Deck 4: Perceiving Persons

Question 1

All of the following could be categorized as sources of "raw data" for a study of social perception except

A) a person's physical appearance.
B) knowledge of what situation a person is in.
C) a person's behavior.
D) accounts given by others about a person.

Answer 1

accounts given by others about a person.

Question 2

Following are the stages of the interpersonal perception process except

A) analyzing.
B) selecting.
C) organizing.
D) interpreting.

Answer 2

analyzing.

Question 3

When Pryor and Merluzzi (1985) questioned college students, they found that the most familiar first step in this script was that

A) two or more couples meet at a common place.
B) the female arrives.
C) dating companions meet at a common place.
D) the male arrives.

Answer 3

the male arrives.

Question 4

As social perceivers, people's impressions of others are

A) formed only after knowing the person for a considerable period of time.
B) uninfluenced by superficial attributes of a person.
C) formed at first encounter and completely unchangeable.
D) influenced by the physical appearance of a person.

Question 5

Todd has a "baby face," and Martin has features that are traditionally considered more mature. They are both being interviewed for the same position in a bank. What is the most probable outcome?

A) Because of his more mature features, Martin will be recommended for the position.
B) Todd will be recommended for the position because baby-faced individuals are perceived as more honest.
C) Todd will be recommended for the position because baby-faced individuals are judged as more qualified for employment than mature-faced individuals.
D) Their facial features will not impact the hiring decision, and the more qualified candidate will get the job.

Question 6

Why is social perception more complex than the simple perception of static objects?

A) People are intentionally deceptive.
B) People seldom pay attention to others.
C) People are accidentally deceptive.
D) Several sensory mechanisms work together.

Question 7

Fritz is a social psychologist who specializes in studying the processes of social perception. Given this interest, Fritz is least likely to specialize in which of the following research questions?

A) How do employers infer traits and abilities about job candidates based on observing their behavior in a job interview?
B) How do police officers and customs agents make judgments concerning how truthful or deceptive particular individuals are?
C) How are consumers influenced in their choices by the packaging and positioning of different products?
D) How does the performance of athletes vary as a function of their coach's expectations about their ability and potential?

Question 8

The study of social perception addresses all of the following except

A) how people explain and analyze the behavior of others.
B) how people form coherent impressions of others.
C) the strategies people use to create a positive self-image.
D) the way that expectations can distort reality.

Question 9

Willis and Todorov (2006) showed college students photos of strangers' faces and found that

A) participants were unable to rate the personality in the photos when they only saw the faces for less than one second.
B) even when they saw the photos for less than one second, participants' ratings of the faces were highly correlated with the ratings of others who looked at the faces without time limits.
C) participants who only saw the faces for less than one second rated the faces as possessing more negative traits than others who were allowed to look at the faces for as long as they wanted to.
D) the longer it took participants to rate each face, the more accurate their ratings were.

Question 10

Based on Sam Gosling's book (2008), how do social perceivers form impressions?

A) The schools that others go to
B) What they have previously heard
C) Physical attributes
D) People's "stuff"

Question 11

Research on perception of complex action, such as athletic activity, indicates that compared to people who break the event up into gross units, those who break the event up into fine units tend to

A) remember more details about the event.
B) lose sight of the big-picture outcome of the event.
C) rely more on the expectations of others in evaluating the event.
D) enjoy their observation of the event more.

Question 12

Andrew tends to view the behavior of others in gross units, whereas Angela tends to break others' behavior down into fine units. Angela is more likely than Andrew to

A) pay more attention to the behavior.
B) detect more meaningful actions.
C) remember more details about the behavior.
D) form a more positive impression of an actor.

Question 13

Which of the following statements about mind perception is most accurate?

A) It only occurs to perception of humans.
B) It occurs for perception of inanimate objects only.
C) The more humanlike the target object, the more likely we are to attribute to it qualities of mind.
D) The less humanlike the target object, the more likely we are to attribute to it qualities of mind.

Question 14

____ is the process by which people attribute humanlike mental states to various animate and inanimate objects, including other people.

A) Belief perseverance
B) Social perception
C) Nonverbal cues
D) Mind perception

Question 15

According to Gray and colleagues (2007), what are the two dimensions on which people "perceive minds"?

A) Depth and breadth
B) Morality and rationality
C) Agency and experience
D) Contextual and focal

Question 16

According to Todorov and others (2008), ____ facial expression will be perceived as most trustworthy.

A) U-shaped mouth with raised eyebrows
B) U-shaped mouth with eyebrows forming a V
C) mouth curled down with raised eyebrows
D) mouth curled down with eyebrows forming a V

Question 17

According to Hassin and Trope's (2000) study of physiognomy, participants assigned traits to others based on their

A) hair style.
B) facial features.
C) perceived age.
D) perceived race.

Question 18

____ reveals a person's feelings without using words, but instead using only gestures.

A) Scripted behavior
B) Fine-unit behavior
C) Perceptually salient behavior
D) Nonverbal behavior

Question 19

While traveling around the world, Teun shows the pictures of men and women from his hometown who are smiling and frowning to various people. He asks those people to infer what emotions the individuals in the pictures are experiencing. According to the research on perceptions of primary emotions, Teun should find that

A) perceptions of the emotions vary widely as a function of the people's culture.
B) perceptions of the emotions are relatively consistent across most cultures.
C) little can be inferred about the emotions unless the behaviors of the individuals in the pictures are also described.
D) little is inferred about the emotions unless the situational contexts of the individuals in the pictures are also described.

Question 20

According to Pryor and Merluzzi (1985), the script for a first date

A) was more easily recalled by participants with extensive dating experience.
B) varied widely by gender, but only when participants relatively experienced.
C) varied widely by sexual orientation.
D) was similar across cultures.

Question 21

Bella is a teacher who suspects that a student is trying to deceive her. Under which of the following conditions does Bella have the best chance of being accurate in her attempts to detect whether or not the student is lying?

A) Bella reads a written transcript of the student's story.
B) Bella sees a silent video of the student's face as the student tells the story.
C) Bella reads a written transcript of the student's story and sees a silent video of the student's face as the student tells the story.
D) Bella asks the student to recount her story in reverse chronological order.

Question 22

What is the purpose of an emoticon?

A) To convey nonlinguistic communication.
B) To promote humor in e-mail exchanges.
C) To make reading e-mail more interesting.
D) To enhance the emotional reaction of the recipient of the e-mail.

Question 23

A group of theories that describe how people explain the causes of behavior is known as

A) attribution theory.
B) correspondent inference theory.
C) information integration theory.
D) the just-world model.

Question 24

The importance of nonverbal behavior to social perception can be seen by the fact that e-mail messages

A) are often misinterpreted, especially when the writer is trying to be funny or sarcastic.
B) have a stronger emotional impact on those who read them than do voicemail messages.
C) are typically substantially longer and more richly detailed than text messages.
D) are the preferred means of communication among younger but not older Americans.

Question 25

The term "gaze disengagement" tends to lead perceivers to

A) believe that a target is overly confident.
B) rate a target as more physically attractive.
C) have difficulty forming an accurate impression of a target.
D) form a social cue to signal exclusion or affiliation.

Question 26

Jerry makes frequent eye contact with the person to whom he is talking. This is most likely to elicit a(n)

A) impression that Jerry is domineering and likes power.
B) impression that Jerry is insecure and needy.
C) positive or negative emotion depending on the kind of eye contact that Jerry uses.
D) positive or negative emotion depending on whether Jerry is talking to a male or female.

Question 27

The "anger superiority effect" states that angry faces are detected more efficiently than friendly faces by people who

A) look away from an angry face in a crowd than a neutral face.
B) look away from an angry face in a crowd than a happy face.
C) spot an angry face in a crowd than a neutral or happy face.
D) identify anger in the faces of people from other cultures.

Question 28

Cross-cultural differences in the perception of nonverbal behavior are least prevalent in which of the following types of judgments?

A) Evaluations of emotions and facial features
B) Interpretations of head-nodding and hand signals
C) Preference for personal space
D) Inferences drawn regarding eye contact

Question 29

In 1965, Jones and Davis suggested that people prefer to make internal attributions because

A) internal attributions are perceived to be better for predicting behavior.
B) internal attributions are faster.
C) people don't like thinking about situational factors.
D) internal attributions make the perceiver happy.

Question 30

Deception is most likely to be detected by attending to which channel of communication?

A) Spoken words
B) Body posture
C) Voice pitch
D) Facial expression

Question 31

Which of the following assertions is supported by research on deception?

A) People are more accurate at detecting deception if they focus on facial expressions rather than voice cues.
B) Police officers and FBI agents are better at detecting deception than most other people.
C) People tend to have an accurate sense of their lie-detecting abilities.
D) People are more accurate at detecting deception if they focus on body movements rather than facial expressions.

Question 32

What is the adaptive significance of being able to identify the emotion of disgust in others' faces?

A) It motivates us to draw near to the target and promotes affiliation.
B) It helps us to avoid food poisoning.
C) It keeps us from experiencing rejection, which is damaging to the immune system.
D) It helps us to locate food sources.

Question 33

What do psychologists mean by the term "thin slices?"

A) The judgment was thoroughly researched.
B) The judgment was based on a minimal amount of information received.
C) The judgment is probably inaccurate.
D) The judgment was based on a very rich behavior sample.

Question 34

A meta-analysis conducted by Elfenbein and Ambady (2002) found that the emotion that is most accurately judged across cultures on facial expressions is

A) sadness.
B) happiness.
C) anger.
D) embarrassment.

Question 35

According to cross-cultural research on perception of emotion conducted by Elfenbein and Ambady (2002),

A) people are uniformly good at perceiving the emotional states of others based on nonverbal cues, regardless of whether perceivers and targets are from the same culture.
B) people are fairly successful at perceiving the emotional states of individuals from other cultures, but we are better at judging emotions of individuals from our own culture.
C) people are actually better at perceiving the emotional states of individuals from other cultures because they are not distracted by language use and other verbal cues.
D) language comprehension plays a central role in the evaluation of emotion.

Question 36

____ gets activated when we sniff a disgusting odor as well as when we watch others sniffing the disgusting odor.

A) Amygdala
B) Insula
C) Hippocampus
D) Hypothalamus

Question 37

Which of the following research findings is most consistent with Darwin's hypothesis that the ability to interpret emotion from facial expressions has survival value?

A) People recognize angry faces better than happy faces.
B) People are better able to interpret emotions from video than still pictures.
C) People are able to identify six primary emotions.
D) People sometimes infer emotions from situations rather than facial expressions.

Question 38

____ is not considered to be a primary emotion.

A) Sadness
B) Fear
C) Anger
D) Anxiousness

Question 39

Why are we not very successful at detecting deception?

A) We pay too much attention on nonverbal cues and not enough on verbal cues.
B) We fail to attend to the nonverbal cues that actually signal deception.
C) We are motivated to believe that others are telling the truth.
D) We need to be able to detect deception in order to gain evolutionary advantage.

Question 40

According to Ekman and O'Sullivan's (1991) research, who would be able to detect a liar accurately?

A) A local police investigator
B) A trial judge
C) A psychiatrist
D) A U.S. Secret Service agent

Question 41

The concept of the availability heuristic is illustrated when you

A) choose one movie over another because you prefer the design of its poster at the cinema.
B) never make a decision about where to eat because you are seldom hungry.
C) vow to never drive again because of the horrible accident you witnessed in front of your office.
D) refuse to buy a drink that you think is overpriced, even if you are wrong.

Question 42

Kelley's theory of attribution suggests that, in trying to discern personal characteristics from behavioral evidence, people

A) behave in ways that have distinctiveness, consistency, and consensus.
B) use cognitive heuristics improperly.
C) usually attribute behavior to both personal and situational factors.
D) fail to adequately consider consensus information.

Question 43

What should be the criterion for making an external or internal attribution about a person's behavior?

A) Behavioral consensus
B) Behavioral distinctiveness
C) Behavioral consistency
D) All of the above

Question 44

According to which of the following principles, a personal attribution is most likely to result when consistency is high, consensus is low, and distinctiveness is low?

A) Situational attribution
B) Correspondent inference theory
C) Covariation
D) Personal attribution

Question 45

When ____ is low, it is difficult for the perceiver to attribute behavior to either the person or the stimulus; as a result the behavior was caused by transient circumstances.

A) Consensus
B) Distinctiveness
C) Openness
D) Stability

Question 46

According to Kahneman's (2011) work on judgment and decision making, System 1 is to ____ as System 2 is to ____.

A) easy;controlled
B) controlled; easy
C) accurate; inaccurate
D) inaccurate; accurate

Question 47

What factor explains the influence of anchoring on judgments?

A) Sufficient adjustment
B) Plausibility
C) Knowledge of anchor and target
D) Biasness

Question 48

Which of the following statements describes one of the ways in which your text describes social perceivers as differing?

A) Individuals vary in the degree to which they believe behavior is caused by fixed versus malleable characteristics.
B) People differ in the extent to which they have positive or negative personality characteristics.
C) There are differences in whether people are or are not motivated to make accurate perceptions of others.
D) People may not consider cultural variations that impact the way others should be assessed.

Question 49

Everyone you know seems to love the TV show The Bachelor . But every time you watch The Bachelor , you have the same reaction: you hate it with a passion. According to Kelley's (1967) covariation theory of attribution, your dislike of this show would be

A) high in consensus, low in distinctiveness, and high in consistency.
B) low in consensus, high in distinctiveness, and high in consistency.
C) high in consensus, high in distinctiveness, and low in consistency.
D) low in consensus, low in distinctiveness, and low in consistency.

Question 50

When do we make an attribution about a person?

A) When they are heavily criticized.
B) When they are strongly praised.
C) When a cause is imputed for their actions.
D) When they are being judged by the others.

Question 51

Colin and Erin are waiting to meet with their caterer so that they can discuss the menu for their wedding. The caterer is 30 minutes late and still hasn't arrived. Colin suggests that the caterer is probably stuck in the traffic. Erin suggests that the caterer is probably disorganized and unreliable. Colin is making a(n) ____ attribution, whereas Erin is making a(n) ____ attribution.

A) dispositional; situational
B) situational; personal
C) expected; unexpected
D) correspondent; dispositional

Question 52

According to Jones and Davis's (1965) correspondent inference theory, observers trying to infer what an actor is trying to achieve by a particular action would ask all of the following questions except which question?

A) Did the behavior violate any social norms?
B) What were the consequences of the behavior?
C) What is the actor's perception of the behavior?
D) Did the actor freely choose to perform the behavior?

Question 53

Which of the following features best explains how availability affects judgments?

A) Difficulty to recall
B) Counterfactual thinking
C) Ease of recall
D) Stereotyping

Question 54

Which of the following reflects the primary question underlying the correspondent inference theory?

A) Do attributions correspond with preexisting beliefs?
B) Does an individual's belief correspond with that individual's behavior?
C) Does the actor's behavior correspond to the actor's stable personality?
D) Does an observer infer that an actor's behavior is consistent with that of the observer?

Question 55

What has been shown to improve social perceiver's ability to evaluate covariation?

A) Happy mood
B) Sad mood
C) Confirmatory evidence
D) Inductive reasoning

Question 56

What does fallacy reflect?

A) A failure to use consensus information
B) A failure to use consistency information
C) The actor-observer effect
D) An excessive reliance on situational attributions

Question 57

Sophia voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. She believes that approximately 90% of college students also voted for Obama, when in reality that number is much lower. Sophia's overestimation is consistent with the

A) false-consensus effect.
B) confirmation bias.
C) self-fulfilling prophecy.
D) representativeness heuristic.

Question 58

In making a judgment regarding a specific instance, people often fail to think about how frequent something is in general. This explains

A) base-rate fallacy.
B) confirmation bias.
C) false consensus effect.
D) regression fallacy.

Question 59

Kelley's covariation model suggests that three types of information are crucial for arriving at external or internal attributions except

A) dissonance.
B) consensus.
C) consistency.
D) distinctiveness.

Question 60

According to correspondent inference theory, in which of the following situations would a personal attribution be most appropriate?

A) Serena, a professor, helps students during her office hours.
B) Sally, a naval officer, salutes when her commanding officer enters the room.
C) Sam, a wealthy athlete, is ordered by the court to attend a drug rehabilitation program.
D) Steve, a Casanova, joins a monastery and takes a vow of celibacy.

Question 61

Which of the following statement is true based on counterfactual thinking among Olympic medalists?

A) Bronze and silver medalists are equally likely to think "What if I had won the gold?"
B) Silver medalists are happier with their standing than bronze medalists, because silver medalists think about how they could have done worse and received the bronze.
C) Silver medalists are less happy with their standing than bronze medalists, because they think if they could have done better and won the gold.
D) Bronze medalists are more envious of silver medalists than of gold medalists.

Question 62

According to Samuel Sommers (2011) people seem to commit the fundamental attribution error

A) only if they use the availability heuristic to make attributions.
B) only if they are unaware of the actor's feelings about the particular behavior.
C) even when they attempt to explain their own behavior.
D) even when they are aware of the situational constraints of the behavior.

Question 63

According to the two-step model of the attribution process, people make an

A) automatic first step of weighing situational and personal attributions equally, and then an effortful second step of considering the initial inference.
B) automatic first step of assuming person's behavior, and then an effortful second step of considering situational steps.
C) effortful first step of weighing situational and personal attributions equally, and then an automatic second step of making a dispositional inference.
D) automatic first step of making a situational attribution, and then an effortful second step of considering personal factors.

Question 64

Suppose an experiment was conducted where people were asked to watch a political debate between two candidates who have been tied. Half of the participants saw a videotape of the debate where the camera focused on candidate A. The other half of the participants saw a videotape of the debate where the camera focused on candidate B. It is likely that

A) the majority of the participants declared the debate a tie.
B) both groups saw candidate A as victorious.
C) the group that viewed candidate A thought she was victorious, whereas the group that viewed candidate B thought he was victorious.
D) the group that viewed candidate A thought candidate B was victorious, whereas the group that viewed candidate B thought candidate A was victorious.

Question 65

Britney wonders if she would have been happier had she married Justin instead of Kevin. This illustrates

A) counterfactual thinking.
B) t he fundamental attribution error.
C) t he availability heuristic.
D) f alse-consensus bias.

Question 66

You hear Tiger Woods doing a radio commercial for Buick. Even though you know that Woods did not write the commercial himself, was paid to provide the voice-over for the commercial, and probably does not drive a Buick in real life, you still think that at some level, Woods must think highly of Buicks. This is an example of the

A) actor-observer effect.
B) false-consensus bias.
C) availability heuristic.
D) fundamental attribution error.

Question 67

In the Jones and Harris (1967) study, participants read essays presumably written by another student that had either been assigned or chose to write in support of a particular position. Which of the following statements is consistent with the findings of this study?

A) Participants were more likely to infer the student's attitude from the essay if they believed it was written under conditions of free choice and not assigned by the instructor.
B) Participants were more likely to infer the student's attitude from the essay if they believed it was an assigned topic rather than chosen.
C) Participants were more likely to infer the student's attitude from the essay if it agreed with their own.
D) Participants did not infer the student's attitude from the essay at all if it was an assigned topic.

Question 68

Based on research on counterfactual thinking, in which of the following scenarios is Jamal most likely to wonder what life might have been like had he been richer?

A) Financially, Jamal is in the upper-middle class. His parents were slightly wealthier.
B) Financially, Jamal is in the upper-middle class. His parents were lower-middle class.
C) Financially, Jamal is in the working class. His parents were also working class.
D) Financially, Jamal is in the middle class. His parents were extremely rich.

Question 69

According to Kahneman and Tversky's work on decision framing, even when the options were objectively the same, people were likely to take risks when those risks were framed as

A) potential losses.
B) potential gains.
C) small possibilities.
D) big possibilities.

Question 70

_______ involves the tendency to mentally undo events or to ask "What if…?"

A) The base-rate fallacy
B) Attribution
C) Counterfactual thinking
D) The fundamental attribution error

Question 71

LeBron is eating at a restaurant on a first date when his date spills spaghetti all over his lap. Which of the following conclusions would LeBron be most likely to draw if he commits the fundamental attribution error?

A) His date gets nervous on first dates.
B) His date is a slob.
C) His date is even more attractive than he originally thought.
D) His date is even less attractive than he originally thought.

Question 72

According to Gilbert's two-step model of social perception, distraction leads to the fundamental attribution error as it

A) discourages personal attributions, but has little effect on situational attributions.
B) inhibits perceivers from using distinctiveness information, but allows them to take consistency information into account.
C) does not interfere with the automatic process of making personal attributions, but does interfere with the more difficult process of making situational adjustments.
D) changes the interrelationship between the figure and the background in social perception.

Question 73

The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to attribute

A) one's own behavior to personal factors rather than to the situation.
B) one's own behavior to the situation rather than to personal factors.
C) another person's behavior to personal factors rather than to the situation.
D) another person's behavior to situational factors rather than to personal factors.

Question 74

Research using bicultural participants, such as China-born students attending college in the United States, indicates that

A) attributional style is dictated by the native culture and does not vary much with cultural influences later in life.
B) at some point such individuals completely abandon the attributional tendencies of their nation of origin and replace them with the tendencies of their new country of residence.
C) people can simultaneously hold differing cultural worldviews, either of which can influence attributional tendencies depending on the situation.
D) attributional style is dictated by the culture in which one lives, unless that person is spending time with family members from their culture of origin.

Question 75

The "Quiz Show" study by Ross and colleagues (1977) found that in judging the general knowledge of the contestant and questioner,

A) observers fell victim to the fundamental attribution error, but the questioner and contestant did not.
B) participants did not fall victim to the fundamental attribution error because they knew that the quiz show roles were assigned at random.
C) observers and even contestants fell victim to the fundamental attribution error.
D) men were more likely to commit the fundamental attribution error than women.

Question 76

Which of the following types of error in social cognition can be seen by the fact that people might feel bad eating mousse shaped like cat-poop?

A) Magical thinking
B) Counterfactual thinking
C) Intuitive thinking
D) The false-consensus effect

Question 77

Vito finished first in the school spelling bee, Fabrizio finished second, and Luigi finished third. The first-place winner gets a cash prize and the opportunity to compete at the regional spelling bee, but the others get nothing. Which of the following is most likely to occur?

A) Fabrizio will engage in more counterfactual thinking than Luigi.
B) Luigi will engage in more counterfactual thinking than Fabrizio.
C) Fabrizio and Luigi will engage in counterfactual thinking to about the same extent, but more so than Vito.
D) Fabrizio and Luigi will engage in counterfactual thinking to about the same extent, but less so than Vito.

Question 78

According to Balcetis and Dunning (2006), people taking part in a taste-testing experiment

A) tend to perceive things as per visual stimuli.
B) prefer orange juice to greenish drink.
C) have perceptions that are objective analyses of the facts.
D) are unlikely to make self-serving attributions.

Question 79

According to Miller (1984), the attributions of American and Asian Indian participants rely on

A) no cultural differences emerged with young children, but among adults, Americans were more likely to make personal attributions, and Indians were more likely to make situational attributions.
B) no cultural differences emerged with young children, but among adults, Americans were more likely to make situational attributions, and Indians were more likely to make personal attributions.
C) among young children, Americans were more likely to make personal attributions, and Indians were more likely to make situational attributions; no cultural differences emerged with adult participants.
D) among young children, Americans were more likely to make situational attributions, and Indians were more likely to make personal attributions; no cultural differences emerged with adult participants.

Question 80

Research examining the role of culture in the attribution process has found that

A) children reared in Western cultures are more likely to make the fundamental attribution error than those reared in Eastern cultures.
B) children reared in Western cultures are less likely to make the fundamental attribution error than those reared in Eastern cultures.
C) adults in Finland are more likely to make the fundamental attribution error than those in Korea.
D) adults in Western cultures are less likely to make the fundamental attribution error than those in Eastern cultures.