Exam 2 (chap 1-6 and 9) Flashcards
Phillips’s research on the impact of media coverage of car-crash suicides revealed that following a publicized suicide:
victims of “suicide” accidents tended to be of similar age as the victim of the publicized suicide
A research study that separated one group of schoolchildren from their electronic devices over a five-day summer camp stay found that when they returned home from the summer camp, they:
had increased social intelligence compared to their scores before the trip
During the 1988 presidential campaign, Willie Horton was candidate George Bush’s (the elder) most valuable player because
Bush used peripheral advertising to discuss this felon’s release from prison
Assume that a speaker has low credibility with the audience. For maximum attitude change, how discrepant from the audience’s initial position should the communication be?
Moderately discrepant
In the case of people with low self-esteem, communications that arouse a great deal of fear tend to:
inhibit immediate action but are effective after a delay
Walster and Festinger conducted an experiment in which subjects “overheard” a conversation between two graduate students, one of whom expressed an opinion on a certain issue. Subjects’ opinions were influenced by the graduate student’s opinion when:
the subject believed the graduate students were unaware of his or her presence
The “Don’t Mess with Texas” campaign resulted in:
a drop of 72% in littering on Texas highways
Evolutionary psychologists argue that over time (i.e., a millennia), the two sets of core attitudes displayed by conservatives and liberals would:
have adaptive benefits for human societies
Generally, high-fear appeals are more effective than low-fear appeals in producing behavior change when:
the issue is moderately important to the audience
When a person is exposed to a watered-down attack on his or her beliefs, this produces resistance to later persuasion because:
the person gains some practice in defending his or her beliefs
Research studies that examine the effect of mobile phones on cognitive tasks find that:
having one visible on a desk hurts performance on difficult cognitive tasks
According to research presented in the text, people with high self-esteem are most likely to be persuaded by campaigns using:
moderate fear
Appeals to identity in persuasive messages are ______ to persuade people to action.
more likely
You are in the market for a new car and think you would like to own a Saab. According to research reported by Richard Nisbett and his associates, which of the following would be most likely to influence your decision?
Hearing about the huge repair bills a neighbor’s sister had on her Saab
All other things being equal, the overwhelming weight of experimental evidence on fear and persuasion suggests that, in general, the more frightened a person is by a communication:
the more likely he or she is to take positive, preventive action
When lawyers and politicians want to persuade, they often use:
both central and peripheral arguments
In a study by Hovland and Weiss, subjects heard arguments regarding the feasibility of atomic submarines. Subjects were more persuaded by physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer rather than the Soviet newspaper Pravda because:
Oppenheimer was perceived as an expert and trustworthy source of information, unlike Pravda
Hovland, Harvey, and Sherif conducted an experiment on latitude of acceptance of ideas about the state being “wet” or “dry” on the sale of alcohol beverages. They found that:
the greatest change happened when a moderate discrepancy took place between the actual message and the individual’s original opinion
Both opinions and attitudes are primarily cognitive in nature. However, attitudes:
have both an emotional and an evaluative component
Suppose you are going to organize a program for high school students advocating stricter enforcement of the drug laws. All other things being equal, your most persuasive speaker would be a:
person serving a jail sentence for drug possession
According to “Aronson’s first law,” people who do crazy things:
may be crazy but may also be normal people trying to adjust to extraordinary social influences
After the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Joe tells Mary that he knew all along Donald Trump would be elected. This is an example of:
the hindsight effect.
Which of the following is NOT an advantage that professional social psychologists have over amateur social psychologists?
Professionals use observation of social phenomena in their thinking about social phenomena, whereas amateurs cannot.
According to the “hindsight bias,” you would predict which of the following results?
People feel more confident they knew who would a win race after the race than they did before the race.
Kia believes that Donald Trump was able to get his tax cuts passed in Congress because Republicans had a majority of seats, and that it would have happened whether or not Trump was president. This is an example of:
the situational view.
People tend to explain the causes of other people’s behavior as being the result of their personalities. Thus, if Luke gets a bad grade on a test, it must be because he is stupid. This tendency is called:
the dispositional view
In his or her attempts to understand human social behavior, the professional social psychologist has the advantage of being able to:
control the influence of irrelevant factors when studying a problem
Which of the following best reflects a dispositional view of human behavior?
“Bob is so self-centered that he has trouble getting along with other people.”
The authors argue that 613 parents murdering their children and then taking their own lives in the Jonestown massacre is an example of:
the situation and how social influence is often primarily responsible for behavior, not the personalities of subjects
In his first chapter, Aronson defines social psychology as the study of:
social influence
Tomoko is asked to explain what makes her teacher so great. Tomoko responds that her teacher is a kind, gentle person. Tomoko’s appraisal of her teacher best represents:
the dispositional view
“The influences that people have upon our beliefs and behavior and of how we influence others” is the text’s definition of:
social psychology
A dispositional interpretation of the Jonestown massacre would claim that:
the parents were evil
Aronson defines social psychology as:
the influences that people have on our beliefs and the behavior of others
In Zimbardo’s “Stanford Prison Experiment,” young, psychologically normal men were randomly assigned to the role of playing a guard or a prisoner. After five days, the “prisoners” grew withdrawn and unsympathetic, while “guards” became sadistic and brutal. In general, the results of this study probably indicate that:
the situation is often primarily responsible for behavior, not the personalities of subjects
Aronson states, “People who do crazy things are not necessarily crazy.” By this, he means that:
situations can cause most normal people to behave in abnormal ways
The authors argue that THE central contribution of social psychology is:
to help us appreciate the complex situational view of human behavior
Explaining unpleasant behavior by labeling people “crazy” or “sadistic”:
is dangerous because it gives the general public a false sense of security and invulnerability
Aronson’s first law reminds us that:
situations can cause most normal people to behave in abnormal ways.
According to Aronson’s text, the statement that we are all “amateur” social psychologists means that:
we develop explanations for the behavior of others
