Chapter 18: Social Psychology
AP Psychology Test
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Part I & II: Social Thinking, Social Influence
1. This area of psychology is concerned with three basic connections: how we think about, influence, and relate to one another.
a. developmental psychology
b. abnormal psychology
c. social psychology
d. forensic psychology
e. psychobiological psychology
2. Human’s are always analyzing others’ (as well as their own) behavior. In interpreting why people do what they do, we either credit (or blame) internal dispositional factors or external situational factors. This is known as:
a. attribution theory
b. just-world-phenomenon
c. functional fixedness
d. self-efficacy
e. self-perception theory
3. It’s interesting that in interpreting others’ behavior, we tend to emphasize dispositional factors but in explaining our own behavior we often cite situational factors. The propensity to do this is known as:
a. self-justification effect
b. the actor-observer bias
c. just-noticeable difference
d. dispositional theory
e. self-fulfilling prophecy
4. Perhaps we’re too quick to judge others’ behavior. We ought to take a little more time to understand the full situation that people find themselves in and then we wouldn’t jump to conclusions and credit or blame the person for something that might be the result of a particular situation. Our tendency to overemphasize dispositional factors and underestimate situational factors when evaluating others is known as the:
a. moon illusion
b. social facilitation factor
c. deindividuation
d. conformity
e. fundamental attribution error
5. Attitudes and research on attitudes is tricky. It’s tricky because an attitude is made up of a number of components and these components may affect one’s behavior in a myriad of different ways. The three components of behavior are:
a. cognitive, affective and behavioral
b. behavioral, affective and emotional
c. emotional, thinking and cognition
d. doing, feeling and acting
e. cognitive, affective and rational
6. Dozens of studies have been done on people’s attitudes and behaviors regarding cheating, religion, and racial minorities. The bottom line of these studies is:
a. attitudes always affect behavior
b. people feel differently about different topics
c. people often talk and act a different game
d. thinking usually precedes feeling
e. actions will follow attitudes if the topic is something important
7. John loves to walk in the evenings. Yet when he filled out an attitudinal survey on health practices he encountered a question on whether or not he exercises. John colored in the “no” response. Now either John is real stupid or he’s lying on the survey. Actually what is probably happening is that the survey:
a. was probably too long and John got tired and filled in anything
b. was probably oriented for young people, John is middle-aged
c. should have specifically mentioned that walking is understood to be a kind of exercise
d. excluded middle-aged people
e. should have been essay form and not scantron
8. The tendency for people to agree to a small request which often leads to them complying to a larger request later is known as:
a. groupthink
b. deindividuation
c. argumentum ad absurdum
d. foot-in-the-door phenomenon
e. shaping
9. Zimbardo’s famous Stanford Prison Experiment was attempting to illustrate:
a. the effects of proximity on attraction
b. prosocial behavior
c. the bystander effect
d. social traps
e. the power of roles
10. Curt got up and walked out in disgust of the ceremony inducting new people into the National Honor Society. When he was questioned by an assistant principal as to what was the matter he replied, “I just can’t sit there and see people who I know cheat in class, get up there and profess that they are honorable. It makes me sick.” Curt is probably experiencing:
a. influenza
b. pangs of guilt
c. conformity
d. social alienation
e. cognitive dissonance
11. Steal things and you’ll find your beliefs on stealing change. Cheat on homework and you’ll find your feelings on cheating change. Lie a little and you’ll find yourself sympathetic to a friend who lies also. Such examples point out which of the following observations?
a. it’s a dog eat dog world
b. most people are at Kohlberg’s highest level of moral thinking
c. changing our behavior can change how we think and feel
d. the just-world theory is correct
e. most people do the opposite of what they think
12. Muzafer Sherif’s experiment on conformity in which subjects viewed a pinpoint of light in a darkened room. He showed that in the presence of others, subjects are liable to sway their opinion a little and compromise how far they thought the light appeared to move. Most people changed their original assessment of how far the light moved because of the pressure to compromise and conform to others’ opinions. One could argue, however, that the subjects were somewhat unsure of their opinion in the first place due to:
a. the autokenetic effect
b. the halo effect
c. the double bind experience
d. the presence of others
e. retinal disparity
13. Solomon Asch wanted to research conforming in a situation in which unambiguous information was available. He felt that if people could judge unambiguous stimuli under optimal conditions, the sort of convergence that Sherif had found would not appear. So he conducted his famous “line segment” experiment. His results were:
a. most people, as expected, don’t know basic geometry
b. most people stick to their guns and aren’t swayed by other’s opinions
c. 32% of the time, subjects bowed to social influence and conformed with the obviously incorrect choice; and about 74% of the subjects conformed on at least one trial
d. people conformed only if they wore glasses and felt their eyes were tricking them
e. people conformed only if the confederates were members of the opposite sex
14. Katrina, an African-American, was in a real moral dilemma. She found out that a number of her friends were cheating on AP assignments and she felt obligate to inform the teacher as to what was going on. She was studying real hard getting “B’s” and her friends were cheating and getting “A’s”. It just wasn’t fair. But if she came forward, her friends would accuse her of “acting white” and she’d be ostracized from her group of friends. Katrina is feeling the pressure from:
a. normative influences
b. situational influences
c. contextual influences
d. justification influences
e. relational influences
15. Warren was a rookie police officer who was walking his beat one day and he heard what he though to be muffled gun shots come from a window on a lower level apartment. He was puzzled because he noticed that two other officers walked calmly by the window and they didn’t react at all. Should he barge in to see what was going on? Was it just a shooting scene from a TV program? Was it kid’s shooting cap pistols? Did the two cops walking by know something he didn’t know about the apartment? Warren’s inaction is probably due to:
a. normative influences
b. occupational influences
c. informational influences
d. justification influences
e. low sense of self-efficacy
16. There are a number of reasons why we usually conform, or cave into, the opinions or behaviors of a group. Which one of the following is not a factor in strengthening conformity?
a. we are made to feel incompetent or insecure
b. the groups is unanimous
c. we admire the groups status and attractiveness
d. others in the group are observing our behavior
e. our culture strongly encourages respect for individual differences
17. Teens are funny. They run around trying to convince adults that they are nonconformists, that they are “doing their own thing” and “thinking for themselves.” The irony is:
a. they truly are individualistic
b. they really want to be unique
c. the authority figures they conform to most are their own peers or the media that realizes they’re suckers for the latest fad
d. they’re just trying to be sincere and follow their own conscience
e. they do have a need to rebel
18. Milgram’s famous experiment with obedience showed:
a. Americans were least likely of all cultural groups to follow orders
b. Germans were much more obedient than North Americans
c. Educated people were more likely to follow orders than non-educated individuals
d. Women comply more than men
e. A majority of ordinary people, from all walks of life, were surprisingly obedient to authority figures
19. Milgram found that obedience to authority figures increased when:
a. the authority figure was perceived to be legitimate
b. when the victim was depersonalized
c. when nobody was around to urge the teacher not to comply; no role models for defiance
d. when the authority figure was close by
e. all of the above
20. Khalid likes to run. He has set his best times when running in competition as opposed to running by himself just to beat the clock. And he runs particularly well if his hometown crown is there to cheer him on. His enhanced performance is due to:
a. normative influences
b. situational influences
c. social facilitation
d. self-efficacy
e. conformity
21. Many students hate group work, especially if it is graded. What often happens is that one or two individuals end up doing most of the work and several others do very little but still get a good grade. This is a perfect example of:
a. social loafing
b. being a slackard
c. conformity
d. groupthink
e. just desert theory
22. Larry went off to beach week and things didn’t turn out exactly as he planned. He found himself at a party with a bunch of other graduates from schools he didn’t recognize. The music was blaring, the lighting was dim and he didn’t recognize hardly anyone. It was obvious to him that almost everyone was quite drunk and someone started passing around all kinds of drugs from which everyone was partaking. The next thing Larry knew, he was in a hospital emergency room having overdosed on a batch of bad drugs. With no history of drug use, we might explain Larry’s behavior as due to:
a. group think
b. deindividuation
c. normative influences
d. cause-and effect relations
e. social facilitation
23. Mr. Clifford was a highly decorated FBI agent before retiring and then getting the job of being a high school principal. During his first few weeks in his new role, his assistant principals went along with all of his decisions about what should be done to correct the behavior of the students in the school. This was awkward for some of the assistants because some of the proposed ideas were not well thought out and some of the staff members knew privately that the ideas wouldn’t work. In his staff meetings nobody spoke up to challenge Mr. Clifford’s ideas. Sure enough, some of them backfired and proved disastrous. What probably best explains why seasoned assistant principals would blindly go along with Mr. Clifford?
a. intimidation
b. low self-esteem
c. groupthink
d. deindividuation
e. social facilitation
24. Leaders can insure they and their advisors don’t make real stupid decisions by:
a. letting only the leader call the shots
b. welcoming dissent and assigning someone to be a devil’s advocate
c. only letting experienced people advise them
d. listening only to educated opinions
e. asking people to voice their opinions in public
25. Desiree is on a jury. She has reasonable doubt that the accused committed the crime but she is outnumbered by other members in the jury. It’s 11 to 1 with Desiree the lone dissenter. Desiree has a better chance of swaying other members of the jury if she:
a. is passionate about her view
b. can convince at least one other jury member
c. is persistent with her opinion
d. is unyielding in her view
e. all of the above
26. Mike gets on the elevator alone. At the next floor, another man gets on and stands right next to Mike. Mike is uncomfortable and steps back as far as he can. Mike probably feels:
a. the guy is probably gay and hitting on him
b. the guy has invaded his personal space
c. the guy is rude for standing so close
d. the guy probably didn’t see Mike
e. the guy might be blind and doesn’t know Mike is there
27. Ellen and Frank got married. Little did Ellen realize that Frank expected Ellen to do all the housework, do all the shopping and that he would be the one to keep the checkbook. Ellen is having a hard time with:
a. their sexual lives
b. expected gender roles
c. financial worries
d. spiritual concerns
e. personal space
28. A cluster of behaviors expected of those who occupy an particular social position is a(n):
a. norm
b. role
c. attribution
d. attitude
e. rule
29. The impact of our actions on our attitudes is best illustrated by the:
a. bystander effect
b. fundamental attribution error
c. foot-in-the-door phenomenon
d. mere exposure effect
e. frustration-aggression principle
30. The fundamental attribution error is likely to lead observers to:
a. show sympathy toward those who are poor and unemployed
b. show mercy toward those who have committed criminal acts
c. praise those who have engaged in acts of heroism
d. correctly appraise another’s motives and intentions
e. do all of the above
31. Normative social influence results from peoples’ desire to:
a. clarify reality
b. maintain personal control
c. gain social approval
d. demonstrate self-restraint
e. avoid deindividuation
32. The level of obedience in the Milgram experiments was highest when the “teacher” was ------the experimenter and ------the “learner.”
a. close to: close to
b. far from; far from
c. close to; far from
d. far from; close to
e. in Oz; in Kansas
33. Social facilitation refers to the tendency to: