Past Exam Questions

A new health campaign wants to encourage people to exercise more often. The campaign is based around the statistic that most people exercise, on average, 3 times a week. What would you tell the campaign about their strategy?

That's a bad strategy because people who exercise more than 3 time a week might cut back.

Katie failed her math test and instead of making an internal attribution and saying she should have studied more, she made an external attribution and blamed the teacher for making the exam questions too hard. Katie is demonstrating

a self-serving attribution.

The Austin Ice Bats are a minor league hockey team in central Texas. They have a highly structured team and staff, and the tasks in their organization are well defined. They would probably benefit from a head coach who is:

a task-oriented leader

According to Kelley's covariation model, in order to make an external attribution, consensus needs to be ____ and distinctiveness needs to be ____.

high; high

Ben's parents are pleasantly surprised to learn that he enjoys tutoring his little sister in math. To encourage him to continue this behavior, they start paying Ben the same rate that they would pay a tutor. Which two phenomena make contradictory predictions about his parents' decision?

Operant conditioning and the overjustification effect

After watching the end of 400-meter race, Ben states that he knew from the beginning that the first-place winner would win for sure. However, past research suggests that statements like the one Ben made are most likely exaggerated. This situation demonstrates ______________.

hindsight bias.

Susan really loves eating at her favorite fast food restaurant. However, she recently found out that they contribute to organizations that she does not agree with and cannot support. She doesn't want to stop eating there because she loves the food so much but she feels awful that she's supporting an organization that goes against her values. In order to resolve the dissonance she is experiencing, Susan says that her eating there won't really make a big difference in the grand scheme of things. She is just one person and might as well eat good food. Susan is demonstrating which strategy of reducing dissonance?

Adding in new cognitions to justify her behavior

In the "Smoke Study," the researchers found that people who were ____ were more likely to notice the smoke within 5 seconds, whereas people who were ____ were less likely to notice the smoke within 5 seconds.

Alone; with confederates or other participants

Sad kitten knows people can be very mean on the internet, but some of those mean commenters would never be so explicit or offensive in face-to-face conversations. Why might this be?

Anonymous commenting can lead to deindividuation

Viewing a friend's happiness based on their surrounding context (instead of based on their own facial expressions) is an example of _______________________ , which is more frequent in East Asian cultures.

holistic thinking

Being interested in how often Asian vs. White individuals use the word "I" vs. "We," Carlos uses a computer program to learn how often people mention these words on social media websites like Facebook. He is using:

Archival analysis

A journal article reports that "... we examined the association between fourth graders' externalizing behaviors and academic achievement (r = - .67)." These results suggest which pattern in the data:

As externalizing behaviors decrease, academic achievement increases

One advantage of diverse group membership is:

Diverse groups tend to perform better in terms of group creativity, information sharing, and flexible problem solving.

Geraldine and Marcus are preparing for a debate, after which the audience will vote on the winner. When asked if she would like to go first or second, Geraldine, being an astute student of social psychology, asks how long between the speeches before the audience will be voting. Why?

Because Geraldine knows that primacy and recency effects are time dependent, so she will try to go first if people are deciding right after the speeches.

Jessica's soccer team loses the championship match by one goal. Jessica, the team's goalkeeper, feels awful about the loss and is very down about her performance. If Jessica's low mood is facilitated by counterfactual thinking, how might she have felt if they lost by 5 goals?

Better, because the counterfactual of having made one more save is easier to imagine than the counterfactual of having made 5 more saves.

John and his groupmates are tasked with designing a psychology study for their Research Methods course. After the group comes up with an idea, John is supposed to create the stimuli for the study but doesn't finish by the deadline. His group receives a bad grade on the project. To maintain a high self-esteem, we may expect John to:

Blame his groupmates for coming up with a bad idea

When looking at brain data from East Asian and American participants engaging in a perceptual task where they had to judge the length of lines, researchers concluded:

participants from both cultures had to work harder cognitively to perceive objects in a way that was not typical.

A school is planning on asking someone to come speak to students about the dangers of drugs. Many of the students are not very motivated to listen to someone speaking about this topic. In order to persuade the students not to do drugs, who should the school bring in according to the Yale attitude change approach?

Someone who is a great speaker and communicator.

Siddartha has started a local news website. Despite many community members reading and benefiting from the news, very few volunteer to pay a small fee to keep the site running. This situation most closely describes the:

Contributions (give-some) dilemma

Fatima is watching television and sees a news story about the CEO of a charity who embezzled thousands of dollars from a children's research hospital. Fatima thinks to herself, "That jerk must be a really sick person to have done such a terrible thing!" Fatima's thought is an example of:

Fundamental attribution error

The idea that we should study the subjective way in which we see the world, for example, that two people can look at the same image and have two different interpretations, came about in which area of psychology?

Gestalt psychology

Dale has just finished watching a documentary about the horrors of meat industry, and was convinced by many of the arguments presented. However, when his wife, Nancy, asks if he still wants to go to a local steakhouse for his birthday, Dale enthusiastically replies that he does. What could Dale do to resolve the likely cognitive dissonance that would arise from eating steak after being so moved by the documentary?

Dale could use a rationalization technique, like thinking that the steakhouse probably uses ethically sourced beef.

Which is true about using deception in a study?

Deception can be used as long as there is no other way to get the data

One of the challenges in conducting cross-cultural research into social psychological processes is:

Independent and dependent variables may be understood in different ways across different cultures.

Pluralistic ignorance is believed to stem from:

Informational social influence

A researcher is interested in whether receiving a nasty social media message from a known vs. unknown person shows a greater impact on daily stress ratings. In this study, the "unknown sender" group receives the message before a major exam, whereas the "friend" group does not. Which type of validity is under the greatest threat in this study?

Internal validity

Experimental designs often involve balancing ___________ and _____________:

Internal validity; external validity

Charlie has just ridden the most terrifying ride at Six Flags Over Texas, the Titan. He gets off the ride and sees an Instagram post from Alex, a friend from his Calculus class. Charlie suddenly notices that Alex is a lot cuter than he had noticed before, and he decides to ask if Alex would like to go on a date sometime. Dutton and Aron's experiment would suggest that Charlie:

Is more attracted to Alex due to the misattribution of his arousal from the roller coaster to Alex.

Stephanie (a woman) and Jerome (a man) both Charlottesville natives, are each walking on the downtown Pedestrian Mall. Separately they come across a woman that seems to have fallen and hurt her ankle. One of them helped her get to a hospital. Who is more likely to have helped, Stephanie or Jerome, and why?

Jerome, because men are more likely to perform short-term helping acts for a stranger

An elderly woman has slipped and fallen on some ice. Based on the results of the Darley & Batson (1973) "Good Samaritan" study, who is most likely to help this poor woman?

Luke, who is killing time before an appointment

Danielle and her boyfriend recently got into a big fight. Later, when talking to her friend, Megan, about the fight, Megan said she agrees with Danielle's boyfriend and that Danielle should apologize. Instead of thinking about the situation from her boyfriend or friend's point of view, Danielle concludes that Megan must be biased against her because Danielle is clearly correct and any other interpretation of the situation is wrong. Danielle's reaction to her friend demonstrates which concept?

Naive realism

How reasonable is it for someone to rely on the representativeness heuristic to make a quick judgment?

Often perfectly reasonable, when there is no other information available

_______ organize one's knowledge of the world to create an easier way of adapting thought and arranging memory.

Schemas

Zoe is just learning how to play basketball and doesn't have much practice. Her first basketball game is coming up and she is not sure how good her performance will be. Given that there will be people in the audience, how well do you expect Zoe to do?

She will do poorly because people tend to perform worse in the presence of others on tasks that are new and not well-learned.

Grace is working on a school project with a group of her classmates. She doesn't care about the project that much and decides to put in less effort and assumes that the rest of the group members will put in more work. What concept is Grace demonstrating?

Social loafing

Greg is interested in studying the social context that could affect whether people change their political parties from one U.S. Presidential election to another. Which method discussed in Chapter Two (Methodology: How Social Psychologists Do Research) would be least appropriate for Greg to use, and why?

The observational method, because U.S. Presidential elections are relatively infrequent events, occurring only once every 4 years.

A study is investigating whether sexism influences juror decision making. Depending on their randomly assigned condition, each participant sees either a male or a female juror disagreeing with the group. The study found that when participants observe a male juror disagreeing with the group, they listen to his opinion, but when a female disagrees with the group, they ignore her. What is the dependent variable in this study?"

Whether they listen or ignore their opinion

Selina and Janet are happily married, and they both say they are satisfied in their relationship. Trina and Donald, however, both say they are unsatisfied in their marriage. Would one couple be more likely to make an external attribution for their partner's positive behavior?

Yes; Trina & Donald would be more likely to do so

After seeing a sign that says "The typical UVa student only drinks twice a month", Jerry - who typically drinks once every other month - begins drinking more often! This is called the _________ effect.

boomerang

An advertising company is creating a TV ad by talking about the price, the gas mileage, and the safety features of the car. This company is playing on which component of people's attitudes?

cognitive

If a person assumes that something extremely peculiar happened in a specific circumstance to elicit a behavior, Kelley's covariation model would suggest that ___________ is probably quite low for this behavior.

consistency

We perform better in a group (compared to alone) when individual efforts can be __________ and tasks are ______.

evaluated/judged/identified/seen/measured; simple/easy/practiced

Sam wants you to help him move his entire apartment but he thinks you will say no so he starts off by asking you to help him move his couch. After you agree to this smaller favor, he later asks for the larger favor. He is relying on _______________________.

foot-in-the-door strategy

Matt was walking down the street one day when he saw a woman attempt to toss something into the garbage. The piece of garbage fell onto the street instead but the woman didn't stop to pick it up. Angry about the dangers of littering, Matt started yelling at the woman across the street that she clearly doesn't care about the environment and that she is a bad person. The woman walked back to pick it up from the street and said "oh, sorry I didn't see that I missed the garbage can!" Matt fell prey to what?

fundamental attribution error

Your classmate fails a test, and you make the assumption that she just doesn't care about her school work. However, you later find out that she had a terrible tragedy in her family and so was not able to study for the test. The fact that you made an assumption about her intelligence or work ethic without considering the surrounding context makes this an example of _____________________________.

fundamental attribution error.

Yesenia always wanted to try marijuana, and finds herself in a group of friends that are equally as curious. After a year with this group of friends, we might expect Yesenia to become even more interested in smoking marijuana. This is best explained by:

group polarization

Despite always being told she was a great player, Aly found out she didn't make the soccer team at school. She feels pretty bad about this, but believes that if she works hard at her soccer abilities she will be able to make the team next year. Aly seems to have a _______ mindset about soccer.

growth

Tom always agrees with his group of friends about what movie to watch, but tonight he says he wants to watch a different movie than his friends. While normally one might face consequences such as being excluded from the group, Tom does not face any consequences for his dissent because he has built up a lot of ______________________.

idiosyncrasy credits

Justin sees a blind person in need of help crossing a busy intersection. If Justin does not feel empathy for the blind person, under what circumstances (according to Batson's empathy-altruism hypothesis) would Justin help?

if the rewards would outweigh the costs

Nathan has a great relationship with his mother. For college he chooses to go to the University of Texas at Austin, not the University of Oklahoma (OU) - the college from which his mother graduated and a rival school of UT-Austin. While Nathan has genuine animosity for OU (especially their football team), we might expect that Nathan would have positive ________ attitudes towards OU.

implicit

It's Libby's first day in college. When she approaches the professor to have an "add" form signed, she listens to other students to see if they address the professor as "Professor," "Dr.," "Mrs.," or by her first name, and then she does the same. This is an example of

informational social influence.

Damon has just started a new job and wants to make a great impression on his supervisor, Monica. In every meeting, Damon agrees with all of Monica's ideas and replies to all of her emails with "Thanks, Monica! I really enjoyed reading this!" Which impression management strategy is Damon most likely using?

ingratiation

Asha believes that others will view tax fraud as a form of lying and cheating and is therefore considered wrong and will be disapproved of. What is this an example of?

injunctive norms

A study that is conducted in the lab and controls for all factors except for the independent variable probably has high ___________________, whereas a study that is conducted in a more realistic context, but is not able to control for outside factors, probably has high _________________.

internal validity; external validity

If Desmond is particularly tired and stressed, he will be more likely to make a(n) ________ attribution.

internal/dispositional

Sarah and Jessica are both looking to join sororities in college. Sarah must go through an intense hazing process where she is required to do many difficult tasks before she is accepted into the sorority. However, Jessica is accepted into a different sorority and is not required to do anything before joining. When asked later how much they enjoy being a part of their respective sororities, Sarah reports enjoying it more than Jessica. This outcome could be explained by

justification of effort

Evolutionary psychologists would argue that behaviors that help a genetic relative are favored by natural selection. This concept is called _____________.

kin selection

The main differences between social psychology and its closest cousins are the field's ______________ and _____________.

level of analysis; what is being explained

A car salesperson tells you that the car you are wanting to buy is worth $20,000. You are very excited because that is in your budget! Once you start the paperwork and sign a check, the salesperson tell you that the current price does not include all of the features such as the backup camera and the sunroof. In order to get all of those features, you need to pay an extra $2,000. You figure it's not that much more money and you were so excited about the car, so you decide to pay the extra amount. The sales person used the strategy called _________.

lowballing

Alice is confused about the effects of violent video games on real-world aggression. She has read several studies on the topic, but the designs - and results - are all slightly different! What might help Alice determine if all of these different results considered as a whole show a meaningful effect?

meta-analysis

A positive mood may lead people to behave ____ prosocially; a negative mood may lead people to behave ____ prosocially.

more; more

If grades decrease as time watching TV increases, this is a ________ correlation.

negative

Alex is deciding whether she will go to the gym to work out or not. She decides not to because she lent her car to a friend and it would be too far of a walk. According to the theory of planned behavior, Alex's decision not to go to the gym was determined by ___________________________.

perceived behavioral control

Richard has agreed to bake his delicious cakes for friends and colleagues, but it always seems to take longer than the three days he says it will take. When Prudence asks for a birthday cake, Richard says, "You'll have it in three days!" Richard may be falling prey to the __________________.

planning fallacy

Dimitri lives in Los Angeles. While walking down the street, he notices two people loudly arguing, and suddenly a fight breaks out. Looking around, he notices all of the other people seem calm, and maybe even amused. "It's probably just a movie being filmed," he decides. The most likely reason Dimitri did not intervene is because of:

pluralistic ignorance.

Using a combination of injunctive and descriptive norms when trying to change behavior may:

prevent a boomerang effect among individuals already exhibiting the desired behavior

Danielle passed a homeless man on the street one day and decided to give him $10. She knew people were watching and wanted them to think of her as a good person. She also knew it would make her feel good to donate her money. Danielle is demonstrating

prosocial behavior.

The broad expectation that people should repay prosocial behaviors in kind is known as the norm of ___________.

reciprocity

Alex is thinking about a recent philosophy class' lecture on responsibility to one's fellow humans on the way to lunch when he passes by a homeless man under the tracks. Unusually for him, Alex gives the man some money. What might account for this atypical behavior?

schema accessibility

Random __________ is a way of ensuring that a sample is representative of a population.

selection/ sampling

Mary is the President of her school's People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals student chapter. She feels bad after being called a hypocrite for wearing leather boots, but tells herself, "Anyway, I'm a really good student. I just aced my calculus exam!" What means of dissonance reduction is Mary using?

self-affirmation

The Stanford Prison Experiment (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, 1973) purported to display the powerful influence of ____________ on behavior.

social roles

People's tendency to use the representativeness heuristic instead of base rates is an example of preferring ____________ over ____________ when it comes to automatic cognitions.

speed; accuracy

Jennie is waiting for a blind date to arrive at a restaurant when someone walks through the door. Since the person who just came in the door was a man and looked about her age, she figured that must be her date. Jennie relied on what?

the representativeness heuristic

During political elections, undecided voters may watch negative commercials about one candidate and notice that the commercial is funded by the opposing candidate. Even though this fact may undermine the credibility of the advertisement, over time the undecided voters may begin to be persuaded by the message of the commercial. This is due to:

the sleeper effect

Cross cultural differences in fundamental attribution error are best described as:

traits that are learned as a result of living in a culture, as evidenced by Joan Miller's work with children.

Janice is trying hard to study for her upcoming German midterm, but her favorite series on Netflix just put a new season up for streaming. She is worried that she will be tempted to binge watch the season rather than drill down and prepare for her exam. What Janice should not do if she wants to concentrate is:

try to ignore the urge to watch Netflix.

Allison is a very sweet, intelligent, amicable person. Joe has never met her and the only things he has ever heard about her come from her ex-boyfriend who says she is hard to get along with and very snobby. According to research on the self-fulfilling prophecy, Joe would act in a(n):

unfriendly way toward Allison. This in turn causes Allison to act unfriendly toward Joe, and Joe to believe that her ex-boyfriend was right about her.

The best current evidence suggests that subliminal messaging:

works under very specific circumstances, such as when the message corresponds with a salient desire.

If you were to conduct your own version of the Milgram experiment, in which of the following situations would you see the greatest numbers of participants delivering a 450 volt shock?

you place an obedient other "teacher" in the room