Psychology, Module 41. Social Thinking

Dr. Scholz is reading an article describing research in which investigators examined how the presence of other people influenced participants' performance on a variety of tasks. Dr. Scholz is MOST likely reading the Journal of Research in _____ Psychology.

Social

_____ psychologists investigate how people think about, influence, and relate to one another.

Social

Nadine has strong feelings about a website used to enroll in health insurance. These feelings stem in part from her political beliefs, and they may influence her voting behavior in subsequent elections. Nadine has a(n):

attitude.

Feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in particular ways to objects, people, and events are called _____.

attitudes

situational attribution

attributing behavior to the environment

dispositional attribution

attributing behavior to the person's disposition and traits

A student's statement that his professor gave him a bad grade because she does not like him is a(n):

attribution.

Juan was shopping for a new watch and the salesperson was pressuring him to spend money far above his financial limit. Juan attributed the behavior to the salesperson having a pushy personality. Juan's explanation of the salesperson's behavior _____ the fundamental attribution error because it is based on the salesperson's _____.

reflects; personality

People often commit the fundamental attribution error, especially when they explain:

the behavior of strangers who have been observed in only one type of situation.

fundamental attribution error

the tendency for observers, when analyzing another's behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition

foot-in-the-door phenomenon

the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request

cognitive dissonance theory

the theory that we act to reduce the discomfort we feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent

attribution theory

the theory that we explain someone's behavior by crediting either the situation or the person's disposition

During a test, Abe impulsively copied several answers from a nearby student's paper. He felt very uncomfortable about having done this until he convinced himself that copying answers is not wrong if classmates are careless enough to expose their test sheets. Which of these BEST explains why Abe adopted this new attitude?

cognitive dissonance theory

Our attitudes about another person are MOST likely to influence the way we treat that person if our attitudes are:

stable.

In an experiment by David Napolitan and George Goethals, a young woman acted either aloof and critical to one group of students or warm and friendly to the other. Some of them in each group were told that she would be acting spontaneously, and some were told the truth—that she was merely acting aloof or friendly. What effect did knowing the truth, or not knowing the truth, have on the students' opinion of the woman?

Knowing the truth beforehand did not have any effect on how the students perceived her, either negatively or positively.

social facilitation

improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others

Your boss wants to meet with you this afternoon. You are sure it is about the customers who complained about you yesterday. Your best-case scenario would be for your boss to decide that your behavior was the result of:

situational attribution

Researchers asked homeowners for permission to install a large, poorly lettered sign in their front yards. Only 17 percent of the homeowners consented to the installations. Researchers then approached different homeowners and asked if they could post a small sign. Nearly all agreed. Then, when asked two weeks later if they could post the large, ugly sign, 76 percent consented. The results of this experiment support:

the foot-in-the-door phenomenon.

You are trying to convince your parents to send you to Europe. First, you ask them for a small favor (a bus ticket to a local city), hoping that later they will be more willing to send you on the longer trip. This technique is known as:

the foot-in-the-door phenomenon.

What is minimized when a social influence impacts a person's behavior?

the fundamental attribution error

In terrible situations, some people succumb to the situation and others do not. The difference best illustrates:

the interactive influence of persons and situations.