Advanced Social Psychology
Examination #1
Study Guide
Fall 2009
1. Define social psychology. Define social influence and state why it is of interest to social
psychologists.
2. Explain how social psychology is influenced by behaviorism and Gestalt psychology. Identify what
each school of psychology has contributed to social psychology.
3. Describe the desire to maintain self-esteem and the desire to form an accurate picture of oneself and
the social world. Discuss how these two desires conflict with one another at times.
4. Briefly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the observational research methods: survey
method, naturalistic observation, laboratory observation, archival research, and the case study method
.
5. Discuss and interpret a correlation coefficient.
6. Explain why one cannot imply causation from correlational or observational research.
7. Describe the basic dilemma of social psychologists. Be sure to define internal and external validity in
your answer and discuss two things that reduce internal validity and four things that increase external
validity.
8. Describe the procedure used in Milgram’s (1963) study. Summarize the results of the study. Describe
the impact this study has had on social psychology. You may want to include some of Elm’s insights
in your answer.
9. Define schemas. Discuss its effects on attention, interpretation, and memory. Identify the functions of
schemas. Identify problems with schema use.
10. Describe the heuristics and other strategies of the "cognitive miser". Give an example of each.
11. Discuss the benefits and costs of our reliance on automatic processing. Identify the characteristics of
controlled processing. Describe the debate over whether automatic or controlled processing is more
important in human functioning. Briefly describe how the two processes might complement one
another.
12. Describe Van der Does’ (2005) theory of the relationship between thought suppression and
depression.
13. Describe the procedure used in the Van der Does (2005) article.
14. Discuss the results and the limitations of the study described in the Van der Does (2005) article.
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15. Discuss the metaphor of human thinking that people are like flawed scientists. To what extent do you
agree (and disagree) with this view?
16. Define the overconfidence barrier. Describe how this barrier can be overcome.
17. Discuss how one's affective state influences perceptions of ambiguous stimuli, memory, and
creativity.
18. List the basic channels through which we communicate nonverbally. Discuss three factors that
decrease decoding accuracy.
19. Identify gender differences in the ability to decode nonverbal communication that is sincere vs.
deceptive. Explain Eagly'’ social-role theory and how it explains the above differences.
20. Discuss Jones and Davis' Theory of Correspondent Inferences.
21. Discuss Kelley's Attribution Theory.
22. Describe biases or errors in the attribution process.
23. State how we come to know our inner feelings and views according to Allen Bem's self-perception
theory.
24. Compare and contrast the Cannon-Bard theory, the James-Lange theory, and Schachter's two-factor
theory of emotion. Explain misattribution of arousal.
25. Discuss social comparison theory.
26. Discuss impression management.
27. State the purpose of the Zell and Alicke (2009) article.
28. Discuss the method and results of Study 1 of the Zell and Alicke (2009) article.
29. Discuss the method and results of Study 2 of the Zell and Alicke (2009) article.
30. Discuss the method and results of Study 3 of the Zell and Alicke (2009) article.
31. Discuss the method and results of Study 4 of the Zell and Alicke (2009) article.
32. Discuss the method and results of Study 5 of the Zell and Alicke (2009) article.
33. Discuss the limitations of the studies performed in the Zell and Alicke (2009) article.
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