Exam 2 Flashcards
1
Q
What is the feeling of discomfort when confronted with information implying that we may have behaved in ways that are irrational, immoral, or stupid called?
A
Cognitive dissonance
2
Q
What are the three basic ways we try to reduce our cognitive dissonance?
A
- Changing our behavior
- Changing one of the dissonant cognitions
- Adding new cognitions
3
Q
What is the impact bias?
A
The tendency to overestimate the intensity and duration of our emotional reactions to future negative events.
4
Q
The process of reducing dissonance is largely _______?
A
Unconscious
5
Q
What is post-decision dissonance?
A
Dissonance aroused after making a decision, typically reduced by enhancing the attractiveness of the chosen alternative and devaluating the rejected alternatives.
6
Q
The more important the decision, the greater the __________?
A
Dissonance
7
Q
What is lowballing?
A
Salesperson induces a customer to agree to purchase a product at a very low cost and subsequently claims it was an error, and then raises the price.
8
Q
What is the justification of effort?
A
The tendency for individuals to increase their liking for something they have worked hard to attain.
9
Q
What is external justification?
A
A reason or an explanation for dissonant personal behavior that resides outside the individual.
10
Q
What is internal justification?
A
The reduction of dissonance by changing something about oneself.
11
Q
What is counter-attitudinal advocacy?
A
Stating an opinion or attitude that runs counter to one’s private belief or attitude.
12
Q
What is insufficient punishment?
A
The dissonance aroused when individuals lack sufficient external justification for having resisted a desired activity or object, usually resulting in individuals devaluing the forbidden activity or object.
13
Q
What is self-persuasion?
A
A long-lasting form of attitude change that results from attempts at self-justification.
14
Q
What are attitudes?
A
Evaluations of people, objects, and ideas.
15
Q
What are explicit attitudes?
A
Attitudes that we consciously endorse and can easily report.
16
Q
What are implicit attitudes?
A
Attitudes that are involuntary, uncontrollable, and at times unconscious.
17
Q
What is cognitively based attitude?
A
An attitude based primarily on people’s beliefs about the properties of an attitude object.
18
Q
What is affectively based attitude?
A
An attitude based more on people’s feelings and values than on their beliefs about the nature of an attitude object.
19
Q
What is classical conditioning?
A
The phenomenon whereby a stimulus that elicits an emotional response is repeatedly paired with a neutral stimulus that does not until the neutral stimulus takes on the emotional properties of the first stimulus.
20
Q
What is operant conditioning?
A
The phenomenon whereby behaviors that people freely choose to perform increase or decrease in frequency depending on whether they are followed by positive reinforcement or punishment.
21
Q
What is behaviorally based attitude?
A
An attitude based on observations of how one behaves toward an attitude object.
22
Q
What is persuasive communication?
A
Communication advocating a particular side of an issue.
23
Q
What is the Yale Attitude Chance Approach?
A
The study of the conditions under which people are most likely to change their attitudes in response to persuasive messages.
24
Q
What is the central route to persuasion?
A
The case whereby people elaborate on a persuasive communication, listening carefully to and thinking about the arguments, as occurs when people have both the ability and the motivation to listen carefully to a communication.
25
What is the peripheral route to persuasion?
The case whereby people do not elaborate on the arguments in a persuasive communication but are instead swayed by peripheral cues.
26
What is the need for cognition?
A personality variable reflecting the extent to which people engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activities.
27
What are fear-arousing communications?
Persuasive messages that attempt to change people's attitudes by arousing their fears.
28
What is attitude inoculation?
Making people immune to attempts to change their attitudes by initially exposing them to small doses of the arguments against their position.
29
What is the reactance theory?
The idea that when people feel their freedom to perform a certain behavior is threatened, an unpleasant state of reactance is aroused, which they can reduce by performing the threatened behavior.
30
What is attitude accessibility?
The strength of the association between an attitude object and a persons evaluation of that object, measured by the speed with which people can report how they feel about the object.
31
What is theory of planned behavior?
The idea that the best predictors of a persons planned, deliberate behaviors are the person's attitudes toward specific behaviors, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control.
32
What are subliminal messages?
Words or pictures that are not consciously perceived but may nevertheless influence peoples judgements.
33
What is conformity?
A change in one's behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people.
34
What are the three types of conformity?
Obedience, compliance, and acceptance.
35
What is the informational social influence?
Seeing others as a source of information to guide our behavior.
36
What is private acceptance?
Conforming to other people's behavior out of a genuine belief that what they are doing or saying is right.
37
What is public compliance?
Conforming to other people's behavior publicly without necessarily believing in what we are doing or saying.
38
What is contagion?
The rapid spread of emotions or behaviors through a crowd.
39
What is mass psychogenic illness?
The occurrence, in a group of people, of similar physical symptoms with no known physical cause.
40
What are social norms?
The implicit or explicit rules a group has for the acceptable behaviors, values, and beliefs of its members.
41
What is normative social influence?
The influence of other people that leads us to conform in order to be liked and accepted by them.
42
What is idiosyncrasy credits?
The tolerance a person earns, over time, by conforming to group norms.
43
What is minority influence?
The case where a minority of group members influence the behavior of beliefs of the majority.
44
What are inductive norms?
Peoples perceptions of what behaviors are approved or disapproved of by others.
45
What are descriptive norms?
Peoples perceptions of how people actually behave in given situations, regardless of whether the behavior is approved or disapproved of by others.
46
What is a group?
Three or more people who interact and are interdependent in the sense that their needs and goals cause them to influence each other.
47
What are social roles?
Shared expectations in a group about how particular people are supposed to behave.
48
What is group cohesiveness?
Qualities of a group that bind members together and promote living between members.
49
What is social facilitation?
The tendency for people to do better on simple tasks and worse on complex tasks when they are in the presence of others and their individual performance can be evaluated.
50
What is social loafing?
The tendency for people to do worse on simple tasks but better on complex tasks when they are in the presence of others and their individual performance cannot be evaluated.
51
What is deindividuation?
The loosening of normal constraints on behavior when people can't be identified, leading to an increase in impulsive and deviant acts.
52
What is process loss?
Any aspect of group interaction that inhibits good problem solving.
53
What is transactive memory?
The combined memory of two people that is more efficient than the memory of either individual.
54
What is groupthink?
A kind of thinking in which maintaining group cohesiveness and solidarity is more important than considering the facts in a realistic manner.
55
What is group polarization?
The tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclinations of its members.
56
What is a social dilemma?
A conflict in which the most beneficial action for an individual will, if chosen by most people, have harmful effects on everyone.
57
What is public goods dilemma?
A social dilemma in which individuals must contribute to a common pool in order to maintain the public good.
58
What is commons dilemma?
A social dilemma in which everyone takes from a common pool of goods that will replenish itself if used in moderation but will disappear if overused.
59
What is negotiation?
A form of communication between opposing sides in a conflict in which offers and counteroffers are made and a solution occurs only when both parties agree.
60
What is integrative solution?
Each side concedes the most on issues that are unimportant to it but important to the other side.
61
What are mediators?
Mediators are better at finding common interested and assessing priorities of each group.
62
Although social groups vary tremendously (e.g., families, sororities, sports teams, religious congregations), they are all alike in that:
actions are guided by norms.
63
Baron (1986) has found that flashing lights can cause the same social facilitation effects as the presence of other people. These findings support the idea that ________ is the source of arousal that enhances performance on simple tasks.
distraction
64
Both social facilitation and social loafing are examples of the influence that the presence of others has on our behaviors. These phenomena differ, however, in that presence of others ________ in social facilitation situations and ________ in social loafing situations.
increases arousal; decreases arousal
65
According to a social comparison interpretation, group polarization tends to occur because individuals can present themselves in a more ________ light by taking slightly more ________ positions than the norm of the group.
positive; extreme
65
According to a social comparison interpretation, group polarization tends to occur because individuals can present themselves in a more ________ light by taking slightly more ________ positions than the norm of the group.
positive; extreme
66
According to Irving Janis (1972, 1982), groupthink occurs when groups value ________ over ________.
cohesiveness and solidarity; a realistic consideration of the facts
67
Zajonc (1965) wrote an influential article in which he posited a theoretical explanation for the social facilitation effect. Elegantly simple, this explanation included two steps:
the presence of others causes arousal, and arousal makes it easier to do simple things and harder to do difficult or new things.
68
The text described a recent situation in which novelist Stephen King began publishing a novel called The Plant in installments over the Internet, asking readers to pay $1 per installment. He indicated that if at least 75 percent of the people who downloaded the novel paid the fee, he would keep writing and posting new installments, but if fewer than 75 percent paid the fee, he would stop writing and people would never get the rest of the novel. King posed a ________ dilemma for his readers.
social
69
Based on work on deindividuation, in which context is Janine most likely to make offensive comments towards Harry, with whom she is angry?
when she is on an Internet chatroom anonymously
70
Consider the following destructive acts: soccer fans bludgeoning one another, fans at rock concerts trampling one another to death to secure good seats, and Klansmen lynching African Americans. All of these are examples of the dangerous effects of
deindividuation.
71
For Halloween, Jeff wears a sheet and goes to a party as a ghost. How is this costume likely to influence his behavior? He will
feel less personally accountable for his behavior.
72
Why would Muzafer Sherif, a social psychologist, choose the autokinetic effect (a perceptual illusion) to study social conformity? He wanted
to construct a situation that was ambiguous.
73
You are a little confused about how to address your new boss. Even though you are told that your new supervisor's name is Charlie Rose, you have noticed that everyone at work calls him "Boss." You, too, decide to start calling your supervisor "Boss." This decision is a product of
informational social influence.
74
You have been hired to help design a campaign to get people to conserve energy. Based on the research by Nolan and colleagues (2008), what is the most effective way to convince people to conserve?
tell them that their neighbors are doing it
75
Which of the following comparisons represents the strength dimension as defined by social impact theory (Latané, 1981)?
friends versus strangers
76
In a field study by Shultz and his colleagues (2007), several households in a neighborhood received weekly feedback about their level of energy consumption relative to their neighbors. Feedback about how much energy they used relative to their neighbors provided participants with ________ norms.
descriptive
77
Complete the following analogy: injunctive norm: ________:: descriptive norm: ________.
approval; observed
78
During a drought, Lynne noticed that all of her neighbors had stopped watering their lawns even though there were no laws against it. Lynne was following a(n) ________ norm when she let her lawn turn brown, too.
descriptive
79
Execution teams who work at prisons tend to deny personal responsibility for the executions and state that they are just following orders. Such justifications for taking a human life illustrate that when people obey authority they can
externally justify their actions.
80
Based on research by Goldstein and colleagues (2008), which of the following techniques would be most effective in getting hotel guests to reuse their bath towels?
putting a sign in the room stating that that majority of guests in this room reuse the towel
81
According to Latané's (1981) social impact theory, as group size increases from two to three members, the impact will increase ________ if a group increases from twenty-nine to thirty members.
more than
82
________ attitudes are based primarily on people's beliefs about properties of attitude objects.
Cognitively based
83
"Experts are always right" and "Expensive means quality" are some examples of how ________ can be used in persuasion.
heuristics
84
According to research presented in the chapter, consumers' attitudes toward products such as perfumes and greeting cards are ________ based because they are informed by ________.
affectively; values and the self-concept
85
According to the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion, people who ________ are most likely to take the ________ route to persuasion.
are motivated to pay attention; central
86
According to the heuristic-systematic model of persuasion, when people use the peripheral route of persuasion, they rely on
heuristics
87
According to the tenets of cognitive dissonance theory, people are most likely to change their attitudes when they have ________ justification for an attitude-discrepant behavior.
insufficient external
88
Aicha's whole family loves the Red Sox. Recently, Aicha has begun rooting for the Yankees. When she's at home, she receives a lot of jokes and disapproval from her family. This reaction to her behavior is a(n)
punishment
89
All of the following are characteristics of affectively based attitudes except that they are
governed by logic.
90
André is not at all familiar with a presidential candidate's stand on the issues or with his proposed policies, but André likes "his" candidate and plans to vote for him anyway. This example illustrates that people's attitudes toward politicians are often
affectively based.
91
Attitude inoculation is the process of making people immune to persuasion attempts by
exposing them to arguments against their position.
92
________ refers to the dissonance aroused after we have chosen between two or more alternatives.
Postdecision dissonance
93
A mother is trying to get her child to behave in the store and to stop running around, yelling, and grabbing things off the shelves. According to cognitive dissonance theory, if she wants to stop the child's behavior immediately for the time being, she should use a ________, but if she wants to more permanently change the behavior she should use a ________.
large punishment; small punishment
94
A person who supports gay marriage listens to a televised debate between two politicians on either side of the issue. According to dissonance theory, this person is likely to remember
the most plausible arguments in favor of gay marriage and the most implausible arguments against it.
95
A tobacco grower says, "I'm not the only one growing it. If I stop, someone else will be there." Assuming that the man was experiencing dissonance from the fact that he was making his living from a crop that is bad for people's health, he appears to be reducing this dissonance by
adding new cognitions.
96
According to results of dissonance studies, who is more likely to believe that lying is truly a heinous, unconscionable, and unforgivable act?
Mark, who was tempted to lie, but told the truth instead
97
Aronson and Mills (1959) performed an experiment in which college women were invited to join a discussion group about sex. In order to join the group, participants had to undergo either a severe initiation, a mild initiation, or no initiation. Which of the following best describes this study's findings? Women who underwent ________ initiation enjoyed the discussion the ________.
a severe; most
98
As mentioned in the text, a Yale researcher (Cohen, 1962) paid some students relatively little and others relatively more to write an essay that contradicted their true beliefs about the local police. Results of his experiment demonstrated that
in the absence of large incentives, students changed their attitudes about the police.
99
Dissonance theory helps us understand the apparently irrational behavior of cult members, such as those in the Heaven's Gate cult and at Jonestown who committed mass suicide. All of the following except ________ tend to increase dissonance and hence the extreme dissonance-reducing commitment to the cult or cause and the beliefs of the leaders.
the negative self-concepts of many people who join cults
100
Jay just found out that he was not accepted into his dream college. Based on information from the authors of your text about impact bias, which of the following best reflects how Jay will react?
He will get over it rather quickly.
101
Lisa is a car salesperson. She has just gotten you to agree to a deal on a new car and to write out a check for the down payment. She takes this to her manager and comes back a while later saying that, because of taxes and fees, the price of the car will actually come out to $600 over what you agreed upon. According to the research on lowballing, which of the following is most likely to occur?
You would decide to buy the car anyway because there is an illusion of irrevocability (i.e., you don't feel that you can reverse your decision).
