82 - In Zanna & Cooper’s 1974 study, participants took a pill that they believed was
a stimulant, a relaxant, or a placebo. Participants then chose or were forced to write an essay
about a topic they disagreed with. A) Briefly summarize the general pattern of results. B) Do
these results provide more support for a self-perception theory or cognitive dissonance theory?
C) Explain why.
A - In the study the participant chose or were forced to write an essay on a topic that they
disagree with. In addition, they had to take a pill with three possible effects, no effect, relaxing
or stimulating. Moreover, the measured how attitudes in the participants regarding the essay
topic changed before and after writing it, does the participants still agree with their position.
The result show that when the participants were forced to write the essay, the pill didn’t affect
their attitudes, or their attitudes didn’t change, because they forced to write it, so there no
tension or anxiety and they did not change their mind afterwards
However, when the participants “choose” to write this essay they all felt anxious, either because
of the stimulant pill, or because of the dissonance they felt (in the no effect condition). In this
condition (pill has no effect), they thought that maybe they agree with this topic because they
choose to do it and the pill had no effect. When the pill was relaxing, the anxiety was not caused
by the pill
B + C – Those result provides more support for the Cognitive dissonance. The first reason is
that if it was supporting the self-perception theory the pill would have no effect, it shouldn’t
change attitude. Moreover, the tension is causing the attitude change, which is the main criteria
for cognitive dissonance. The dissonance was shown by the two-pill condition who had an
effect. When taking the stimulant pill, the tension was explained by the pill, I wrote this essay
because of the pill, so you don’t change your attitude because you have no tension anymore.
Same for the relaxing pill, it influences how much tension needs to be explained, and taking
this pill will increase dissonance and therefore he need for attitudes change.
85 - Dr. Plante wants to test the hypothesis that there is a positive correlation between eating
cilantro and being in a bad mood. A) Briefly describe an experiment Dr. Plante could do to test
this hypothesis. It must include all of the necessary features of an experiment. B) What are
the IV and DV in your experiment? C) Describe a plausible limitation of your experiment.
A – An experiment needs a manipulation of the variable X, a measure of the outcomes Y, a
random assignment to X. For Doctor Plante experiment he could give cilantro to an
experimental group and not to a control group, both randomly assigned to these conditions.
The two group should be similar, to avoid systematic bias or interferences, so he could choose
to use 30 years old females. Other criteria could be that no women should have an history of
mood disorder or should be in a bad mood before the experiment. And the condition could be
assigned to the females by picking a piece of paper, with one of the two conditions on it, from
a boll.
B – The independent variable which is X = the Cilantro – which is what we manipulate with
the two groups
The dependant variable which is Y = the bad mood – which is what we will measure thanks to
the changes between the two-condition applied to X.
C – The limitation is that doing an experiment takes a lot of time and require a lot of resources.
For example, Dr. Plante need to be sure that no women in his study have either a history of
mood disorder or is in a bad moor because of other reason so that his result won’t be biased.
However, to all that, he needs other resources, to calculate accurately the mood of every
woman, he need to take the time to verify all the women history of mood disorder…
86 -Tuca is on a blind date. All she knows about her date is that she’s a librarian. Tuca looks
around and notices a tidy, quiet-looking woman standing alone. Tuca assumes this is her date.
A) What is the name of the cognitive shortcut that Tuca has used to make this assumption?
B) Explain it in your own words. C) Explain one way that the shortcut might lead Tuca to make
an incorrect assumption.
A – Representativeness Heuristic
B – These types of shortcuts is seen when we assume that someone is more likely to be, like or
do something using his appearance or stereotypes without taking the probability into account.
Instead of us statistical information to answer a question, we answer an easier question. In this
example, Tuca instead of finding the likelihood of who her date could be, she just assumes that
because her date is a Liberian, she would look tidy and quiet. She does not consider the real
probability of how a Liberian really looks because it takes too much time, and shortcut and
way easier and quicker to use.
C – Her assumption could be incorrect because she put more value and will rely more on what
she thinks is correct when taking her decision of who her date is. She overestimates the
similarity between what a Liberian is supposed to look like for Tuca and the reality.
90 – In a 1967 study, Jones & Harris had participants listen to a Pro- or Anti-Castro speech that
was supposedly written by a student who, they were told, had either chosen to write the essay
or were forced to write the essay. The participants were then asked to guess how much the
student supported Castro. A) Briefly summarize the results of the study. B) Explain the results
of the study with respect to the fundamental attribution error.
A – In this study they made the participants read another person’s essay and made them rate
the others’ beliefs on the topic. The essay was either for or against Fidel Castro, and the
participants was either told that the other choose or were forced to write this essay. Finally, the
participants were asked how much they think this person actually support Fidel Castro.
The result showed that for the “choose to write the essay” condition, whether the person wrote
for or against Castro, the participant rated correctly how much the others support Castor. Since,
if one person chooses to write an essay for Castro, he must support Castro and vice versa.
However, for the “forced to write the essay” condition, the participants still assume that if
someone wrote the pro-Castro essay, he must support Castro and vice versa, even though the
participants new that the others were forced to write that essay. Normally the assigned
condition should tell you nothing about their views about Castro because they were forced to
write that essay
B – The result demonstrates the Fundamental Attribution Error, who says that “We
overestimate disposition and underestimate situation when explaining others’ behavior”. This
study proves that theory because the situational causes of the essay were clear for the
participant, either the other were forced or not to write that essay. However, they still rated that
the person who were forced to wrote to pro-Castro essay are supporting Castro. The situation
factors were ignored and the disposition factor were overestimates because they were asked to
explain others behavior.