Social Cognition and Attitudes

Question 1

Personality attributes that seem to be the most representative of a person are called….

Answer 1

Central traits

Question 2

As we encounter more instances of a category, our schema is likely to become _____ and ______

Answer 2

Less exemplar-based; more prototype-based

Question 3

The way in which we attribute specific characteristics and traits to people is called?

Answer 3

Impression formation

Question 4

Benny dislikes the police. He thinks they are all stupid. He often throws rocks at them. In this example, disliking the police reflects the _____ component of attitudes, thinking that the police are stupid reflects the ______ component, and throwing rocks at them reflects the ______ component.

Answer 4

Affective; cognitive; behavioural

Question 5

Attitudes that are developed toward persons, places and things on the basis of their association with the positive or negative experiences that we have of them reflects the role of ______ in the development of social interactions.

Answer 5

Classical conditioning

Question 6

According to the elaboration likelihood model, ______ is/are to a central route of persuasion as ______ is/are to a peripheral route of persuasion.

Answer 6

Critical thinking; association with celebrities

Question 7

Angela is a vegetarian who works in a local fast-food restaurant whose main fare is hamburgers and hotdogs. Although she feels that working at the restaurant is a bit of a contradiction, she says that it was the only job that she could find, and now that she has received two pay rises, she is making more money there than she could if she were to find another job. In this example, Angela….

Answer 7

Reduced dissonance by justifying her behaviour

Question 8

Suppose that you are at the supermarket. A salesperson in the frozen food section gives you a free sample of a new dinner that her company is marketing. You taste it. You now feel a little pressure to buy at least one of the dinners, just to be nice. The obligation you feel to buy one of the dinners is the result of the salesperson’s exploitation of which social psychological principles?

Answer 8

Reciprocity

Question 9

Milgram’s research is noteworthy because it demonstrated the power of __________ in influencing important forms of social behaviour

Answer 9

Obedience to authority

Question 10

Whenever David practices the piano privately he plays very well, however, when his parents or one of his sisters listen to him, he always makes a few mistakes. According to Zajonc, this is an example of….

Answer 10

The effects of arousal on performance

Question 11

People like to think their perceptions and attitudes are accurate, so if they are uncertain or find that others disagree with them, they may feel a need to change their perceptions and attitudes in line with those of other people. This type of influence is called….

Answer 11

Informational influence

Question 12

Dr Flowers likes to assign her class group projects. Typically, she will organise students into groups of three and assign each group a different co-operative project. The students are assigned group grades; whatever grade the group earns is what each member of the group will receive, regardless of his or her individual effort on the project. One drawback of this assignment is the possibility that it could produce ____________________

Answer 12

Social loafing

Question 13

The configural model of impression formation was developed by?

Answer 13

Asch

Question 14

In general, the most accessible social categories are ______________ categories.

Answer 14

Representational

Question 15

Laura is in her first semester of college. She has only encountered three professors but already she thinks that they are rude and arrogant. Her attitude towards professors reflects…

Answer 15

Prejudice

Question 16

After making what you thought was a great deal on a new car, the salesperson tells you that there has been a mistake in his addition and that the car is really going to cost you considerably more than you had originally agreed to. The salesperson is using a technique that is called?

Answer 16

Low-balling

Question 17

Which ways do social representation framework develop?

Answer 17

• Mass communication
• Informal conversation
• Adherence to prescriptions of scientific and religious movements and other group ideologies

Question 18

Fiske and Taylor have characterised the individual as a _______

Answer 18

Motivated tactician

Question 19

Who proposed the configural model of impression formation?

Answer 19

Asch

Question 20

Describe the configural model of impression formation

Answer 20

Our impressions of others are formed by more complex rules than just a simple sum of the characteristics that we use to describe people - some perceptual information may have more influence than others in our final impression depending on the type of relationship

Question 21

Characteristics which are disproportionately influential in impression formation are called _______

Answer 21

Central traits

Question 22

Personal constructs are…

Answer 22

The idiosyncratic views of what is most important in characterising people, according to Kelly

Question 23

What is a schema?

Answer 23

A mental framework or body of knowledge that organises and synthesises information about something

Question 24

What is a prototype?

Answer 24

An abstract set of attributes that define a category, where no instance may actually embody the attributes

Question 25

What is an exemplar?

Answer 25

A specific instance of a category

Question 26

Many social psychologists believe that attitudes have three different components: ______, _______ and _______

Answer 26

Affect; behavioural intention; cognition

Question 27

The attraction for the familiar is called the what?

Answer 27

Mere exposure effect

Question 28

Someone’s intention to behave in a certain way is strengthened if they…

Answer 28

• Have a positive attitude towards the behaviour
• Believe that people that matter to them also have a positive view towards the behaviour
• Have resources and opportunity to engage in the behaviour
• The intention is very specific to the certain behaviour

Question 29

If the audience either knows very little about the issue or already has a strong position with respect to it, ____ sided arguments are the most effective

Answer 29

One

Question 30

If the audience is well informed about the issue, _______ sided arguments seem to be the most effective

Answer 30

Two

Question 31

What is the elaboration likelihood model?

Answer 31

Persuasion can take either a central route or a peripheral route

Question 32

What is the central route of persuasion?

Answer 32

Requires a person to think critically about the argument being presented, weigh its strengths and weaknesses and to elaborate on the relevant themes

Question 33

What is the peripheral route of persuasion?

Answer 33

The change is associated with a positive stimuli, e.g. An attractive model, which may have nothing to do with the subject of the argument

Question 34

What are the 3 major factors which cause persuasion to fail?

Answer 34

• Reactance
• Forewarning
• Inoculation

Question 35

What is cognitive dissonance theory?

Answer 35

When we perceive a discrepancy between our attitudes and behaviour, our behaviour and self-image, or between one attitude and another, we experience and unpleasant state of anxiety, or dissonance.

Question 36

A person can reduce dissonance by…

Answer 36

• Reducing the importance of one of the dissonant elements
• Adding consonant elements
• Changing one of the dissonant elements

Question 37

Social norms could influence behaviour when the situation itself….

Answer 37

• Provides no clear cue as to how to behave
• Is unambiguous
• Is ambiguous

Question 38

You are taking part in an experiment in which you are asked to read a list of traits of a hypothetical person. When the list includes the trait _____, you are most likely to rate this person as being generous, happy and altruistic

Answer 38

Warm

Question 39

Suppose you have a lot of friends who do not drink alcoholic beverages. Suppose further that you are asked in class to answer the following question: ‘How many people do you think drink alcoholic beverages?’ You reply, ‘Not many’, based on the number of your friends who imbibe. In this case you have made and error based on your use of the ______ heuristic

Answer 39

Availability

Question 40

What is the availability heuristic?

Answer 40

When attempting to assess the importance or frequency of an event, people are guided by their own experiences that come to mind

Question 41

What is a heuristic?

Answer 41

A cognitive short-cut or inferential rule to make inferences about people

Question 42

What is the representativeness heuristic?

Answer 42

We classify an object into a category which we believe it is most similar to

Question 43

What is the base-rate fallacy?

Answer 43

We overlook statistical information about the relative size of categories and therefore the probability that someone will belong to that category

Question 44

Children have a more favourable view of their own “in-group” - and therefore view it more positively - than they do “out-groups”. This notion is proposed in which theory?

Answer 44

Social identity theory

Question 45

Most people are likely to attribute the causes of people’s behaviour being due to _____ rather than ______

Answer 45

Dispositional factors; situational factors

Question 46

______ seem to be designed to protect or enhance our self-esteem

Answer 46

Self-serving biases

Question 47

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is used by social psychologists to assess which of the following?

Answer 47

Implicit prejudice

Question 48

According to Fiske and Taylor (1991), the individual may be characterised as a

Answer 48

Motivated tactician