Final Exam Prep Questions from Textbook Flashcards
One of the central ideas of social psychology is
A) natural selection shapes behaviour.
B) adaptation is central to behaviour.
C) social structure and organization are essential to human development.
D) attitudes shape behaviour and behaviour shapes attitudes.
D) attitudes shape behaviour and behaviour 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?
A) social behaviour is also biological behaviour.
B) we construct our own social reality.
C) social influences shape behaviour.
D) dispositions shape behaviour.
A) social behaviour is also biological behaviour.
One reason you may not study so hard for your first test in this class is because
A) you believe you are too smart for the class.
B) you think you don’t need to study.
C) you don’t worry about grades.
D) social psychology seems obvious because of the hindsight bias.
D) social psychology seems obvious because of the hindsight bias.
Who is most likely to ask “How do brain, mind, and behaviour function together as one coordinated system?”
A) an evolutionary psychologist
B) a social psychologist
C) a social neuroscientist
D) a biological psychologist
C) a social neuroscientist
An idea such as “a child’s gender development is directly related to his/her cognitive development” could be called
A) a hypothesis.
B) a theory.
C) a fact.
D) an experiment.
B) a theory.
A researcher, interested in whether the mere presence of others affects individual behaviour, 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 __________.
A) a correlational study.
B) field research.
C) a case study.
D) a laboratory experiment.
D) a laboratory experiment.
An investigator, who wishes to study the attitudes of people in New Brunswick, identifies 1,000 people in New Brunswick, 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 province’s total population. What kind of sample is the investigator trying to obtain?
A) an independent sample
B) a dependent sample
C) a random sample
D) a representative sample
D) a representative sample
I ask you to describe who you are and you tell me your gender, age, political preference, personality traits, and other information you think is relevant. You are describing your
A) possible selves.
B) self-concept.
C) idealized self.
D) realized-self.
B) 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
A) the illusion of transparency.
B) the spotlight effect.
C) the personal fable.
D) egocentrism.
A) 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
A) your conceit.
B) social identity.
C) self-reference effects.
D) social comparison effects.
D) social comparison effects.
A person from a collectivist culture would most likely value
A) their self-esteem.
B) harmonious relationships.
C) their perceptual abilities.
D) their personal sense of accomplishment.
B) 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
A) antisocial personality disorder.
B) high self-esteem.
C) narcissism.
D) achievement motivation.
C) 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
A) unrealistic optimism.
B) a self-serving bias.
C) learned helplessness.
D) an increase in self-monitoring.
C) learned helplessness.
People who act like “social chameleons”-those who seem to change behaviour and attitudes to fit every situation they’re in-are generally considered
A) low self-monitors.
B) high self-monitors.
C) to be using the self-serving bias.
D) high in self-efficacy.
B) 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 behaviour because her boss is
A) consistent.
B) consensus.
C) correspondent.
D) distinctive.
D) distinctive.
Which action is most likely to bring about an event?
A) perceiving events
B) judging events
C) explaining events
D) expecting events
D) expecting events
Research has shown that participants 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
A) situations.
B) priming.
C) ageism.
D) perception.
B) priming.
If you showed identical research to proponents and opponents of gun control, what outcome would you expect to see?
A) Each side would become more extreme in their original position.
B) Each side would become more neutral in their views.
C) Both sides would view gun control more positively.
D) Both sides would view gun control more negatively.
A) Each side would become more extreme in their original position.
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
A) the representative heuristic.
B) belief perseverance.
C) the availability heuristic.
D) the confirmation bias.
C) the availability heuristic.
“It always rains after I wash the car.” This statement is an example of
A) inferential statistics.
B) the confirmation bias.
C) an illusory correlation.
D) a positive correlation.
C) an illusory correlation.
Research by Allan Wicker (1969) found that
A) expressed attitudes hardly ever predict behaviour.
B) expressed attitudes almost always predict behaviour.
C) implicit attitudes are more likely than expressed attitudes to predict behaviour.
D) expressed attitudes are more likely than implicit attitudes to predict behaviour.
A) expressed attitudes hardly ever predict behaviour.
An important lesson of role-playing studies is that
A) it takes a strong personality to withstand social pressure.
B) what is unreal can evolve into what is real.
C) most participants remain aware that the situation is unreal.
D) we are powerless to resist imposed roles.
B) what is unreal can evolve into what is real.
When our behaviour is out of sync with our attitudes, it is called
A) attitude incongruity.
B) cognitive congruity.
C) attitude inoculation.
D) cognitive dissonance.
D) cognitive dissonance.
Self-presentation theory argues that people will adopt attitudes consistent with behaviours in order to
A) figure out the dominant response.
B) reduce tension.
C) determine how they should behave.
D) create good impressions.
D) 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
A) cognitive dissonance.
B) cognitive congruity.
C) attitude inoculation.
D) attitude incongruity.
A) cognitive dissonance.
If poll takers standing outside election voting stations 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
A) in general, attitudes specific to a behavior are excellent predictors.
B) when an attitude is strong, it is a good predictor of behaviour.
C) when social pressures are high, an attitude is an excellent predictor of behaviour.
D) attitudes are strong when you share them with your friends.
B) when an attitude is strong, it is a good predictor of behaviour.
Which of the following is not an element of persuasion?
A) the communicator
B) the message
C) the physical location
D) the content
C) the physical location
A change in behaviour or belief that results from real or imagined group pressure is referred to by social psychologists as
A) acceptance.
B) obedience.
C) conformity.
D) compliance.
C) conformity.
How did the obedience observed in Milgram’s study differ from the conformity observed in Asch’s study?
A) There was an expressed command in Milgram’s study but not in the Asch study.
B) Compliance took precedence over common sense.
C) The participants were pressured to go against their own conscience.
D) Milgram’s study, but not Asch’s, demonstrated the power of the situation.
A) There was an expressed command in Milgram’s study but not in the Asch study.
Which lesson about evil do we learn from Milgram’s research?
A) Evil results from a few depraved people.
B) Most people resist performing evil acts on moral grounds
C) Social forces can induce ordinary people to engage in evil acts.
D) Evil usually involves a conscious intent.
C) Social forces can induce ordinary people to engage in evil acts.
Concern for social image involves __________ influence; the desire to be correct involves __________ influence.
A) normative; informational.
B) qualitative; proximal.
C) informational; normative.
D) proximal; qualitative.
A) 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
A) forgetfulness.
B) deviance.
C) reaction formation.
D) reactance.
D) reactance.
Persuasion is
A) the process by which a message induces attitude change.
B) a change in behaviour or belief as a result of real or imagined group pressure.
C) the process by which a message induces a change in behaviour.
D) a change in behaviour or belief as a result of a direct order from someone.
B) a change in behaviour or belief as a result of real or imagined group pressure.
Which of the following is more likely to produce change?
A) the elaborative route to persuasion
B) the peripheral route to persuasion
C) the implicit route to persuasion
D) the central route to persuasion
D) the central route to persuasion
Carl’s relative died of lung cancer and emphysema. He is now thoroughly against smoking because of the strong emotional component of his attitude. What type of anti-smoking message is he more likely to be persuaded by?
A) a credible communicator
B) an attractive communicator
C) the reciprocity factor
D) an emotional appeal
D) an emotional appeal
Persuasion __________ as the significance and familiarity of the issue __________.
A) decreases; increases.
B) stays the same; increases.
C) increases; decreases.
D) increases; stays the same.
A) decreases; increases.