Chapter 8: Culture and Cognition

Which of the following theories suggests that people in urbanized, industrialized societies are used to seeing things that are rectangular in shape and unconsciously come to expect things to have squared corners? a) Carpentered world theory b) Rectangular perception theory c) Right angle perception theory d) Front-horizontal theory

a) Carpentered world theory

_____ can be defined as hypothetical beliefs about the past that could have occurred in order to avoid or change a negative outcome a) Counterfactual thinking b) Emotional thinking c) Pragmatic thinking d) Practical thinking

a) Counterfactual thinking

Which of the following represents Steele's view on stereotype threats? a) He posited that societal stereotypes about a group can influence the performance of individuals from that group. b) He stated that standardized test will not help in testing IQ levels of people belonging to different cultures. c) He claimed that implementation of standardized test for intellectual ability will decrease the detrimental effects of stereotype threats. d) He posited that stereotype threats are present only among the African American community in the United States.

a) He posited that societal stereotypes about a group can influence the performance of individuals from that group.

Which of the following statements is true of positive logical determinism? a) It is a tendency to see contradictions as mutually exclusive categories, as either-or, yes-no, one-or-the-other types of categories. b) It the tendency to accept what seem to be contradictions in thought or beliefs. c) It tries to find the way in which both sides of an apparent contradiction are correct. d) It aims at finding the mutual middle ground to problems.

a) It is a tendency to see contradictions as mutually exclusive categories, as either-or, yes-no, one-or-the-other types of categories.

Which of the following statements is true of culture? a) It was created by groups to solve complex problems of living and social life, enabling them to survive more functionally and effectively. b) It is not possible to access the mental models of culture that influence a person's way of thinking, feeling, and behaving. c) It does not have a strong cognitive component like evolution of language. d) It only refers to the individual mental representations of one's habits.

a) It was created by groups to solve complex problems of living and social life, enabling them to survive more functionally and effectively.

By creating categories and placing stimuli in those categories, we can process information more efficiently. a) True b) False

a) true

Culture influences the experiences and perception of pain in terms of the language associated with pain. a) True b) False

a) true

Gender stratification hypothesis suggests that gender differences are related to cultural variations in opportunity structures for girls and women. a) True b) False

a) true

Problem solving refers to the process by which we attempt to discover ways of achieving goals that do not seem readily attainable. a) True b) False

a) true

Studies of an area known as everyday cognition indicate that, even without formal educational systems, members of all cultures learn math skills. a) True b) False

a) true

The process of categorization is universal to all humans, and some categories appear to be universal across cultures. a) True b) False

a) true

Which of the following statements is true in the context of culture and memory? a) Memory abilities remain constant with age. b) Cultural differences in memory as a function of oral tradition may be limited to meaningful material. c) Individuals from nonliterate societies have vastly inferior memory skills compared to Westerners. d) Memory abilities improve with age among Japanese and Koreans.

b) Cultural differences in memory as a function of oral tradition may be limited to meaningful material.

_____ refers to the recollection of specific events that took place at a particular time and place in the past. a) Semantic memory b) Episodic memory c) Implicit memory d) Procedural memory

b) Episodic memory

Which of the following statements is true of dreams based on numerous studies on that topic? a) There are no cultural differences in terms of dreams. b) In many cultures, dreams are an important part of the cultural system, involving an organized, conventional set of signs. c) Dreams are not an important vehicle for social understanding. d) Dreams does not help in the assessment of personal and social distress.

b) In many cultures, dreams are an important part of the cultural system, involving an organized, conventional set of signs

Which of the following statements is true of the Mueller-Lyer illusion? a) In this illusion, subjects viewing the two figures typically judge the line with the arrowheads pointing out as longer. b) In this illusion, subjects viewing the two figures typically judge the line with the arrowheads pointing in as longer. c) In this illusion, subjects typically judge the horizontal line as longer. d) In this illusion, subjects typically judge the vertical line as longer.

b) In this illusion, subjects viewing the two figures typically judge the line with the arrowheads pointing in as longer.

Which of the following statements is true of collective intelligence? a) It is strongly correlated with the average intelligence of group members. b) It is strongly correlated with the average social sensitivity of group members. c) It does not account for the proportion of females in a group. d) It does not account for the equality in distribution of conversational turn-taking in a group.

b) It is strongly correlated with the average social sensitivity of group members.

Which of the following best defines sensation? a) It refers to the focusing of our limited capacities of consciousness on a particular set of stimuli. b) It refers to the feelings that result from excitation of the sensory receptors such as touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing. c) It refers to the ability to understand the meaning or importance of something. d) It refers to the ability of brain to categorize various sensory perceptions that result from chemical stimulation.

b) It refers to the feelings that result from excitation of the sensory receptors such as touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing.

_____ are perceptions that involve an apparent discrepancy between how an object looks and what it actually is. a) Discrepant perception b) Optical illusions c) Focal point illusions d) Apparent perception

b) Optical illusions

The term _____ denotes all the mental processes one uses to transform sensory input into knowledge. a) aspiration b) cognition c) information d) initiation

b) cognition

In the context of the effects of the Mueller-Lyer illusion, Stewart in 1973 reported that the effects of the illusion: a) vary by gender. b) decline with age. c) differ with race. d) diminish with rise in income.

b) decline with age.

According to Sternberg (1986), componential intelligence refers to the ability to formulate new ideas and combine unrelated facts. a) True b) False

b) false

According to Stigler and Baranes, math skills are logically constructed on the basis of abstract cognitive structures, and not forged out of a combination of previously acquired knowledge and skills, and cultural input. a) True b) False

b) false

Cultural differences in memories of the recent past do not affect responses to current day events. a) True b) False

b) false

Positive logical determinism can be broadly defined as the tendency to accept what seem to be contradictions in thought or beliefs. a) True b) False

b) false

In the context of visual perception, the _____ suggests that people in Western cultures focus more on representations on paper than do people in other cultures, and in particular spend more time learning to interpret pictures. a) vertical-horizontal line theory b) symbolizing three dimensions in two theory c) foreign concept theory d) carpentered world theory

b) symbolizing three dimensions in two theory

In the horizontal-vertical illusion, subjects typically respond that: a) the horizontal line is longer. b) the vertical line is longer. c) the lines are of the same length. d) the lines are crisscrossed.

b) the vertical line is longer.

Identify a true statement about time in the context of culture. a) Studies have not found any difference in perception of time across different cultures. b) Difference in time orientation is never a source of confusion for people across cultures. c) Cultural differences in time orientation may be related to interesting and important aspects of behavior. d) People across cultures maintain and follow the same order of time.

c) Cultural differences in time orientation may be related to interesting and important aspects of behavior.

_____ refers to the process in which individuals adjust their memory for something after they find out the true outcome. a) Outcome bias b) Information bias c) Hindsight bias d) Congruence bias

c) Hindsight bias

Which of the following statements is true of categorization? a) It is inconsequential in decision making. b) It makes processing of information inefficient. c) It helps people keep track of what they are thinking about. d) It creates confusion while making decisions.

c) It helps people keep track of what they are thinking about.

Which of the following is true of social orientation hypothesis? a) It states that cultures differ in the holistic versus analytic social orientation patterns. b) Analytic social orientation emphasizes harmony, relatedness, and connection. c) It states that cultures differ in independent versus interdependent social orientation patterns. d) Interdependence orientation leads to a tendency to focus on a single dimension or aspect when categorizing objects or evaluating arguments.

c) It states that cultures differ in independent versus interdependent social orientation patterns.

Which of the following is true of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in the context of pain? a) It states that cultural differences in pain experiences, such as pain response, may occur quite early in life for English speakers. b) It states that individuals in poor and developing countries develop a higher tolerance to pain compared to those in developed countries. c) It suggests that the structure of language, which is highly dependent on culture, affects our perceptions and cognitions of our pain experiences. d) It suggests that our individual pain threshold, not our culture, is responsible for the way that we perceive pain.

c) It suggests that the structure of language, which is highly dependent on culture, affects our perceptions and cognitions of our pain experiences.

_____ refers to the process of gathering information about the world through our senses. a) Attention b) Focus c) Perception d) Initiation

c) Perception

In which illusion do the subjects typically report that the horizontal line closer to the origin of the diagonals is longer than the one away from the origin? a) Poggendorff illusion b) Muller-Lyer illusion c) Ponzo illusion d) Horizontal-vertical illusion

c) Ponzo illusion

Which of the following is true of the 1905 study conducted by W. H. R. Rivers on responses to the Mueller-Lyer and horizontal-vertical illusions? a) The English were more fooled by the horizontal-vertical illusion than were the Indians and New Guineans. b) The only factor that led to the differences in response was education. c) The English saw the lines in the Mueller-Lyer illusion as being more different in length than Indians and New Guineans. d) The effects of illusion did not differ by culture.

c) The English saw the lines in the Mueller-Lyer illusion as being more different in length than Indians and New Guineans.

In the context of the study by Masuda and Nisbett on attention involving American and Japanese students, people in Western cultures tend to engage in context-independent and _____ processes by focusing on a salient object (or person) independently from the context in which it is embedded. a) holistic perceptual b) naturalistic perceptual c) analytic perceptual d) scientific perceptual

c) analytic perceptual

In a cross-cultural study by Masuda and Nisbett (2001) involving Japanese and American students to find the influence of culture on attention, it was found that: a) there were minor differences in recalling the focal object in the picture. b) there were major differences in recalling the focal object in the picture. c) the Japanese students remembered more of the background objects. d) the American students remembered more of the background objects.

c) the Japanese students remembered more of the background objects.

Steele and Aronson (1995) reported that when black students were asked to record their race on a demographic questionnaire before taking a standardized test: a) they performed the same as compared to black students who were not primed to think about their race before taking the test. b) they performed significantly better compared to black students who were not primed to think about their race before taking the test. c) they performed worse than the black students who were not primed to think about their race before taking the test. d) they performed better than the whites who were primed to think about their race before taking the test.

c) they performed worse than the black students who were not primed to think about their race before taking the test.

Ji, Zhang, and Nisbett (2004) conducted tests with Americans and bilingual Chinese (mainland and Taiwan) participants, having them group sets of three words in either English or Chinese. The test suggested that the cultural differences in categorization styles _____. a) were affected by education b) were not affected by education c) were not affected by language d) were affected by language

c) were not affected by language

_____ refers to the focusing of our limited capacities of consciousness on a particular set of stimuli. a) Initiation b) Aspiration c) Perception d) Attention

d) Attention

Hudson, in 1960, conducted a study that highlighted cultural differences in perception and found that: a) even Bantu tribe members who had been educated in European schools saw the pictures as other tribe members. b) differences in depth perception were neither related to education nor to exposure to European cultures. c) Western people do not often use relevant size as a cue to depth in pictures. d) Bantu tribe members did not use relative size as a cue to depth.

d) Bantu tribe members did not use relative size as a cue to depth.

_____ refers to the manner in which people group things together. It is one of the basic mental processes. a) Idiocentrism b) Centration c) Infrahumanization d) Categorization

d) Categorization

Which theory suggests that we interpret vertical lines as horizontal lines extending into the distance? a) Dimensional space theory b) Front extension theory c) Vertical extension theory d) Front-horizontal foreshortening theory

d) Front-horizontal foreshortening theory

_____ is a constellation of lay beliefs about the nature of the world. It is characterized by the doctrine of the mean, or the belief that the truth is always somewhere in the middle. a) Lay compromise b) Dialectical thinking c) Lay dialectivism d) Naïve dialectivism

d) Naïve dialectivism

Which of the following is true of the comparative study by Segall and colleagues between the Mueller-Lyer illusion and horizontal-vertical illusions? a) The horizontal-vertical illusion was only limited to the primitive groups. b) The horizontal-vertical illusion was only limited to the industrialized groups. c) The Mueller-Lyer illusion was stronger for the non-industrialized groups. d) The Mueller-Lyer illusion was stronger for the industrialized groups.

d) The Mueller-Lyer illusion was stronger for the industrialized groups.

Which of the following suggests that we remember things better if they are either the first or last item in a list of things to remember? a) The order effect b) The presentation effect c) The indexing effect d) The serial position effect

d) The serial position effect

In the context of cognition, which of the following statements is true of creativity? a) Cultures that have histories of greater prevalence of disease-causing pathogens are associated with greater creativity. b) It depends on convergent thinking rather than divergent thinking that is typically assessed in measures of intelligence. c) Creative individuals have been shown to have low capacity for hard work, and a low tolerance for ambiguity and disorder. d) Time spent living abroad, but not time spent traveling abroad, was positively related with creativity.

d) Time spent living abroad, but not time spent traveling abroad, was positively related with creativity

Scarr and Weinberg (1976) offered evidence for a(n) _____ basis of intelligence. They showed that black and interracial children adopted by white families scored above the IQ and school achievement means for whites. a) ethnic b) instinctive c) genetic d) environmental

d) environmental

All humans have a blind spot in each eye, a spot with no sensory receptors, but there is no blind spot in our conscious perception. With the help of micro eye movements called _____ our brains fill this spot in so it looks as if we see everything. a) retinal stabilization b) ocular microtremors c) ocular drifts d) microsaccades

d) microsaccades

In the context of human thinking, _____ is a method used to determine if one stimulus affects another. a) regression testing b) screening c) stimulus testing d) priming

d) priming

In an early study conducted by Chiu (1972) on Chinese and American children, the American children grouped objects according to _____, whereas the Chinese children grouped objects according to _____. a) seemingly unrelated features; structural or circumstantial relationships b) shared contextual or functional relationships; shared features c) structural or circumstantial relationships; seemingly unrelated features d) shared features; shared contextual or functional relationships

d) shared features; shared contextual or functional relationships