The way in which people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world
Recently, a state department of education decided to lower the grade needed to pass the writing portion of a standardized test. Assuming that Rosenthal and Jacobson's research remains true in today's classrooms, what is most likely to happen to students' writing ability as a result?
Their writing will get worse because they are not being held to a higher standard.
Causal Theories
Theories about the causes of one's own feelings and behaviors; often we learn such theories from our culture (e.g., "absence makes the heart grow fonder" "My mood should be affected by how much sleep I got last night")
Donald Dutton and Arthur Aron
These researchers compared the sexual arousal levels of men who were in dangerous situations with men in safe situations. They found that the former were more sexually aroused than the latter.
Masuda
They presented research participants in the United States and Japan with cartoon people in groups. One person in each cartoon was the central figure, and had a facial expression that was happy, sad, angry, or neutral. The other people in the group had facial expressions that either matched the central figure or were different. The participants' task was to judge the central person's emotion on a 10-point scale. The researchers found that the facial expressions of the other group members' faces had little effect on Americans' ratings of the central figure. If the central figure was smiling broadly, he received a high rating for "happy." It didn't matter what the rest of the group was expressing. In comparison, the facial expressions of the other group members had a significant effect on Japanese participants' ratings of the central figure. A broad smile was interpreted as very happy if the group members were also smiling; the same broad smile was interpreted as less happy if the other group members looked sad or angry. In short, meaning of the cartoon character's facial expression depended on his "context"—what the other cartoon characters standing next to him seemed to be feeling (Masuda et al., 2008). The researchers also measured the eye-tracking movements of the participants as they looked at the cartoons. The Japanese spent more time looking at the cartoon characters in the background than did the Americans. Both groups began by looking at the central character, but after 1 second, the Japanese started to scan the other characters significantly more than did the Americans (Masuda et al., 2008)
Controlled Thinking
Thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful
Automatic Thinking
Thinking that is nonconscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless
Based on information from the authors of your text, who would be more likely to express a feeling of shame publicly? Ken, a man from an individualist culture Tran, a man from a collectivist culture Nanami, a woman who grew up in both individualist and collectivist cultures Lisa, a woman from an individualist culture
Tran, a man from a collectivist culture
2. When thinking about other people, which of the following will we see as most central to their self-concept? a. Their morals b. Their preferences and attitudes c. Their physical attributes d. Their memories
a
5. What do social psychology and personality psychology have in common? a. They both focus on the individual. b. They both focus on personality traits. c. They both focus on formative childhood experiences. d. They both focus on genetic contributions to personality.
a
7. In social psychology, why is construal so important? a. People's behavior is affected by their interpretation of events, not only the events themselves. b. People's behavior is primarily determined by the objective circumstances they are in. c. People are aware of their biases in perceiving events. d. People realize that other reasonable people see things they way they do.
a
A researcher conducts a study with participants who are college students. The researcher then repeats the study using the same procedures but with members of the general population (i.e., adults) as participants. The results are similar for both samples. The research has established ________ through ________. a. external validity, replication b. internal validity, replication c. external validity, psychological realism d. internal validity, psychological realism
a
According to research in social psychology, why do many people believe that their horoscopes are accurate descriptions of who they are and what is likely to happen to them? a. Horoscopes are written in a vague way so that most people view them as representative of their personalities and past behaviors. b. Horoscopes trigger automatic decision making. c. People find it difficult to bring to mind examples that are similar to the horoscope. d. Horoscopes automatically prime people's life goals
a
Although he claims to hate reality television, Simon never misses an episode of Hoarders. Simon's behavior (i.e., watching Hoarders) is a. high in distinctiveness. b. low in distinctiveness. c. low in consensus. d. low in consistency.
a
Amanda is at a team picnic with her coach and fellow soccer players. Which of the following is the best example of ingratiation? a. Amanda tells her coach that the quinoa salad he made was delicious, even though she thinks it tasted like dirt. b. Amanda tells her coach that he might want to consider taking cooking lessons. c. Amanda tells the 10-year-old brother of one her teammates that she likes his sneakers, which she thinks look great. d. The coach tells Amanda that she is a good player but should keep practicing to improve her skills.
a
Based on the "Ben Franklin effect," you are most likely to increase your liking for Tony when a. you lend Tony $10. b. Tony lends you $10. c. Tony returns the $10 you loaned him. d. Tony finds $10.
a
Belief perseverance can help explain which of the following? a. Why people who watch news programs that refer to climate change as a hoax remain convinced of that conclusion even in the face of scientific evidence to the contrary. b. Why during jury deliberations it is easier to convince fellow jurors to change their votes from guilty to not guilty than it is to change their minds in the opposite direction. c. Why weather forecasters are better at predicting rainfall totals than snowfall totals. d. All of the above
a
Catherine did very well on her math test. Which of the following statements should her mother tell her to increase the chances that Catherine will not give up on math if it later becomes more difficult for her? a. "You really worked hard for this test, and your hard work paid off!" b. "You are such a smart kid, you excel in everything you do!" c. "You are so good in math, you obviously have a gift for this!" d. "I'm so glad to see you are doing better than all your classmates!"
a
Enrolling in which of the following graduate programs would be most likely to improve your statistical reasoning ability about problems in everyday life? a. Psychology b. Medicine c. Law d. Chemistry
a
Imagine that you are in Hong Kong reading the morning news and you notice a headline about a double murder that took place overnight. A suspect is in custody. Which of the following headlines is most likely to accompany the story? a. Dispute Over Gambling Debt Ends in Murder b. Crazed Murderer Slays Two c. Homicidal Maniac Stalks Innocents d. Bloodthirsty Mobster Takes Revenge
a
In Masuda and colleagues' (2008) study of cross-cultural perceptions of emotion, a. eye-tracking technology is used to demonstrate that American participants spend less time looking at the peripheral individuals surrounding the central figure than do Japanese participants. b. American participants' perceptions of the central figure's emotional state are significantly influenced by the emotions of the peripheral individuals. c. context has little influence on the social perception processes of the participants. d. American participants begin by looking at the peripheral individuals before shifting their attention to the central individuals.
a
In which state are people most likely to have an interdependent sense of self? a. Massachusetts b. Connecticut c. Oklahoma d. Alabama
a
Jake's professor tells Jake that if he is caught cheating on an exam, he will be expelled. Amanda's professor tells her that if she is caught cheating, she will have only to write a short paper about why cheating is wrong. If both students don't cheat, dissonance theory would predict that: a. Amanda will feel more honest than Jake will. b. Jake will feel more honest than Amanda will. c. Amanda and Jake will feel equally honest. d. Amanda and Jake will feel equally dishonest because were both threatened in advance.
a
Kristin is one of the few women in her computer science class and gets a poor grade on the first test. According to self-affirmation theory, which of the following would help her do better in the class? a. Doing a values-affirmation writing exercise b. Getting tutoring in the class c. Getting study tips from the professor d. Joining a study group of other students in the class
a
Ming is from China; Jason is from the United States. Both participate in an experiment in which they take a test, are given feedback, and are told that they did very well. They are then asked to make attributions for their performance. Based on cross cultural research on the self-serving bias, you would expect that a. Jason but not Ming will say that he succeeded due to his high ability. b. neither Ming nor Jason will say that they succeeded due to their high ability. c. both Ming and Jason will say that they succeeded due to their high ability. d. Ming but not Jason will say that he succeeded due to his high ability
a
One afternoon at work Rachel has a meeting with her boss, who is wearing the silliest-looking outfit Rachel has ever seen. Rachel is tempted to laugh and make fun of her boss, but she knows this would be a bad idea. Under which of the following conditions would Rachel be most likely to resist the temptation to make fun of her boss? a. Rachel spent all morning writing a difficult report and believes that willpower is a limited resource. b. Rachel spent all morning writing a difficult report, but she believes that willpower is an unlimited resource and that she thus has a lot of it. c. Rachel says to herself over and over, "Don't think about the boss's outfit!" d. Rachel says to herself, "Remember that the most important thing is not to insult my boss."
a
Research on controlled thinking and free will shows that: a. There is a disconnect between our conscious sense of how much we are causing our actions and how much we are really causing our actions. b. It doesn't really matter whether or not people believe that they have free will. c. Some primates have just as much free will as human beings. d. People definitely do not have free will
a
Research on eye gaze and perception of facial expression indicates that which of the following tends to be most quickly decoded? a. An angry face looking right at us b. An angry face looking away from us c. A fearful face looking right at us d. A fearful face with eyes closed
a
Researchers who study social cognition assume that people a. try to view the world as accurately as possible. b. can't think clearly with other people around them. c. distort reality to view themselves favorably. d. are driven by the need to control others.
a
Social psychologists often do experiments in the laboratory, instead of the field, to: a. increase internal validity. b. increase external validity. c. conduct a meta-analysis. d. decrease psychological realism.
a
Social psychology had its origins in a. Gestalt psychology. b. Freudian psychology. c. behavioral psychology. d. biological psychology
a
Social psychology is the study of a. the real or imagined influence of other people. b. social institutions, such as the church or school. c. social events, such as football games and dances. d. psychological processes, such as dreaming
a
Suppose Harold is in a long-term, romantic relationship but chooses to flirt with someone else. He experiences dissonance because he sees himself as loving and trustworthy, and his flirtatious behavior is incongruent with that self-perception. According to research on self-affirmation theory, how could Harold reduce his dissonance? a. He could say, "Hey, at least I'm doing good work volunteering at the homeless shelter" (assuming that being a good volunteer is important to him). b. He could confess to his romantic partner about what he did. c. He could say to himself, "I'm really an idiot, I shouldn't do that again". d. He could say to himself, "I guess I'm not all that trustworthy a person"
a
Suppose Juan, a premed student, is in a long-term, romantic relationship but chooses to flirt with someone else. He experiences dissonance because he sees himself as loving and trustworthy, and his flirtatious behavior is incongruent with that self-perception. According to dissonance theory he could reduce his dissonance by ____, whereas according to self-affirmation theory he could reduce his dissonance by ____. a. convincing himself that the flirting was harmless/ thinking about how proud he is to be a premed student b. thinking about how proud he is to be a premed student/ convincing himself that the flirting was harmless c. convincing himself that the flirting was harmless/ breaking up with his girlfriend d. breaking up with his girlfriend/convincing himself that the flirting was harmless
a
Suppose you have invited a new acquaintance over to your apartment and want to make a good impression; in other words, you want this person to like you. Which of the following should you do? a. Serve the person a warm drink and hope that he or she holds it in their hands while you are talking to him or her. b. Serve the person a cold drink and hope that he or she holds it in their hands while you are talking to him or her. c. Bake some bread before the person comes over so that the apartment smells nice. d. Serve the person a snack on a very heavy plate.
a
Suppose you're driving home from watching a scary movie about a hitchhiker who was a murderer when you see someone talking loudly with a friend. Because you saw the movie, you assume that you are witnessing an argument that will probably end in a fight. This is an example of a. priming. b. base rate information. c. belief perseverance. d. controlled thinking.
a
Tarek needs do his laundry but has been very busy. Under which of the following conditions is he most likely to do his laundry in the next few days? a. He says to himself, "I'll do my laundry at 7:00 p.m. tomorrow, and if my roommate says we should play video games then, I'll ask him if we can do that later." b. He vows to do it at some point the next day. c. He vows to do it sometime in the next 2 days. d. He vows not to think about video games the next day so that he doesn't spend time doing that instead of doing his laundry.
a
The fundamental attribution error is best defined as the tendency to a. explain our own and other people's behavior entirely in terms of personality traits, thereby underestimating the power of social influence. b. explain our own and other people's behavior in terms of the social situation, thereby underestimating the power of personality factors. c. believe that people's group memberships influence their behavior more than their personalities. d. believe that people's personalities influence their behavior more than their group memberships.
a
The observational method is best at answering which of these questions? a. How polite are people in public places? b. Are people from the southern United States more polite in public places than people from the northern United States? c. What makes people act politely or rudely in public places? d. Does music played in department stores influence how polite people are in those stores?
a
The two-step process of attribution suggests that a. people first make an internal attribution and then correct for situational influences. b. people first make an external attribution and then correct for dispositional influences. c. Americans are less likely than Chinese to commit the fundamental attribution error. d. if the attribution process is disrupted at either step, no attribution will be made.
a
Tracy and Matsumoso's (2008) research on Olympic athletes indicated that the nonverbal expression of shame was a. associated with losing for many athletes but not those from highly individualistic cultures such as the United States. b. different for blind athletes than it was for sighted athletes. c. difficult to distinguish from the nonverbals associated with pride among athletes from more collectivistic cultures such as Japan. d. more often displayed rather than hidden by athletes from highly individualistic cultures such as the United States.
a
What is the "level of analysis" for a social psychologist? a. The individual in the context of a social situation. b. The social situation itself. c. A person's level of achievement. d. A person's level of reasoning.
a
When does "saying become believing"? a. When you claim to have an opinion that differs from your true beliefs for no strong reason. b. When what you say is what you believe. c. When someone forces you to say something you don't believe. d. When you're paid a lot of money to lie.
a
When people focus attention on themselves, they a. evaluate and compare their behavior to their internal standards and values. b. are less likely to drink alcohol or engage in binge eating. c. are less likely to follow their moral standards. d. almost always like what they see about themselves
a
When the trick-or-treaters arrive at your house, you have them stand in a line on your front porch. You stay outside with the group and let each child enter your house individually. You tell them they can take one piece of candy from the bowl that is sitting on a table. Half of the time you put the candy bowl in front of a big mirror. The other half of the time there is no mirror present. All of the children may be tempted to take more than one piece of candy. Which children will be least likely to give in to temptation? a. Those in the mirror condition b. Those who are between 7 and 9 years old c. Those in the no-mirror condition d. Those who experience downward social comparison
a
Which is the best definition of an interdependent view of the self? a. Defining oneself in terms of one's relationships to other people b. Defining oneself in terms of one's own internal thoughts, feelings, and actions c. Someone who enjoys activities such as dancing and team sports d. Someone who enjoys activities such as reading and writing poetry
a
Which of the following is not a way in which schemas can become accessible in people's minds? a. The more negative in content a schema is, the more likely it is to be accessible. b. Schemas can be accessible because of people's past experiences. c. Schemas can become temporarily accessible because of priming. d. Schemas can be accessible if they are related to our current goals
a
Which of the following is one of the ethical principles of the American Psychological Association? a. Psychologists respect the dignity and worth of all people, and the rights of individuals to privacy, confidentiality, and self-determination. b. Psychologists may not use minors (those younger than age 18) as participants in research. c. If a study is conducted over the internet, psychologists need not obtain informed consent from participants. d. Psychologists are not responsible for protecting the confidentiality of information they obtain from participants
a
Which of the following is the best summary of research on automatic thinking? a. Automatic thinking is vital to human survival, but it is not perfect and can produce mistaken judgments that have important consequences. b. Automatic thinking is amazingly accurate and rarely produces errors of any consequence. c. Automatic thinking is a problem because it usually produces mistaken judgments. d. Automatic thinking works best when it occurs consciously
a
Which of the following is true about cultural differences in social thinking? a. Although everyone uses schemas to understand the world, the content of those schemas is influenced by the culture in which they live. b. Schemas influence what people notice in the world but have no influence on what they remember. c. Schemas influence what people remember but have no influence on what they notice in the world. d. Culture has no influence on automatic thinking.
a
Which of the following is true about social psychological findings? a. They sometimes seem obvious after we learn about them, because of a hindsight bias. b. Most people could easily predict them in advance of knowing how the studies turned out. c. Wise people such as our grandparents could easily predict them in advance of knowing how the studies turned out. d. Most people who live in the culture in which the studies were conducted could predict the findings in advance of knowing how the studies turned out.
a
Which of the following is true? a. All human beings have the same cognitive "tools" that they can use. b. When people move from one culture to another they generally do not learn to think like people in the new culture. c. East Asians tend to think more holistically and Westerners tend to think more analytically because of genetic differences between East Asians and Westerners. d. American college students were more likely to notice changes in the background of a picture whereas Japanese college students were more likely to notice changes in the main objects in the foreground of the picture.
a
Which of the following statements about impression management is true? a. It can be a conscious or unconscious process. b. It occurs in person but not during online interactions. c. It involves an effort to depict the self as accurately as possible. d. It tends to be counterproductive and "rub people the wrong way."
a
Who of the following individuals is most likely to make a self serving attribution? a. Rory, a golfer in the early stages of his career b. Mariano, a baseball player who has won multiple championships in the past c. LeBron, a basketball player who has been playing since he was young d. Roger, a professional tennis player with over a decade of experience
a
Your best friend has joined a cult called "The Fellowship of Feeling." He had to spend a month in a set of increasingly severe hazing rituals; pay an $8,000 membership fee; and go along to watch older members find homeless people to harass and beat up, before having to treat these "useless animals" the same way. Your friend loves this group and keeps urging you to join. What principle of dissonance is likely operating on your friend? a. The justification of effort b. Low self-esteem c. Postdecision dissonance d. Hypocrisy induction e. Insufficient punishment
a
Rachel and Eleanor are best friends and also in the high school choir. Both of them consider themselves to be talented singers and singing is very important to them. They both try out for an important solo in the choir, which Eleanor wins. Which of the following is Rachel least likely to do, according to self-evaluation maintenance theory? a. Rachel will be very happy for Eleanor and tell all their friends about her success in winning the solo. b. Rachel will decide that singing isn't as important to her as she thought. c. Rachel will practice even harder for the next solo in order to do better than Eleanor. d. Rachel will feel less close to Eleanor as a friend.
a ??
The availability heuristic is associated with which of the following characteristics of schemas?
accessibility
Social Neuroscience
an interdisciplinary field that explores the neural bases of social and emotional processes and behaviors, and how these processes and behaviors affect our brain and biology
Universal Emotions
anger, happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, and sadness
In order to examine the prevalence of drug use in several different generations of Americans, a researcher decides to collect the lyrics from the fifty most popular songs from each decade, 1940-2010, and to code those lyrics for how often drug-related themes were present. Which of the following methods is this researcher using?
archival
When does sense of self develop
at around 18 to 24 months of age
Jacob's friend, Tom asks him, "Do you think I'm short-tempered?" Jacob had never really thought about how short-tempered or calm Tom was until he had asked. Nonetheless, Jacob was able to provide him a quick answer. What social cognitive process was most likely involved in this judgment?self-fulfilling prophecy controlled thinking base rate heuristic availability heuristic
availability heuristic
2. The topic that would most interest a social psychologist is: a. how the level of extraversion of different presidents affected their political decisions. b. whether people's decision about whether to cheat on a test is influenced by how they imagine their friends would react if they found out. c. the extent to which people's social class predicts their income. d. what passers-by on the street think of global warming.
b
A researcher wants to see whether people are more likely to donate money to a charity when they receive a small gift from that charity. She sends an appeal for money from the charity to 1,000 people. For half of the people (randomly chosen) the letter includes free address labels and for half it does not. The researcher then sees whether those who got the address labels donate more money. Which of the following is true about this study? a. It uses the correlational method. b. The independent variable is whether people got address labels and the dependent variable is how much money they donate. c. The independent variable is how much money people donate and the dependent variable is whether they got address labels. d. The study is low in internal validity because the people who got the address labels may differ in other ways from the people who did not.
b
A team of researchers wants to test the hypothesis that drinking wine makes people like jazz more. They randomly assign college students who are 21 or older to one room in which they will drink wine and listen to jazz or to another room in which they will drink water and listen to jazz. It happens that the "wine room" has a big window with nice scenery outside, whereas the "water room" is windowless, dark, and dingy. The most serious flaw in this experiment is that it a. is low in external validity. b. is low in internal validity. c. did not randomly select the participants from all college students in the country. d. is low in psychological realism
b
Amanda's parents tell her that if she texts while driving, they will take away her car for a year. Erin's parents tell her that if she texts while driving, they will take her car away for one weekend. Both Amanda and Erin decide not to text while driving. What would dissonance theory predict? a. After they go to college and are away from their parents, Erin is more likely to text while driving than Amanda is. b. After they go to college and are away from their parents, Amanda is more likely to text while driving than Erin is. c. Amanda and Erin will both think that texting while driving is OK; they avoided it so that they wouldn't be punished. d. Amanda and Erin will both come to believe that texting while driving is bad
b
Ambady and colleagues were able to conclude that the thin sliced impressions formed by their participants were based on meaningful information because a. their ratings based on 30-second clips were little different than their ratings based on 6-second clips. b. their ratings of the silent video clips corresponded strongly with the ratings that the instructors received from their actual students at the end of the semester. c. ratings were similar for silent video clips and for the same video clips when shown with audio. d. while the thin-sliced video clips were brief, it took participants a relatively long amount of time to come up with ratings of the instructors they viewed.
b
Based on everything you've read in this chapter, what is the best conclusion about social cognition? a. People would be better off if we could turn off automatic thinking and rely solely on controlled thinking. b. Whereas people are sophisticated social thinkers who have amazing cognitive abilities, there is also plenty of room for improvement. c. Social cognition is pretty much the same throughout the world in all cultures that have been studied. d. One purpose of controlled thinking is to set goals for ourselves; that cannot be done with automatic thinking.
b
Ben is worried that he will do poorly on his psychology test. Which of the following is the best example of behavioral self-handicapping? a. He spends a couple of extra hours studying, and right before the test, he tells his friends that he studied really hard. b. Instead of studying the night before, he stays up late watching movies on his computer. Right before the test, he tells his friends that he saw some great movies instead of studying. c. He spends a couple of extra hours studying. Then, right before the test, he tells his friends that he isn't feeling very well. d. Right before the test, Ben tells the professor that her class is the best one he's ever taken.
b
Darwin's evolutionary perspective on nonverbal communication of emotion led him to predict that facial expressions were a. specific to particular cultures. b. related to physiological reactions that proved to be a useful way to respond to a particular type of stimulus. c. a way to increase but not decrease input through senses such as vision and smell. d. universal across all animal species
b
How does social psychology differ from personality psychology? a. Social psychology focuses on individual differences, whereas personality psychology focuses on how people behave in different situations. b. Social psychology focuses on the shared processes that make people susceptible to social influence, whereas personality psychology focuses on individual differences. c. Social psychology provides general laws and theories about societies, whereas personality psychology studies the characteristics that make people unique. d. Social psychology focuses on individual differences, whereas personality psychology provides general laws and theories about societies.
b
In social psychology, the level of analysis is a. society at large. b. the individual in a social context. c. groups and organizations. d. cognitive and perceptual brain processes
b
It is 10:00 a.m. and Jamie, an American college student, is dragging himself to his next class to turn in a paper for which he pulled an all-nighter. Through a haze of exhaustion, on the way to class he sees a student slip and fall down. How would Jamie be most likely to interpret the cause of the student's behavior? a. Jamie's attribution will most heavily be influenced by his own personality. b. Given what we know about Jamie's current cognitive capacity and cultural background, he will likely assume that the student fell because he or she was clumsy. c. Jamie would probably attribute the cause to the situation, such as the fact that it was raining and the sidewalks were slippery. d. Jamie would be so tired that he would not make any causal attributions.
b
Mr. Rowe and Ms. Dabney meet on a blind date. They get along well until they get into his black convertible to go to a movie. Ms. Dabney is quiet and reserved for the rest of the evening. It turns out that her brother had recently been in a serious accident in that same type of car and seeing it brought up those unwanted emotions. Mr. Rowe assumes that Ms. Dabney has a cold and reserved personality, thereby demonstrating a. a belief in a just world. b. the fundamental attribution error. c. perceptual salience. d. insufficient justification
b
Paul Ekman and Walter Friesen traveled to New Guinea to study the meaning of various facial expressions in the primitive South Fore tribe. What major conclusion did they reach? a. Facial expressions are not universal because they have different meanings in different cultures. b. The six major emotional expressions appear to be universal. c. There are nine major emotional expressions. d. The members of the South Fore used different facial expressions than westerners to express the same emotion.
b
Rachel was accepted at both University A and University B. She has a hard time making up her mind because she sees pros and cons to attending either university. Which of the following is true, according to dissonance theory? a. She will experience the most dissonance right before making up her mind because it is such a difficult choice. b. She will experience the most dissonance right after making up her mind. c. Whichever university she chooses, she is likely to regret her choice. d. Because the choice is so difficult, she is unlikely to fully commit herself to the university she chooses to attend.
b
Rob is definitely not the most attractive guy in the dorms, but he is extremely confident about who he is and how he looks. He is convinced that most women find him to be very attractive, and he in fact usually gets dates with women who are much more attractive than he is. What is the best explanation of Rob's success? a. Self-affirmation theory b. Self-fulfilling prophecy c. The representativeness heuristic d. Holistic thinking
b
Sam is playing a carnival game challenging him to guess which of the 20 cups is hiding the red ball. Unfortunately, he picked the cup directly to the left of the winning cup and thus did not win the stuffed donkey he wanted. According to social psychological research, he is most likely to a. experience cognitive dissonance. b. engage in counterfactual thinking. c. blame his mistake on the noise of the crowd. d. subsequently avoid similar games.
b
Suppose that Mischa has found that when she sits in the first row of discussion classes, she gets a better participation grade, regardless of how much she actually participates. Her positioning in front of the teacher could have an effect on how large of a role the teacher thinks Mischa has in discussion due to a. the teacher's use of schemas. b. perceptual salience. c. the "what is beautiful is good" schema. d. the two-step process of attribution.
b
Suppose that you and your best friend are both psychology majors and both want to go to grad school in psychology. Your friend is also a talented athlete, whereas athletics is not that important to you. One day you find out that your friend won an intramural free-throw shooting contest. Which of the following is most likely to happen, according to self-evaluation maintenance theory? a. You will become less close to your friend. b. You will bask in your friend's reflected glory and congratulate him or her on winning the free-throw contest. c. You will study really hard for the next psychology test to do better than your friend. d. You will decide that you are not that interested in psychology
b
Suppose you are a parent and want your children to do well in school. Which of the following is likely to work the best? a. Tell them that they were born with a lot of academic talent. b. Tell them that academic ability is something that they can cultivate and grow if they work hard. c. When they are young, give them money for every book they read. d. Tell them that intelligence is inherited and that there is a lot of it in your family.
b
The basic dilemma of the social psychologist is that a. it is hard to teach social psychology to students because most people believe strongly in personality. b. there is a trade-off between internal and external validity in most experiments. c. it is nearly impossible to use a random selection of the population in laboratory experiments. d. almost all social behavior is influenced by the culture in which people grew up.
b
The correlational method is best at answering which of these questions? a. How polite are people in public places? b. Are people from the southern United States more polite in public places than people from the northern United States? c. What makes people act politely or rudely in public places? d. Does music played in department stores influence how polite people are in those stores?
b
Tiffany has a hard time trusting her friends because she believes they are irresponsible. Accordingly, when she makes dinner plans with one friend, she also makes backup plans with someone else, and she goes to one or the other. Her friends soon in turn begin to "blow off" their arrangements with Tiffany, because they are never sure whether she will show up. Tiffany thinks to herself, "See, I was right, my friends are irresponsible." Which of the following best explains why Tiffany made this conclusion? a. Accurate social perception due to controlled processes b. A self-fulfilling prophecy c. Holistic thinking d. Accurate social perception due to automatic processes
b
Which is the best definition of an independent view of the self? a. Defining oneself in terms of one's relationships to other people b. Defining oneself in terms of one's own internal thoughts, feelings, and actions c. Someone who enjoys activities such as dancing and team sports d. Someone who enjoys activities such as reading and writing poetry
b
Which is the definition of analytic thinking? a. A type of thinking in which people focus on the overall context, particularly the ways in which objects relate to each other. b. A type of thinking in which people focus on the properties of objects without considering their surrounding context. c. Thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful. d. Thinking that is nonconscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless.
b
Which of the following is most true about narcissism? a. In general, college students are becoming less narcissistic. b. It is characterized by excessive self-love and a lack of empathy toward others. c. People who are narcissistic do better academically than those who are not. d. People who are narcissistic have more friends and a better social life than those who are not
b
Which of the following is the best summary of research on automatic goal pursuit? a. People can only select which goals to work toward using controlled thinking. b. People often pursue goals that have been recently primed, without realizing that that is why they are pursuing the goal. c. People often pursue goals that have been recently primed, but only if they are consciously aware that the goal has been primed. d. People never choose their goals consciously; they only pursue automatically primed goals.
b
Which of the following is true about cross-cultural research? a. Most social psychological findings have been found to be universal; that is, true in virtually all cultures that have been studied. b. The purpose of cross-cultural research is to see which social psychological findings are universal and which are culture-bound. c. To conduct a cross-cultural study a researcher travels to another country, translates the materials into the local language, and replicates the study there. d. It is relatively easy to conduct a study that is interpreted and perceived similarly in different cultures.
b
Which of the following is true about research on free will? a. People rarely overestimate the amount of control they have over their behavior. b. Sometimes people underestimate the amount of control they have over their behavior. c. Studies have shown that people have free will over almost everything they do. d. The more people believe in free will, the more likely they are to engage in immoral actions such as cheating.
b
Which of the following is true about the ethical conduct of psychological research? a. It is good scientific procedure to tell participants about the research hypotheses before they participate. b. If research participants are misled about a study they must be fully debriefed at the end of the study. c. Darley and Latané could have easily tested their hypotheses about helping behavior by telling participants in advance that they would hear someone pretending to have a seizure. d. It is never permissible to use deception.
b
Which of the following is true of the holistic thinking style? a. It involves a focus on the properties of objects without considering their surrounding context. b. People living in the West can think holistically if they are primed with pictures taken in Japan. c. The holistic style of thinking has a genetic basis. d. It may have its roots in the Greek philosophic traditions of Aristotle and Plato.
b
Which of the following statements about culture and cognitive dissonance is true? a. Japanese people rarely experience dissonance. b. Dissonance occurs everywhere, but culture influences how people experience it. c. Cognitive dissonance is a uniquely American phenomenon. d. Cognitive dissonance is more likely to occur in collectivist rather than individualist cultures.
b
Which of the following statements best illustrates self perception theory? a. "I might not know why, but I know what I like." b. "I often don't know what I like until I see what I do." c. "I like classical music because my wife is always playing it." d. "I get a warm feeling inside when I listen to my favorite songs."
b
You are reading a blog by someone whose point of view is really making you angry. Which of her arguments are you most likely to focus on and remember? a. Her silliest claims, because she is a silly person b. Her silliest claims, because they are consonant with your opinion that she is a silly person c. Her smartest claims, so that you can contradict them in a post d. Her smartest claims, because they are so unlikely to have come from a silly person
b
You are selling $30 souvenir books for a club fund-raiser. How could you use the technique of lowballing to improve your sales? a. Start by offering the books at $70 each and pretend to bargain with customers, making $30 your "final offer." b. Start by selling the books at $25, but once the customer has retrieved his or her checkbook, tell him or her you made a mistake and the books are actually $5 more than you thought. c. Offer the customers additional incentives to buy the book, such as free cookies with every purchase. d. Start by selling the books at $40, but tell the customer he or she will get $10 back in three weeks.
b
Your friend Jane is interning at a law firm. When you ask her how it's going, she says, "I'm feeling good about it because I'm doing much better than the intern who started a month after me." What kind of social comparison is Jane making? a. Upward social comparison b. Downward social comparison c. Impression comparison d. Self-knowledge comparison
b
Your little sister enjoys taking time out of her day to make bead necklaces. A birthday party is coming up, and you decide you want to give a necklace to each person at the party. She offers to make a necklace for each of your friends, but for added motivation you give her a dollar for each one she makes. Which of the following is most likely to happen? a. After the party, your sister will enjoy making beads more than she did before because you gave her a reward. b. After the party, your sister will enjoy making beads less than she did before because you rewarded her for something she already liked to do. c. Because your sister already enjoys making beads, paying her for making them will have no effect on how much she enjoys the activity. d. Paying your sister for making the beads will increase her self-awareness.
b
Latané and Darley Diffusion of Responsibility
bystander affect
2. Which of the following does not reflect the motive to maintain high self-esteem? a. After Sarah leaves Bob for someone else, Bob decides that he never liked her much anyway b. Students who want to take Professor Lopez's seminar have to apply by writing a 10-page essay. Everyone who is selected ends up loving the class. c. Janetta did poorly on the first test in her psychology class. She admits that she didn't study enough and vows to study harder for the next test. d. Zach has been involved in several minor traffic accidents since getting his driver's license. "There sure are a lot of terrible drivers out there," he says. "People should learn to be good drivers like me."
c
8. What was the main contribution of Gestalt psychology to social psychology? a. It added an understanding of how the brain works. b. It emphasized how people perceive the physical world. c. It showed that the whole is larger than the sum of its parts. d. It added historical perspective to the study of behavior
c
A social psychologist would tend to look for explanations of a young man's violent behavior primarily in terms of: a. his aggressive personality traits. b. possible genetic contributions. c. how his peer group behaves. d. what his father taught him.
c
A stranger approaches Emily on campus and says he is a professional photographer. He asks if she will spend 15 minutes posing for pictures next to the student union. According to social psychologists, Emily's decision will depend on which of the following? a. How well dressed the man is b. Whether the man offers to pay her c. How Emily construes the situation d. Whether the man has a criminal record
c
Ben is worried that he will do poorly on his psychology test. Which of the following is the best example of reported self-handicapping? a. He spends a couple of extra hours studying, and right before the test, he tells his friends that he studied really hard. b. Instead of studying the night before, he stays up late watching movies on his computer. Right before the test, he tells his friends that he saw some great movies instead of studying. c. He spends a couple of extra hours studying. Then, right before the test, he tells his friends that he isn't feeling very well. d. Right before the test, Ben tells the professor that her class is the best one he's ever taken.
c
For social psychologists, the likely explanation of the mass suicide at Jonestown was a. members of the cult were mentally unstable or clinically depressed. b. the cult leader used hypnotism or drugs to coerce his followers into obedience c. processes that could ensnare almost any healthy person. d. the open, welcoming nature of the cult that made members feel it was safe to obey their leader
c
Imagine that you and your sister are both psychology majors and that you are very close to your sister. Suppose you learn that your sister's GPA in psychology classes is a lot higher than yours. According to self-evaluation maintenance theory, which of the following is least likely to occur? a. You will decide that you are not that interested in psychology. b. You will become less close to your sister. c. You will bask in your sister's reflected glory and congratulate her on her high GPA. d. You will study really hard for the next psychology test to do better than your sister.
c
Mary wants to find out whether eating sugary snacks before an exam leads to better performance on the exam. Which of the following strategies would answer her question most conclusively? a. Identify a large number of students who perform exceptionally low and exceptionally high in exams, ask them whether they eat sugary snacks before exams, and see whether high performers eat more sugary snacks before exams than do low performers. b. Wait for exam time in a big class, ask everyone whether they ate sugary snacks before the exam, and see whether those who ate sugary snacks before the exam do better compared to those who didn't. c. Wait for exam time in a big class, give a random half of the students M&Ms before the exam, and see whether the students who ate M&Ms perform better. d. Pick a big class, give all students sugary snacks before one exam and salty snacks before the next exam; then see whether students score lower on average in the second exam.
c
Research using fMRI brain scanning technology indicates which of the following? a. East Asian participants use a greater percentage of their frontal and parietal regions when making judgments than do American participants. b. Neither East Asian nor American participants are able to overcome their typical, learned ways of attending to (or overlooking) context. c. Participants from both cultures demonstrate greater activation in higher-order cortical regions when asked to perceive objects in a way that is unusual for them. d. Social neuroscience data provide no support for the hypothesis that holistic versus analytic thinking styles tend to vary by cultural background.
c
Researchers took photographs in randomly chosen locations in cities in Japan and the United States. They found that on average, city scenes in Japan contained more: a. businesses and advertisements. b. people and residences. c. objects that competed for people's attention. d. buildings and concrete.
c
Suppose a certain student, Jake, falls asleep during every chemistry class. Further suppose that Jake is the only one who falls asleep in this class and he falls asleep in all of his other classes. According to Kelley's covariation theory of attribution, how will people explain his behavior? a. It results from something unusual about this particular class because his behavior is low in consensus, high in distinctiveness, and high in consistency. b. Chemistry is really a boring class because Jake's behavior is high in consensus, high in distinctiveness, and high in consistency. c. It results from something unusual about Jake because his behavior is low in consensus, low in distinctiveness, and high in consistency. d. It results from something peculiar about the circumstances on a particular day because his behavior is high in consensus.
c
Suppose a researcher found a strong negative correlation between college students' grade point average (GPA) and the amount of alcohol they drink. Which of the following is the best conclusion from this study? a. Students with a high GPA study more and thus have less time to drink. b. Drinking a lot interferes with studying. c. If you know how much alcohol a student drinks, you can predict his or her GPA fairly well. d. People who are intelligent get higher grades and drink less.
c
Suppose a researcher found a strong positive correlation between the number of tweets people send each day and their reported happiness. Which of the following is the best conclusion he or she can draw from this finding? a. Sending tweets makes people happy. b. Feeling happy makes people want to tweet more. c. Happy people are more likely to send a lot of tweets than sad people. d. There is a third variable that makes people happy and send a lot of tweets.
c
Whereas individuals in Western cultures tend to think more like _______, individuals in Eastern cultures tend to think more like _______. a. children; adults b. psychologists; sociologists c. personality psychologists; social psychologists d. introverts; extraverts
c
Which of the following best illustrates the idea of belief perseverance? a. The first time Lindsay meets Tobias, she is impressed with his intellect and ambition, but quite quickly she comes to sour on him and see him as lazy and ineffectual. b. Gob is quite smitten with Marta when he first gets together with her, but once they begin an exclusive dating relationship, he feels that he has made a big mistake. c. Michael's first impression of Anne is a negative one, and even though he comes to observe her in a variety of scenarios displaying a variety of skills, he remains convinced that she will never amount to very much. d. Buster was shy and awkward as a young boy and remains much the same now as an adult.
c
Which of the following does not illustrate the fundamental attribution error? a. A man says, "My wife has sure become a grouchy person," but explains his own grouchiness as a result of having a hard day at the office. b. A woman reads about high unemployment in poor communities and says, "Well, if those people weren't so lazy, they would find work." c. "The people who committed suicide at Jonestown were socially isolated and thus cut off from other points of view about their leader." d. "The people who committed suicide at Jonestown were mentally ill."
c
Which of the following is a basic assumption that social psychologists make? a. Social problems have complex causes and we will never know why they occur. b. It is hard to study what effect looking at pornography has on people, because everyone is different. c. Many social problems can be studied scientifically. d. Many people fail to help others in emergencies because they don't care about other people.
c
Which of the following is least likely to pass the "mirror" test suggesting they have at least a rudimentary self-concept? a. An orangutan b. A chimpanzee c. A 12-month-old human infant d. A 3-year-old human child
c
Which of the following is most true about self-esteem? a. It's good to have low self-esteem because that motivates people to improve. b. In general, women have lower self-esteem than men. c. People who are optimistic try harder, persevere more in the face of failure, and set higher goals than do people who are not. d. The higher a person's self-esteem, the better off he or she is
c
Which of the following is most true about self-handicapping? a. People who self-handicap tend to try harder at a task. b. Women are more likely to engage in reported self handicapping than are men. c. Women are more critical of people who self handicap than are men and are less likely to engage in behavioral self-handicapping than are men. d. East Asians are more likely to engage in behavioral self-handicapping than are westerners.
c
Which of the following is not one of the six major emotional expressions examined by Ekman and his colleagues in their influential cross-cultural research on perception of emotions? a. Disgust b. Anger c. Embarrassment d. Sadness
c
Which of the following is the best description of facilitated communication? a. It is a promising new way of letting communication impaired people, such as those with autism, express their thoughts. b. The facilitators, who hold the fingers and arm of communication-impaired people on a keyboard, are deliberately faking the answers. c. The facilitators believe that communication-impaired people are choosing what to type, but they are probably wrong and unknowingly determining the answers themselves. d. Facilitated communication helps people with mild versions of autism to communicate but does not help those with severe cases.
c
Which of the following is the best summary of the function of schemas? a. Schemas usually result in erroneous judgments because of the self-fulfilling prophecy. b. Schemas are always beneficial because they help people organize the world and fill in the gaps in their knowledge. c. Schemas are useful in helping people organize information about the world, but they are problematic when they result in self-fulfilling prophecies. d. Schemas are useful for helping us organize information about other people but not about events such as what we should do when eating in a restaurant.
c
Which of the following is the best way to increase the external validity of a study? a. Make sure it is low in psychological realism. b. Conduct the study in the laboratory instead of the field. c. Replicate the study with a different population of people in a different setting. d. Make sure you have at least two dependent variables.
c
Which of the following is the most accurate conclusion based on the Jones and Harris (1967) Castro essay study? a. When a target's behavior is forced, perceivers do not attribute it to any sort of internal cause. b. We are less generous with ourselves when making attributions for negative events than we are when others are the actors. c. We are more likely to make an internal attribution for a chosen action versus a forced action. d. We are more likely to make an internal attribution when the actor in question is perceptually salient.
c
Which of the following is true about Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)? a. Universities can decide whether to have an IRB to approve psychological research. b. The purpose of IRBs is to review research after it is conducted and review any complaints. c. IRBs review psychological studies before they are conducted to make sure they meet ethical guidelines. d. IRBs must be made up entirely of nonscientists.
c
Which of the following is true about new frontiers in social psychological research? a. Social psychologists are interested in the role of culture but not in evolutionary processes. b. Social psychologists are interested in evolutionary processes but not the role of culture. c. Social psychologists use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to correlate different kinds of brain activity with social information processing. d. The purpose of cross-cultural research is to show that all social psychological findings are universal with no cultural variations
c
Which of the following is true about self-esteem and narcissism? a. The best way to be happy is to focus on ourselves and our own needs. b. Narcissists are disliked by others but do better academically and in business than other people. c. People who are optimistic (but not narcissistic) persevere more in the face of failure and set higher goals than do other people. d. Narcissism has been decreasing among college students in the United States over the past 30 years
c
Which of the following is true about social neuroscience? a. This field is concerned exclusively with how different kinds of brain activity correlate with social information processing. b. This field is concerned primarily with how hormones influence social behavior. c. Social psychologists are increasingly interested in the connection between biological processes and social behavior. d. When it comes right down to it, the brain is not related to behavior, and there is not much to be learned by measuring its electrical activity or blood flow
c
Which of the following is true about social tuning? a. People decide consciously about whether to agree with someone else's attitudes. b. People will adopt someone else's attitudes only if they largely agree with that position to start with. c. People are especially likely to adopt someone else's attitudes when they want to get along with that person. d. Members of Western cultures are more likely to engage in social tuning than members of East Asian cultures.
c
Which of the following is true about the use of schemas? a. Schemas are an example of controlled thinking. b. When people have an incorrect schema, rarely do they act in a way to make it come true. c. Although schemas can lead to errors, they are a useful way of organizing information about the world and filling in gaps in our knowledge. d. The schema we use is influenced only by what information is chronically accessible and not by our goals or by what has been primed recently
c
Which of the following psychological phenomena shows the least cultural variation? a. Self-serving attributions b. Preferences regarding eye contact and personal space c. Anger facial expressions d. Fundamental attribution error
c
Which of the following statements best describes cultural differences in the fundamental attribution error? a. Members of collectivist cultures rarely make dispositional attributions. b. Members of Western cultures rarely make dispositional attributions. c. Members of collectivist cultures are more likely to go beyond dispositional explanations, considering information about the situation as well. d. Members of Western cultures are more likely to go beyond dispositional explanations, considering information about the situation as well.
c
Which one of the following involves the least amount of automatic thinking? a. Acting according to goals that have been primed b. Using metaphors about the body to make judgments c. Counterfactual reasoning d. Self-fulfilling prophecies
c
Who among the following individuals would you predict would be most likely to make an external attribution for any given behavior observed? a. A U.S.-born American adult b. An 8-year-old born and raised in India c. A Hong Kong Chinese college student who had just been shown images related to Chinese culture d. A Hong Kong Chinese college student who had just been shown images related to American culture
c
Your friend Amy asks you what you think of the shoes she just bought. Privately, you think they are the ugliest shoes you have ever seen, but you tell her you love them. In the past, Amy has always valued your honest opinion and doesn't care that much about the shoes, which were inexpensive. Because the external justification for your fib was ____, you will probably ____. a. high, decide you like the shoes b. high, maintain your view that the shoes are ugly c. low, decide you like the shoes d. low, maintain your view that the shoes are ugly
c
In trying to make sense of the social world, people are much like amateur scientists. This observation is most compatible with Heider's (1958) classic scholarly work on
common sense psychology.
Gordon Gallup
compared the behavior of chimpanzees raised in normal family groupings with that of chimps who were raised alone in complete social isolation. The socially experienced chimps "passed" the mirror test. However, the socially isolated chimps did not react to their reflections at all; they did not recognize themselves in the mirror, suggesting that they had not developed a sense of self.
Research on people's use of the covariation model in making attributions suggests that people are less likely to use ________ information than Kelley's model predicts.
consensus
The three key types of covariation information we use when forming a attribution
consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency
Conscious Thinking
controlled careful thought, we pause and think carefully about ourselves and the environment and choose the best course of action
A mother who has tragically lost a daughter in a car accident spends her days rehearsing "if onlys." "If only I had made her stay home that night"; "If only she had taken Route 78 instead of Route 22"; "If only I had offered to chauffeur her instead of letting her drive herself." The mother is engaging in the process known as
counterfactual thinking
You stayed up all night cramming for this examination and didn't do as well as you had hoped. "If only I had started studying sooner and gotten a good night's rest, I'd have done much better," you think to yourself. You have just engaged in
counterfactual thinking
"Naïve realism" refers to the fact that a. most people are naïve (uneducated) about psychology. b. few people are realistic. c. most people would rather be naïve than accurate. d. most people believe they perceive things accurately.
d
10. Eleanor gets a bad grade on the first paper in her English class. To predict whether she will drop the course or stick with it, which question would a social psychologist be most likely to ask? a. How did she score on a personality test of persistence? b. How did she do in the English class she took the previous semester? c. What were her SAT scores? d. What is her explanation for why she got the bad grade?
d
3. According to the social cognition approach, a. People almost always form accurate impressions about the social world. b. People rarely form accurate impressions of the social world. c. When viewing the social world, people's main goal is to feel good about themselves. d. Even when people are trying to perceive the social world as accurately as they can, there are many ways in which they can go wrong, ending up with the wrong impressions
d
3. How do social psychologists formulate hypotheses and theories? a. They are inspired by previous theories and research. b. They disagree with a previous researchers' interpretations of their study. c. They construct hypothesis and theories based on personal observations in everyday life. d. All of the above answers are correct
d
3. Which of the following is the best example of a self-fulfilling prophecy? a. A teacher believes that boys are better at math than girls, but boys in his class do worse than girls in math. b. Bob thinks that members of the Alpha Beta Psi sorority are unfriendly and snobby. Whenever he meets members of this sorority, they are friendly toward him. c. Sarah is worried that her son is not gifted in music, but he does better at his piano lessons than she expected. d. Jill thinks her daughter is not a good reader and doesn't spend much time reading to her. As a result her daughter falls behind in reading at school.
d
A researcher is interested in whether moods vary by the day of the week. She codes the postings on thousands of Facebook pages to see whether people express more positive comments on some days than others. Which research method has she used? a. Ethnography b. Survey c. Experimental method d. Archival analysis
d
According to this chapter, which is the best analogy to describe people's thinking abilities? a. People are cognitive misers. b. People are motivated tacticians. c. People are skilled detectives. d. People are flawed scientists.
d
After spending 2 years of tedious work fixing up an old house themselves, Abby and Brian are even more convinced that they made the right choice to buy the place. Their feelings are an example of a. counterattitudinal behavior. b. insufficient punishment. c. the Ben Franklin effect. d. justifying their effort.
d
All of the following are examples of an internal attribution except for which one? a. After winning close to $100 playing poker, Fred explains that he's always been a skilled gambler. b. Velma blames her poor grade on her biology exam on the idea that she's never been good at taking multiple-choice exams. c. Daphne thinks that the reason her brother is never able to hold a steady job is that he's lazy and quick to get angry with others. d. Shaggy says that the only reason for his recent van accident is that the road he was traveling on that day was wet from a recent rainfall.
d
All of the following except one are part of the guidelines for ethical research. Which is not? a. All research is reviewed by an IRB (institutional review board) that consists of at least one scientist, one nonscientist, and one person unaffiliated with the institution. b. A researcher receives informed consent from a participant unless deception is deemed necessary and the experiment meets ethical guidelines. c. When deception is used in a study, participants must be fully debriefed. d. There must be a cover story for every study, because all studies involve some type of deception.
d
Asch's (1946) research on person perception provided evidence for which of the following conclusions? a. There is a primacy effect in social perception. b. First impressions serve as a filter through which subsequently learned information is interpreted. c. Even when the content of information conveyed about two individuals remains the same, the order in which we learn it can have a powerful effect on our impression. d. All of the above.
d
Briana undergoes treatment for drug addiction. After she leaves the clinic, Briana is most likely to stay off drugs if the treatment at the clinic was a. involuntary (she was ordered to undergo treatment) and a difficult ordeal. b. involuntary (she was ordered to undergo treatment) and an easy experience. c. voluntary (she chose to undergo treatment) and an easy experience. d. voluntary (she chose to undergo treatment) and a difficult ordeal.
d
Eduardo is tempted to eat some of his roommate's cookies, even though his roommate told him not to. Under which of the following conditions would Eduardo be mostly likely to resist the temptation to eat the cookies? a. It's the afternoon, and Eduardo has had a busy morning. b. Eduardo believes that willpower is fixed resource and that people have a limited amount of it. c. Eduardo went to the gym that morning and had a good workout. d. Eduardo puts the cookies in a cupboard so he doesn't have to look at them.
d
Elise wants to increase her ability at self-control, such as by spending more time studying. Which of the following is most likely to work? a. When she is studying, she should try hard to suppress thoughts about the party she could have gone to. b. Just before it is time for her to study, she should do something that requires a lot of concentration, such as a difficult puzzle. c. She should eat a small, sugary snack before studying. d. She should adopt the belief that willpower is an unlimited resource.
d
In Miller's (1984) cross-cultural investigation of attribution style in the United States and India, a. among young children, Americans were more likely to make external attributions, and Indians were more likely to make internal attributions, but few cultural differences emerged with adult participants. b. among young children, Americans were more likely to make internal attributions, and Indians were more likely to make external attributions, but few cultural differences emerged with adult participants. c. few cultural differences emerged with children, but among adults, Americans were more likely to make external attributions, and Indians were more likely to make internal attributions. d. few cultural differences emerged with young children, but among adults, Americans were more likely to make internal attributions, and Indians were more likely to make external attributions.
d
Jennifer and Nate are walking along the street when they see a man walk out of a convenience store clutching a bag. The owner of the store runs out and shouts for the man to stop and come back. Jennifer immediately assumes that there has been a robbery, whereas Nate immediately assumes that the man forgot to get his change and that the store owner wants to give it to him. What is the best explanation for why Jennifer and Nate interpreted this event differently? a. Jennifer and Nate were engaged in controlled thinking that resulted in different assumptions about what was going on. b. Jennifer and Nate have different personalities. c. Jennifer and Nate fell prey to the self-fulfilling prophecy. d. Different schemas were accessible in Jennifer and Nate's minds, perhaps because they had different recent experiences that primed different schemas.
d
Mariana is a sophomore in high school who is trying out for the varsity softball team. To get an accurate assessment of her softball abilities, she should compare her abilities to: a. a senior who was the best player on the team last year. b. a sophomore who has less experience playing softball than Mariana has. c. the coach of the team. d. a sophomore who has about the same amount of experience playing softball as Marianna has
d
Over Thanksgiving break, your parents ask you if you can think of 12 reasons why your college is better than its arch rival. You find it hard to come up with many reasons and end up thinking, "Hmm, maybe the schools aren't all that different." Which of the following mental strategies did you probably use to reach this conclusion? a. The representativeness heuristic b. Base rate information c. The anchoring and adjustment heuristic d. The availability heuristic
d
Professor X wants to make sure his study of gifted youngsters will get published, but he's worried that his findings could have been caused by something other than the independent variable, which was a new teaching method he introduced. He is concerned with the ________ his experiment. a. probability level b. external validity c. replication d. internal validity
d
Research indicates that which of the following candidates would be most likely to win a political election? a. Denise, whose face other people often perceive as indicating a warm personality b. Theo, who many people believe is gay based only on his facial appearance c. Vanessa, who has large eyes, a high forehead, and a small, child-like nose d. Rudy, whose face is usually seen by others as indicating a cold, calculating, and powerful personality
d
Suppose a psychologist decides to join a local commune to understand and observe its members' social relationships. This is a. cross-cultural research. b. applied research. c. an experiment. d. ethnography.
d
Suppose that your friend Meghan says, "If I get less than 8 hours of sleep, I'm in a terrible mood the next day." Based on research in social psychology, what is the best conclusion about her statement? a. She is probably right because people generally know why they feel the way they do. b. She is probably wrong because people rarely know why they feel the way they do. c. She is likely to be right only if she first made a list of all the reasons why she is in a good mood or bad mood on a typical day. d. Her statement is probably based on a causal theory that may or may not be true.
d
Suppose you are trying to raise money for your favorite charity and you set up a table in the lobby of a campus building. Which of the following is likely to increase the likelihood that passersby will donate money? a. Give them a light clipboard with information about your charity. b. Ask people to hold a cold bottle of water while they listen to what you have to say. c. Show them pictures of Japanese cities so that they think holistically. d. Spray some citrus-scented cleaning solution on the table
d
Suppose you wanted your friend Stephan to feel like a more assertive person. According to research on _______, you should ask him to think of ______times in the past when he acted in an unassertive manner. a. Representativeness heuristic; 12 b. Availability heuristic; 3 c. Representativeness heuristic; 3 d. Availability heuristic; 12
d
The basic tenet of terror management theory is that a. people are becoming increasingly narcissistic. b. it is important for governments to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks. c. people are less terrified of dying if they are religious. d. self-esteem protects people against thoughts about their own mortality
d
The experimental method is best at answering which of these questions? a. How aggressively do people drive during rush hours in major U.S. cities? b. Are people who play violent video games more likely to drive aggressively? c. Are people who play violent video games more likely to be rude to someone who cuts in line in front of them? d. Does playing violent video games cause people to be more rude to someone who cuts in line in front of them?
d
Under which of the following conditions is Khalid most likely to feel the romantic attraction toward Heather? a. Khalid isn't sure whether he wants to go out with Heather, so he spends time introspecting about why he feels the way he does about her. b. Khalid isn't sure whether he wants to go out with Heather, but he agrees to do so after Heather's roommate says she will help him with his calculus homework if he does. c. Khalid and Heather go for a long run together. After a couple of hours, when they are well-rested, Heather gives Khalid a hug and tells him that she really likes him. d. Khalid and Heather nearly get into a serious car accident, and both are terrified. Then Heather gives Khalid a hug and tells him that she really likes him.
d
What central motives influence the way we construe the world? a. The need to maintain self-esteem. b. The need to be accurate in our perceptions and decisions. c. The need for self-expression. d. a and b. e. a and c
d
What do social psychology and sociology have in common? a. They both examine demographic trends in society. b. They both study national institutions. c. They both are concerned with personality differences. d. They both are concerned with group processes.
d
What does the Wall Street Game reveal about personality and situation? a. Competitive people will compete fiercely no matter what a game is called. b. Cooperative people will try hard to get competitive opponents to work with them. c. The name of the game makes no difference in how people play the game. d. The name of the game strongly influences how people play the game
d
What is a major assumption of Kelley's covariation model of attribution? a. We make quick attributions after observing one instance of someone's behavior. b. People make causal attributions using cultural schemas. c. People infer the cause of others' behaviors through introspection. d. People gather information to make causal attributions rationally and logically.
d
What is the "hypocrisy paradigm" in experimental research? a. Choosing participants who are hypocrites in order to study their rationalizations. b. Requiring participants to write essays that are critical of hypocrisy. c. Making participants understand that everyone is a hypocrite. d. Making participants aware of their own hypocrisy in not practicing what they preach
d
Where do differences in holistic versus analytic thinking come from? a. Genetic differences between Asians and non-Asian Westerners b. Different educational systems in the East versus the West c. Different weather patterns in the East versus the West d. Different philosophical traditions of the East versus the West
d
Which of the following is most true? a. Every member of a Western culture has an independent view of the self, and every member of an Asian culture has an interdependent view of the self. b. Members of Western cultures are more likely to have an interdependent sense of self than are members of Asian cultures. c. People with independent selves can easily appreciate what it is like to have an interdependent self. d. People who live in parts of the United States and Canada that were settled by Europeans more recently have more of an independent sense of self than people who live in parts of those countries that were settled earlier.
d
Which of the following is not a function of the self? a. Self-knowledge b. Self-control c. Impression management d. Self-criticism
d
Which of the following is true about evolutionary psychology? a. Natural selection works differently in humans than other animals. b. It is easy to test evolutionary hypotheses by doing experiments. c. Most social behaviors are genetically determined with little influence by the social environment. d. Evolutionary approaches can generate novel hypotheses about social behavior that can then be tested with experiments.
d
Which of the following people is most likely to be able to admit a major mistake? a. A prosecutor, because he or she is trained to pursue justice at all costs. b. A political leader, because otherwise he or she would be voted out of office. c. A member of a religious sect, because he or she can leave at any time. d. All of the above will find it hard to admit having been wrong
d
Which of the following research topics about violence is one that a social psychologist might investigate? a. How rates of violence change over time within a culture b. Why murder rates vary across cultures c. Brain abnormalities that produce aggression when a person is provoked d. Why some situations are more likely to provoke aggression than others
d
Which of the following statements is least true, according to research on self-knowledge? The best way to "know thyself" is to look inward, introspecting about ourselves. b. Sometimes the best way to know ourselves is to see what we do. c. We often try to figure out ourselves by comparing ourselves to others. d. One way we know ourselves is by using theories we learn from our culture
d
Which of the following techniques relating to postdecision dissonance could a clothing store use to increase customer satisfaction? a. Cut all prices in half b. Ask customers to make a radio ad saying how great the store is c. Charge a membership fee to shop at the store d. Make all sales final
d
You know you're eating too much junk food and that it's bad for your energy and health. Which of the following will not reduce your dissonance? a. Cutting out your favorite afternoon sweets b. Deciding that all those health warnings are stupid exaggerations c. Admitting you are eating too many sweets but claim that they boost your energy for studying d. Accepting the fact that your attitudes and behavior simply conflict
d
Self-concept
defined as the overall set of beliefs that people have about their personal attributes
A researcher concludes that frustrating people by giving them a task that is impossible to complete causes them to behave more aggressively. Only ________ warrants this type of conclusion.
experimental research
Which of the following techniques is most likely to be used by social neuroscientists? ethnography archival research field experiments functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
fMRI
Tesser and self maintenance theory
found that the greatest amount of friction between siblings occurred when the siblings were close in age and one sibling was significantly better on key dimensions, such as popularity or intelligence. When performance and relevance are high, it can be difficult to avoid conflicts with family members (
Megan reads a research study which shows that children who see a lot of violence on television are more likely to be aggressive on the playground. Megan thinks, "This is obvious; I could have predicted that!" Megan's reaction to the study is probably an example of:
hindsight bias
An environment that promotes getting along well with others, being connected to one another, and seeing the larger context of social situations is most likely to promote _______ thinking.
holistic
Tina is very happy in her marriage. She is going to make ________ attributions about the positive behaviors of her spouse.
internal
When we make note of an actor's personality, attitudes, values, or character, we are forming a(n)
internal attribution
Teen/Adult Self Concept
less emphasis on physical characteristics and more on psychological states (our thoughts and feelings) and on considerations of how other people judge us
Miller (1984) studied causal attributions in two different cultures. She found that whereas Indian Hindus ________, participants in the United States ________.
made situational attributions; made dispositional attributions
When people communicate using nonverbal behavior, they typically use
multiple channels
Self-handicapping has a blank impact on performance
negative
According to the authors of your text, how people communicate-intentionally or unintentionally-without words is the definition of
nonverbal communication.
A researcher wants to examine whether teachers show any bias in calling on male students over female students. The best method for answering this question would be
observational
Leon Festinger
one of social psychology's most innovative theorists, realized that it is precisely when these the need to feel good about ourselves and the need to be accurate pull in opposite directions that we can gain our most valuable insights into the workings of the mind
Negatives of Behaviorism
overlooked the importance of how people interpret their environments
How do schemas become accessible?
past experience, related to a current goal, recent experiences (also called priming)
The Kitty Genovese murder inspired research on bystander apathy. This example illustrates the usefulness of relying on ________ in formulating research hypotheses.
personal observations of everyday life
Lixue and Hayk are in an unhappy marriage. When Hayk brings home flowers, Lixue thinks, "There must have been a sale at the grocery store" or, "I suppose those are leftover from some party at work." Her attribution reflects the attribution of a ________ behavior to an ________ cause.
positive; external
The ________ is a number that expresses the likelihood that a given experimental finding would have occurred by chance alone.
probability level
Distinctiveness Information
refers to how a person responds to other stimuli
Consensus Information
refers to how other people behave toward the same stimulus
Consistency information
refers to the frequency with which the observed behavior between the same person and the same stimulus occurs across time and circumstances
Four Functions of Self
self-knowledge, self-control, impression management, self-esteem
Several studies conducted by Nisbett and his colleagues involved showing participants two similar pictures and asking them to find the differences between them. Nisbett and colleagues found that East Asian participants were more likely to focus on details such as
shape of the control tower (unlike americans who focused on the number of things)
When scientists study how social behavior is related to hormones, the immune system, and neurological processes, they are studying
social neuroscience
What is Social Psychology most related to?
sociology and personality psychology
Imagine you haven't seen a high school friend until your 25th reunion. Based on results from a recent study, which of the following changes would make you think the friend has become a "different person"? the friend has straightened his teeth and changed his hair color the friend has trouble remembering other classmates' names the friend has gotten into physical shape and now is a triathlete the friend has changed an aspect of his morality, such as becoming racist
the friend has changed an aspect of his morality, such as becoming racist
Most important motives behind our construals
the need to feel good about ourselves and the need to be accurate
The three methods of research
the observational method, the correlational method, and the experimental method
Heider's Attribution Theory
the theory that we explain someone's behavior by crediting either the situation or the person's disposition
self-esteem
the way in which we try to maintain positive views of ourselves
impression management
the way we present ourselves to other people and get them to see us the way we want to be seen
self-knowledge
the way we understand who we are and formulate and organize this information
When is conscious thought superior to letting distraction influence a decision?
when the decision requires a series of simple rules