Exam 1: Introducing Social Psychology

Suppose that in a restaurant, a waiter grows impatient with a customer, rolls his eyes, taps his pencil impatiently on his order book, and finally snaps, "I haven't got all day, you know." Compare and contrast how a personality psychologist and a social psychologist would attempt to explain such behavior.

In which of the following examples does the need for accurate information most conflict with the need for self-esteem?

Which of the following is not a likely consequence of the human tendency to prefer self-justifying information to accurate information?

How do social psychologists differ from those who rely on common sense or folk wisdom in answering questions about human nature? Social psychologists

Social cognition is the study of how people

After reading Chapter 1, if you were to advise producers of a safe-sex television campaign, what would you tell them?

After the mass suicides related to the cults at Jonestown, people tended to blame the victims and accuse them of being psychologically unstable or deranged. Social psychologists are more likely to explain these mass suicides as being due to

You've heard that members of a certain fraternity or sorority are snobs. Whenever you see members of that fraternity or sorority, you look down and hurry past them. When they don't greet you, you say to yourself, "Just like I thought-they're all arrogant snobs." You have experienced a phenomenon known as

Brenda is a psychiatrist, and has heard that one of her new patients is particularly difficult to treat. He won't take his medication, and has never shown much improvement from his illness. Brenda doesn't expect to be able to treat him successfully, and unintentionally treats this patient differently than her other ones. She is uncreative in how she approaches his therapy and medication, and after a few months also concludes that he is "incurable." Brenda's approach to this new patient best illustrates the power of

Jordan's lover of four years just left him. He is hurt, angry, and confused, and says to himself, "He never did understand my need for independence." This explanation for the break-up best reflects which human motive?

Sometimes when we encounter behavior that is unpleasant or unexpected, we assume that something about the person-and not the situation-caused the behavior. In this sense, lay people are most like

What is the goal of social psychologists who are concerned about social problems?

Juan thinks that the idea "birds of a feather flock together" has more merit than "opposites attract." So he designs an experiment to test his hypothesis. Juan is most likely a

The scientific study of the way in which people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people is the definition of

Social psychologists are interested in cross-cultural research because it

Rashim is viewed by most people he knows as rude, brusque, and completely unconcerned with other people's feelings. He, in contrast, describes himself as efficient and task-oriented. Rahim's self-description best reflects the motive to

The authors of your text discuss three snares in peoples' ability to reason accurately. All of the following are snares in reasoning except

Jacob was pouring gravy when he dropped the ladle and splattered gravy all over the tablecloth. In order to maintain his self-esteem, Jacob decided that

When asked why she is always losing things, Veronique replies, "I'm not careless. It's just that I have more important things to think about." This response would be predicted by a social psychologist who advocates a ________ approach to understanding human behavior.

According to the authors of your text, when Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) conducted their study on the self-fulfilling prophecy in elementary school classrooms, the "bloomers" in their experiment were actually