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Exam 1 Psychology 360
Professor Pietromonaco
Fall 2005
REVIEW SESSION for EXAM 1
DATE: Tuesday, 9/27
TIME: 6:15pm-7:30pm
LOCATION:
HASBROUCK 134
Review Questions for Exam 1 (Exam date: Thurs. 9/29 during class)
Exam 1 covers material in (1) Chapters 1-3 in Aronson, Wilson, & Akert text, and
lectures covering the overview of social psychology, scientific methods, and social
cognition (from 9/8 through 9/22).
Some questions will focus on material presented only in lectures (including
demonstrations, videos, exercises, etc.); other questions will focus on material
presented only in the text; and other questions may ask about material presented in
both the text and lectures.
The questions listed here are to help guide your studying. Many concepts are related, but
not identical. In studying, it is helpful to compare concepts and note how they are similar
and how they are different.
You also may find it helpful to visit RESOURCES link for tips on studying and taking
multiple choice exams. Also, the on-line study guide for the text includes self-tests on
the chapter concepts. (Both sites can be accessed via the “resources” link on the course
website.).
Chapter 1 and Related Material
1. What is social psychology? Be able to define social psychology and define and explain
the role of construals.
2. What is the advantage of a scientific approach when compared with folk wisdom and
philosophy? (Consider the demonstration on the first day of class with the adages "birds
of a feather flock together " and "opposites attract " and the hindsight bias.)
3. How does social psychology differ from the study of sociology? From personality
psychology? From clinical psychology?
4. What is the fundamental attribution error? Explain how it is related to underestimating
the power of social influence in cases such as Jonestown or Waco.
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5. Describe the Ross and Samuels’ (1983) study. What was the independent variable?
What was the quasi-independent variable? What was the dependent variable?
Summarize the findings.
6. Compare and contrast the perspectives of psychologists from each of the following
approaches: Behaviorism, Gestalt psychology, social psychology. (What are the
similarities and differences between these approaches?)
7. Your text discusses two basic human motives that are important in explaining human
thought and behavior. What are these two motives? Explain how each motive is related
to thought and behavior.
8. How do social psychologists differ from philosophers, novelists, and political pundits
in answering questions about human nature?
Chapter 2 and related material
9. Explain Latane and Darley's notion of diffusion of responsibility. What was their
hypothesis? In their "seizure" study, what was the independent variable? What were the
dependent variables? What did they find?
10. What is the observational method? Explain the nature of archival analysis, which is a
form of the observational method. What are the limitations of this method? What are its
advantages?
11. What is the correlational method? Explain what a correlation coefficient is, and how
it is expressed as a number. Explain the difference between a positive correlation, and
negative correlation, and no correlation. What kind of number would indicate a strong
correlation? A moderate correlation? A small correlation? No correlation?
12. According to lecture, what are three possible interpretations for correlations? (Hint:
Pay attention to direction of causality and third variables.)
13. What are the limitations of the correlational method? What are the advantages of the
correlational method?
14. Why do social psychologists prefer to use the experimental method?
15. A. What are the necessary components of a controlled laboratory experiment? (Be
sure to define and explain the following terms: independent variable, dependent variable,
internal validity, random assignment to condition, probability level (p-value), external
validity, mundane realism, psychological realism, cover story, replication).
Note: Random assignment is different from random selection of a sample. Comparing
and contrasting these terms will help you to understand the difference.
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B. You should be able to read a description of a study and identify the independent
variable and the dependent variables.
16. How do social psychologists eliminate sources of bias in controlled experiments?
Refer to the role of random assignment to conditions, controlling for experimenter bias,
and controlling for participant bias.
17. Define the term " confounding variable."
18. What are the limitations of controlled laboratory experiments? What are their
advantages?
19. What is a meta-analysis and why is it used?
20. How is the idea of self-fulfilling prophecy related to the effect of experimenter
expectations on participants ' responses?
21. What safeguards are used in social psychological research to protect human
participants? Explain the procedures of informed consent, deception, and debriefing.
Recall the Simpson video clip and why Lisa’s experiment on Bart and her hamster was
not ethical.
22. What is the primary goal of cross-cultural research in social psychology? Why is
cross-cultural research hard to do?
23. What is the role of deception in social psychological research? Some researchers
have studied how people feel after participating in deception versus nondeception
experiments. What does this research show?
Chapter 3 and related material
24. What idea was investigated in Rosenthal and Jacobson’s study on teacher
expectations? What were the findings?
25. Compare and contrast automatic versus controlled processing.
26. What is the focus of the area called social cognition?
27. What is a schema ? What are the functions of schemas?
28. Which schemas are applied? What is the role of the accessibility and priming? Know
the findings of the studies by Higgins, Rholes, & Jones (1977, text p. 66 and lecture) and
Bargh and Pietromonaco (1982) (text, pp. 66-67).
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29. Do schemas persist even after they are discredited? Answer this question referring to
the study by Ross, Lepper, & Hubbard, 1975 on "belief perseverance” (suicide note
detection task).
30. The Silver Creek restaurant story with Bob and Jane (lecture) included a variety of
events that happened while Bob and Jane were in a restaurant. You later answer “true” or
“false” to sentences describing events that either occurred or did not occur in the story.
This exercise demonstrated what feature of schematic processing?
31. Define self-fulfilling prophecy, and explain how it is relevant to the work by
Rosenthal and Jacobson (on teacher expectations).
32. In a study (Snyder & Swann, 1978) discussed in lecture, participants selected
questions for an interview with the person they expected to be either extroverted or
introverted. What were the findings of this study? How do they relate to schematic
processing?
33. According to your text, two kinds of schema accessibility are temporary accessibility
and chronic accessibility. Define each of these terms.
34. In the demonstration conducted by David Rosenhan, he and several colleagues
pretended that they were hearing voices and were admitted to psychiatric hospitals; most
were diagnosed with schizophrenia. Except for the one symptom, the pseudopatients
behaved in a completely “normal” manner and reported their actual life histories.
According to lecture, what role did the schemas held by the staff play in their
interpretation of the pseudopatients' behaviors?
35. What is a judgmental heuristic? How is a heuristic different from a schema?
36. Define and give examples of the following: the availability heuristic, the
representativeness heuristic, and counterfactual thinking. Also, explain the relationship
between the representativeness heuristic and base rate information.
37. What were findings of the study by Hamill, Wilson, and Nisbett (1980) (study using
a description of a welfare mother and base rate information) described in lecture? What
was the main point of this study?
38. Describe Dan Wegner's theory of ironic processes and thought suppression. Explain
the two processes that operate in thought suppression. Under what conditions will people
have difficulty suppressing unwanted thoughts?
39. What steps might improve human reasoning abilities? In particular, according to
Richard Nisbett and colleagues, what kind of training seems to improve everyday
reasoning abilities?
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40. In class (Tues., 9/ 20) I read a story about putting things into piles, etc. Before you
had the label for the activity, most students didn’t know what it was and could not
remember much of the story. After you had a label, you were better able to follow the
story and remember it. What was the point of this demonstration?
41. In an experiment by John Bargh and colleagues discussed in lecture, participants
were primed with words related to being polite, rude, or neither (i.e., neutral words) and
later they had to interrupt the experimenter in order to complete the next task. The
researchers assessed how long it took people in each condition to interrupt the
experimenter. Know the results of this experiment and what concept it demonstrates.
42. As described in your text, how is the Amadou Diallo case related to the idea of
automatic processing?
43. In a study by Correll et al. (2002) described in the text, people played a video game in
which they saw white and black people holding either a gun or a cell phone, and had to
press either a “shoot” button or a “don’t shoot” button. What did they find? People
holding which kind of belief(s) were MOST likely to have a “shooter bias”?
44. According to your text, how might girls’ poorer performance on standardized tests be
explained in terms of the self-fulfilling prophecy? Be sure to explain the role of teachers.
45. Explain how each of the following increase the likelihood that schemas resistant to
change: perseverance effect, self-fulfilling prophecy, reconstructive memory.
46. Why do schemas differ from culture to culture?
47. In an experiment by Allan Harkness and colleagues (1985 – see your text), some
women were led to believe that they might date a man named Tom for several weeks and
other women did not expect to have any future contact with Tom. What were the findings
of the study? Explain how the findings relate to the concept of controlled processing.