Social Psychology – Exam 1 Questions (Fall 2015) 3-4 questions

1. Briefly, how do social psychologists explain social behavior (i.e., why people behave the way they do)? What is considered to be the strongest influence on how someone will behave? What is the fundamental attribution error, and what is the actor-observer bias? Describe a hypothetical real-world example of each. Way people’s thoughts, feelings and behavior are influenced by the real or imagined presence

of other people Construal of social environment (perceive, comprehend & interpret). Fundamental attribution error - tendency to overestimate the extent to which people’s

behavior is due to internal, dispositional factors, and to underestimate the role of situational factors

Actor/observer difference - The tendency to see other people’s behavior as dispositionally caused but focusing more on the role of the situational factors when explaining one’s own behavior

Ex:

2. In your own words, define normative social influence, and informational social influence. Include a hypothetical real-world example of each. Describe an actual study that demonstrates each. Normative Social Influence: Occurs when people change their behavior in order to be liked

or accepted/to avoid the perceived social consequences of being different in some way Informational Social Influence: Occurs when people change their behavior because they

believe they have acquired information they did not previously have. Can occur at the level of perception

NSI ex: drink alcohol because friends do it ISI ex: drink alcohol because you read online that its good for you Asch Line Study demonstrates each cause some conformed because they didn’t want to cause

strife and some really thought they were missing some info about the lines that the others were aware of.

3. In your own words, define "diffusion of responsibility." Describe in general terms one study that illustrates how it works. Give at least two examples of this from your own life (or you can make up hypothetical examples). Diffusion of responsibility – a person is less likely to take responsibility for action or

inaction when other are present Smoke-filled room study – people were less likely to report that there was smoke coming out

of the room when they were in a 3 person group opposed to them being alone Ex 1: less likely to call cops if someone faints on train Ex 2: more reluctant to help someone being picked on when more people are around than

when you’re the only witness

4. Describe what happened in the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Obedience Studies. Discuss what these studies tell us about human behavior--using examples from the real world. Include a summary of the ethical concerns that arose from these experiments. Zimbardo set up a prison at Stanford University & randomly assigned volunteers to be

prisoners or guards Milgram

5. In a few brief paragraphs, summarize Haney & Zimbardo’s recommended reforms based on research into the power of situations.

6. What did Burger investigate in his 2009 paper? What exactly did he do? What results did he find and what were his main conclusions?

7. Define “schema” and describe an example of a hypothetical schema. Draw a diagram to illustrate it. Then use examples to illustrate how that schema might influence a person’s attention and memory. Finally, describe some ways that schemas benefit us, and some ways that they lead us to make errors. Schema - mental structures that people use to organize their knowledge around themes and

that influence the information people notice, think about, and remember. Circus and all the various aspects of it such as acts, kids, etc (draw) Affects what we notice, think about, and remember and fill in the blanks with schema-

consistent info It can help us make sense of ambiguous info but also cause us to make errors in judging a

particular situation or person

8. What is “priming?” Describe at least one example of how priming can happen and discuss whether people are typically consciously aware of its consequences. Finally, explain how activation of certain types of knowledge can influence behavior, using an example. Priming - situation that occurs when stimuli or events increase the availability in memory or

consciousness of specific types of information held in memory Can happen with showing words or images that bring others to mind and people are not

usually aware of it Seeing sleep related words can make you think of sheep when asked about naming a farm

animal

9. What are “heuristics?” Name three specific categories of heuristics and illustrate what they are by using an example for each. Finally, identify one example of any heuristic leading to an accurate judgment, and another example of any heuristic leading to an error in judgment. Heuristics - mental shortcuts people use to make judgments quickly and efficiently Availability – the ease with which you can bring something to mind Representative - mental shortcut that we use when making decisions or judgments Anchoring & Adjustment - mental shortcut whereby people use a number or value as a

starting point and then adjust insufficiently from this anchor

10. First, define in your own words what an attitude is and describe three components of attitudes that are studied by social psychologists. Define “central” and “peripheral” routes to persuasion. Next, imagine you work for an advertising agency and you are hired to create ads for a new car. Briefly describe an ad that uses a “central” route, and one that uses a “peripheral” route. An evaluation of people, objects or ideas, made up of 3 components.

o Affective component: emotionso Cognitive component: thoughts/beliefso Behavioral component: behaviors

Central - people elaborate on a persuasive argument, listening carefully and thinking about the logic behind the message.

Peripheral - people do not elaborate on a persuasive argument and instead are swayed by surface characteristics that are peripheral to the message

Car ad 1: convincing argument about mileage and great aspects of car and why you shoulf buy

Car ad 2: using a touching family story about a father passing a car onto his son

11. Identify and describe factors (e.g., situational, personality variables) that influence when people are susceptible to “central” and “peripheral” persuasive messaging. Use examples to illustrate how these factors are related to increased (or decreased) susceptibility.

12. According to Aronson, what are one-sided and two-sided arguments? Is one more effective than the other? Imagine you are a politician running for office and pick a policy position (e.g., “Unlimited free Doritos for every human on earth”). Briefly advocate for that position using a one-sided argument, and then a two-sided argument. Two sided arguments are more effective

13. What does research tell us about the effectiveness of subliminal messages? When do they work, and how effective are they? Be sure to describe at least one specific study that addresses subliminal messages. Research tells that subliminal messages are most effective under carefully controlled lab

conditions. Lab conditions are difficult to reproduce however and sub messages can’t get you to act

counter to your values, wishes, etc. The Chinese ideograph study flashed either a happy or angry face before the ideograph was

shown and it affected how much the people liked the ideograph

14. Define “cognitive dissonance” and describe a hypothetical real life example. Briefly describe at least 2 ways that researchers have studied the concept of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance - discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more

contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values

Ex: someone who smokes but knows it bad for their health and tells themselves that they do not smoke enough for it to be that harmful

Cohen paid yale students to write an essay supporting New Haven police and many of their attitudes changed, esp those who got paid less

Festinger & Carlsmith had participants do very boring tasks and then lied saying that it was fun, and when asked how much they enjoyed it many said they did, esp those who got $1