Chapter 5 Questions

Question 1

Organized beliefs we have about stimuli in our social world are known as ____ .

Answer 1

schemas

Question 2

What topic do people spend the greatest amount of time thinking about?

Answer 2

People

Question 3

Which of the following is NOT one of the elements that distinguishes automatic from deliberate processes? Awareness, efficiency, effort, relevance

Answer 3

relevance

Question 4

During their first year of medical school, many medical students begin to think that they and other people they know are suffering from serious illness. This phenomenon, known as the medical student syndrome, is probably due to ____ .

Answer 4

priming

Question 5

You and I work on a joint project, and it succeeds. In describing our relative contributions to the project, you assume that your contribution is greater than mine, but I assume that my contribution is greater than yours. This illustrates the ____

Answer 5

self-serving bias

Question 6

Jose reads Sabrina’s essay that strongly supports capital punishment. Jose knows that Sabrina had been assigned the task of writing the essay favoring capital punishment by her debate teacher. Jose is likely to determine what/if anything about Sabrina?

Answer 6

He is likely to believe that Sabrina does, at least to some extent, favor capital punishment.

Question 7

Which of the following is NOT an explanation given for the fundamental attribution error?
A. Behavior is more noticeable that situational factors.
B. People assign insufficient weight to situational causes even when they are made aware of them.
C. People are cognitive misers.
D. People are high in need for cognition.

Answer 7

D. People are high in need for cognition

Question 8

According to Bertram Malle, what is the most important dimension people use when making attributions about the behavior of others?

Answer 8

Intentional/accidental

Question 9

The strategy of judging the likelihood of things by how well they match particular prototypes constitutes the ____ heuristic.

Answer 9

representativeness

Question 10

People’s greater fear of flying than of driving can probably best be explained by the ____ heuristic.

Answer 10

availability

Question 11

“If only I hadn’t driven home from work using a different route,” thinks Minh, “then my car would not have been hit in the rear by that other driver!” Minh’s statement most clearly reflects ____ .

Answer 11

counterfactual thinking

Question 12

Masako asked two friends to estimate the number of people living in Tokyo. The correct answer, as of 2019, is about 14 million. She asked the first friend whether it was more or less than 8 million. She asked the second friend whether it was more or less than 20 million. The first friend guessed 10 million people, whereas the second friend guessed 18 million people. The difference in estimates can best be explained using the ____ heuristic.

Answer 12

anchoring and adjustment

Question 13

The current view of attributions assumes that people try to explain the behavior of others they start by focusing on ____ actions.

Answer 13

intended versus unintended

Question 14

Which of the following standard views of heuristic thinking may be incorrect based on the current evidence?

a. automatic
b. effortless
c. flawed
d. quick

Answer 14

c. flawed

Question 15

According to the standard view, people think in order to find ____ .

Answer 15

the truth

Question 16

According to the current view, people think in order to find ____ .

Answer 16

an answer that will be persuasive to others

Question 17

Gamblers who throw dice softly to get low numbers and who throw harder to get high numbers are demonstrating ____ .

Answer 17

The illusion of control

Question 18

Which sequence of six coin flips is least likely to occur?

a. TTTTTT
b. TTTTHH
c. THTTHH
d. All the above are equally likely to occur.

Answer 18

d. All the above are equally likely to occur.

Question 19

If you scored 99 out of 100 on your first social psychology exam, you are likely to score lower on the second exam, even if you are equally knowledgeable about the material on both exams. This is an example of ____ .

Answer 19

regression to the mean

Question 20

Gustov gets in an accident in which his new car is totaled, but he received only minor injuries. Gustov thinks to himself, “At least I’m still alive. I could have died.” This type of thinking illustrates which concept?

Answer 20

Downward counterfactual thinking

Question 21

What system is mainly responsible for the cognitive errors that people make?

Answer 21

The automatic system

Question 22

People make fewer cognitive errors when they are making decisions about ____ .

Answer 22

Very serious matters like survival and reproduction

Question 23

Which type of graduate training that teaches statistical reasoning is most effective in reducing cognitive errors?

a. business
b. chemistry
c. law
d. psychology

Answer 23

d. psychology

Question 24

The analysis of cognitions is called ____ .

Answer 24

meta-cognition