Review Questions - 13 Social Psychology - STEP 4 Review the Knowledge You Need to Score High

5 Steps to a 5: AP Psychology - McGraw Hill 2021

Review Questions
13 Social Psychology
STEP 4 Review the Knowledge You Need to Score High

Directions: For each item, choose the letter of the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.

1. Mr. Moffatt overheard another teacher describe one of his students as lazy and unmotivated. Though Mr. Moffatt had not previously noted this tendency, he began to see exactly what the other teacher had noted. What might account for this phenomenon?

(A) norms

(B) deindividuation

(C) social loafing

(D) self-fulfilling prophecy

(E) representativeness heuristic

2. Some difficult cuts needed to be made in the school board budget, and everyone on the board knew that there had to be consensus and cooperation. Even though many members disagreed with certain proposals, each one met with unanimous support or defeat. To preserve cooperation, no one offered conflicting viewpoints. Which of the following concepts is best described by this example?

(A) group polarization

(B) fundamental attribution error

(C) groupthink

(D) role schema

(E) reciprocity

3. A young woman was gunned down at a gas station. A busload of onlookers saw the entire event, and no one did anything. The bus driver even stepped over the body to pay for his gas. What social psychological phenomenon best accounts for this behavior?

(A) groupthink

(B) altruism

(C) social impairment

(D) superordinate goals

(E) diffusion of responsibility

4. You read in the newspaper that survivors in a plane accident in the Andes were discovered to have eaten other survivors during their 32-day ordeal. You will have committed the fundamental attribution error if you

(A) attribute the behavior to dispositional (personal) factors

(B) attribute the behavior to situational factors

(C) think you would have done the same thing if you had been there

(D) consider the behavior as a signal for the moral degradation of our society

(E) decide never to fly in a plane again

5. Ethnocentrism is the belief that

(A) ethnic foods are all good

(B) human diversity is a positive force

(C) one’s own culture is superior to others

(D) other people are all pretty much alike in their opinions

(E) cultural pluralism is a destructive goal that fosters conflict

6. The effect of one confederate selecting a different line from the others in the Asch conformity test was

(A) continuing conformity by the participant to avoid looking bad to the others

(B) the participant asking to vote privately on a separate piece of paper

(C) a boost to the self-efficacy of the participant

(D) to release the participant from the conformity effect

(E) to cause the experimenter to release that confederate in the next trial period, thus ensuring continued conformity by the participant

7. Which of the following factors probably plays the least important role in explaining why children often share the same political and economic values as their parents?

(A) exposure to mass media

(B) operant conditioning

(C) they have never questioned these beliefs and do not really understand them

(D) modeling

(E) mere exposure effect

8. Of the following, which would be a good example of a self-serving bias?

(A) Carlos, who feels that everyone should strive to help themselves as well as others

(B) Antoine, who says that he has bombed a test even though he always gets an A

(C) Mai, who works harder for teachers who compliment her on her efforts

(D) Lina, who overestimates the degree to which people agree with her opinions

(E) Betty, who believes that she works harder than others and is underappreciated

9. In a jigsaw classroom,

(A) students are dependent upon each other to learn all parts of a lesson

(B) learning is enhanced by simulations and lectures run by teachers

(C) competition encourages kids to achieve their full potential

(D) outcome research has shown limited success beyond the elementary school level

(E) individualism is encouraged to foster self-esteem

10. Although Graham has not yet met his future college roommate, he learned that the roommate is a football player. He is anxious and unhappy about sharing his room with a football player because he expects that his roommate will be a “party animal” who makes studying in his room difficult. Graham’s attitude can be classified as

(A) stereotype threat

(B) prejudice

(C) discrimination

(D) scapegoating

(E) fully justified

11. When asked what they would do if they could be totally invisible and there would be no recrimination, most people answered that they would commit an antisocial act. Which of the following social phenomena might best be able to explain this response?

(A) reciprocity

(B) group polarization

(C) social loafing

(D) deindividuation

(E) self-fulfilling prophecy

12. Which of the following social psychological experiments has been considered the most unethical and led to sweeping reforms in the APA ethical guidelines?

(A) Bandura’s Bobo study of TV aggression

(B) Asch’s line test for conformity

(C) Milgram’s obedience to authority study

(D) Sherif’s boys’ camp study

(E) Jane Eliot’s brown-eyed/blue-eyed study of prejudice

13. Donald believes himself to be a patriotic citizen, but he also does not believe in attacking countries that are technologically no match for the United States. If the United States was to go to war and Donald were to be drafted, dissonance theory predicts that

(A) he would have no conflict in going off to war

(B) he might have to change one of his attitudes to feel less tension

(C) justification of the military position would have to be internalized by him

(D) morally, he would have to become a conscientious objector

(E) morally, he must fight and defend his country

14. A charity sends you some greeting cards, and you feel that you should send them a small contribution. This feeling comes from the persuasion technique called

(A) foot-in-the-door

(B) reciprocity

(C) door-in-the-face technique

(D) low-ball technique

(E) central route

15. Which of the following is NOT a key determinant of whether or not two people will become friends?

(A) similarity of interests and social backgrounds

(B) proximity

(C) physical attractiveness

(D) utilitarian value

(E) opposing views on key social issues

Image Answers and Explanations

1. D—Self-fulfilling prophecy studies show there is a tendency to elicit behaviors from others that conform to our individual expectations. After hearing the other teacher’s attribution of the student behavior, Mr. Moffatt’s behavior toward the student probably changed even unintentionally, which affected the student’s behavior. (Note: This is the result of the incident—not its cause.)

2. C—Groupthink is a tendency to self-censor in group decisions to preserve the harmony of the group.

3. E—Diffusion of responsibility is the bystander rule that, as the size of the group increases, the assumption of responsibility of any group member decreases.

4. A—When judging the behavior of others, people often make the fundamental attribution error of overemphasizing personal or dispositional factors and underestimating situational factors.

5. C—Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own group—ethnic, political, religious, etc.—is superior to others.

6. D—Although one-third of the participants conformed some of the time in the Asch conformity trials, when only one of the confederates selected a different line from the others, the participant was released from the conformity effect.

7. A—Children tend to adopt the attitudes of their parents through all of the other methods, but exposure to mass media offers them a diverse set of opinions, which may cause them to carefully reconsider some of their parents’ basic beliefs.

8. E—A self-serving bias causes us to overestimate the contribution we make to successful group projects, thereby preserving our feelings of self-worth and efficacy.

9. A—The jigsaw classroom was an effort to increase cooperation between diverse groups and build esteem and achievement of minority students. The original expert groups learn one part of a lesson. The students then regroup into jigsaw groups and are dependent upon others to learn the complete lesson. Diverse groups working cooperatively together come into contact with each other and lose some of their prejudiced beliefs.

10. B—Prejudice is an unjustified attitude, while discrimination is the unjustified behavior that might result from holding such an attitude.

11. D—In studies on deindividuation, anonymity of group members often excuses them for acting in antisocial ways. The wording of this question often leads people to consider personal gain through criminal acts since they “won’t face punishment.”

12. C—Milgram’s “shocking” experiment put individuals under extreme psychological distress and, even though 98 percent stated they were glad to have participated in the experiment, a similar experiment would not be allowed today because of the ethical problems.

13. B—Cognitive dissonance research states that in order to reduce tension created by opposing actions and values or beliefs, a person will modify either the actions or the beliefs to create cognitive consistency.

14. B—Reciprocity is the compliance technique often used by groups to get others to donate money out of obligation since the group has given them a small gift first.

15. E—Choices A—D are all instrumental factors in determining who will become friends, but opposing views on social issues may cause initial conflict and a lesser tendency for people to be motivated to form a friendship.