david myers own final study guide Flashcards
One of the central ideas of social psychology is
attitudes shape behavior and behavior shapes attitudes.
Given that social thinking, social influence, and social relations are among the “big ideas” that are important in social psychology, what in particular is noteworthy about the concept of social relations?
social behavior is also bioloogical behavior
One reason you may not study so hard for your first test in this class is because
social psychology seems obvious because of the hindsight bias.
Who is most likely to ask “How do brain, mind, and behavior function together as one coordinated system?”
social neuroscientist
An idea such as “a child’s gender development is directly related to his/her cognitive development” could be called
theory
A researcher, interested in whether the mere presence of others affects individual behavior, designs a study in which individuals are asked to make a speech to either an empty room or a room with five people in it. This type of study is best described as __________.
laboratory experiment
An investigator, who wishes to study the attitudes of people in Illinois, identifies 1,000 people in Illinois, taking care that the percentages of male and female, young and old, education level, and occupation are the same in the sample as in the state’s total population. What kind of sample is the investigator trying to obtain?
representative sample
I ask you to describe who you are and you tell me your sex, age, political preference, personality traits, and other information you think is relevant. You are describing your
self concept
Ed believes that his wife knows how he feels and what he is thinking just by looking at him. Social psychologists call this erroneous belief
the illusion of transparency
Victor walks into the room at a party, and everyone stares. He is devastatingly handsome. All the other guys feel bad. One reason could be due to
social comparison effects
A person from a collectivist culture would most likely value
harmonious relationships
Bruce tells his girlfriend “If you don’t tell me I’m the most good-looking guy you’ve ever gone out with, the best dresser, the best dancer, the smartest, and have the nicest car, I’ll have to break up with you.” This reflects Bruce’s
narcissism
Sometimes, when a person has repeat failure experiences in several different areas of their life, they feel overwhelmed with problems, and they feel hopeless to solve their problems, they lose motivation to better themselves. This has been described as
learned helplessness
People who act like “social chameleons”—those who seem to change behavior and attitudes to fit every situation they’re in—are generally considered
high self monitors
Your friend just took a new job. She meets you for drinks after her first week on the job and complains about her boss. This surprises you, because you’ve never heard her complain about a boss before, and she rarely complains in general. According to Harold Kelley’s model, this information helps explain her behavior because her boss is
distinctive
Which action is most likely to bring about an event?
expecting events
Research has shown that subjects who were presented with aging-related words on a sentence completion task were later observed walking to an elevator slower than subjects who were not presented with aging-related words. This demonstrates
priming
If you showed identical research to proponents and opponents of capital punishment, what outcome would you expect to see?
each side would become polarized
After the movie Jaws came out, and again in the early 1990s after “Summer of the Shark,” many people were afraid to go in the ocean. This is due to
the availability heuristic
“It always rains after I wash the car.” This statement is an example of
illusory correlation
Research by Allan Wicker (1969) found that
expressed attitudes hardly ever predict behvior
An important lesson of role-playing studies is that
what is unreal can evolve into what is real
When our behavior is out of sync with our attitudes, it is called
cognitive dissonance
Self-presentation theory argues that people will adopt attitudes consistent with behaviors in order to
create good impressions
A teenager is out with her friends at the mall. Although she doesn’t believe in shoplifting, when they all take earrings and put them in their pockets, she does as well. As a result, she will most likely experience
cognitive dissonance
If poll takers standing outside election voting centers survey entering voters on which candidate they prefer, and then ask exiting voters who they voted for, there would be a high correlation between initial preference and actual vote. In this specific example, this is because
when an attitude is strong its a good predictor of behavior
social conflict does not include
cooperation
The adaptive change in frequency of specific genes over generations is
natural selection
Which field of psychology uses the principle of natural selection?
evolutionary
Which of the following is not an element of persuasion?
the physical location
The best known universal taboo is the taboo against
incest
Which of the following is not characteristic of females?
being more likely to commit suicide than men
Based on the research, we would expect to see a higher rate of teen pregnancy when
men are scarce
One criticism of evolutionary psychology’s speculation about sex and gender is that
it suffers from hindsight bias
A change in behavior or belief that results from real or imagined group pressure is referred to by social psychologists as
conformity
After Marilyn Monroe’s suicide, there were 200 more suicides in the United States than was typical. This was due to the suspected effects of
mass suggestibility
How did the obedience observed in Milgram’s study differ from the conformity observed in Asch’s study?
there was an expressed command in milgrams study but not in asch’s
Which lesson about evil do we learn from Milgram’s research?
social forces can induce ordinary people to engage in civil acts
Concern for social image involves __________ influence; the desire to be correct involves __________ influence.
normative / informational
Shelley’s mother insists that Shelly come directly home after school. Instead, in an effort to protect her sense of freedom, Shelley goes to the mall with her friends after school, demonstrating what social psychologists call
reactance
