Deck 4: Social Cognition: Thinking About People and Situations

Question 1

According to the textbook, all of the following factors can DECREASE the accuracy of secondhand information EXCEPT

A) the desire to entertain.
B) ideological distortions.
C) distortion in the media.
D) base-rate information.

Answer 1

base-rate information.

Question 2

Primacy effects often result from

A) a tendency to pay greater attention to information presented early on.
B) strong emotions that disrupt the memory of information presented early on.
C) the belief that information encountered early on is particularly accurate.
D) a failure to engage in schematic processing.

Answer 2

a tendency to pay greater attention to information presented early on.

Question 3

Construal level theory predicts that we think about events distant in time or space in ________ terms, and that we think about events nearer in time or space in ________ terms.

A) abstract; concrete
B) concrete; abstract
C) negative; positive
D) positive; negative

Answer 3

abstract; concrete

Question 4

In one study, elementary schoolteachers were told that aptitude tests indicated that certain students would "bloom" intellectually in the coming year, though in reality these students' names were chosen randomly. At the end of the year, the selected students indeed performed better on aptitude tests compared to other students. This phenomenon is called ________ and is likely driven by ________.

A) a self-fulfilling prophecy; teacher behavior
B) pluralistic ignorance; student ability
C) a self-fulfilling prophecy; student ability
D) pluralistic ignorance; teacher behavior

Question 5

Liam, the photography editor of a national magazine, is looking through a series of pictures to find a model who seems strong and competent. Given research findings on physical appearance and snap judgments, Liam should select a model whose face has

A) large eyes.
B) high eyebrows.
C) an angular chin.
D) a high forehead.

Question 6

Which of the following is the best example of a positively framed statement?

A) How much would you pay to replace all the trees that have been lost?
B) Only ten out of one hundred people who have this surgery are likely to die within a year.
C) This meat is only 25 percent fat.
D) This brand of condom has an overall 75 percent success rate.

Question 7

In 1992, Ross Perot asked voters, "Should the president have the line-item veto to eliminate waste?" Ninety-seven percent said yes. When the question was asked in more neutral terms-"Should the president have the line-item veto or not?"-only 57 percent agreed. This example best illustrates

A) the availability heuristic.
B) spin framing.
C) an order effect.
D) feature matching.

Question 8

The phenomenon of ________ occurs when people are reluctant to express their misgivings about a perceived group norm. Unfortunately, their reluctance reinforces a false norm.

A) group apprehension
B) normative consensus
C) pluralistic ignorance
D) nonrepresentativeness heuristic

Question 9

Lauren is an attractive woman. She has large round eyes, a large forehead, high eyebrows, and a rounded small chin. When other people first meet Lauren, what are they likely to think about her?

A) That she is naïve.
B) That she is competent.
C) That she is dominant.
D) That she is artistic.

Question 10

Under what circumstances is someone more likely to fear victimization as a result of watching a lot of television?

A) if he or she has children
B) if he or she tends to be alone when watching television
C) if he or she lives in a high-crime area
D) if he or she lives in a low-crime area

Question 11

Many members of a street gang believe privately that their initiation process is too harsh and dangerous. However, they do not express these beliefs because they assume that everyone else thinks the initiation process is just fine. This scenario exemplifies

A) pluralistic ignorance.
B) group rationalization.
C) counterfactual conformity.
D) the framing effect.

Question 12

Which of the following news headlines would be most likely to make a lasting impression on readers?

A) Baby Elephant Takes First Steps!
B) Stocks Plummet on Release of Dire Economic Forecast!
C) The Prince Marries!
D) Navy Helps Giant Sea Turtles!

Question 13

One of the most pervasive sources of distortion in secondhand accounts is

A) schematic vigilance.
B) recovered memories.
C) the desire to entertain.
D) a shortage of accurate information.

Question 14

When judgments or decisions are influenced by the way in which information is presented, this is called a

A) pluralistic-ignorance effect.
B) biased-information effect.
C) framing effect.
D) processing failure.

Question 15

The textbook describes research by Todorov and colleagues in which participants rated a large number of faces along different personality dimensions. Which two dimensions stood out as the main dimensions used in these ratings?

A) happiness/sadness and fear
B) trustworthiness and physical attractiveness
C) trustworthiness and dominance
D) happiness and physical attractiveness

Question 16

Which of the following examples best shows how expectations (i.e., schemas) can be self-fulfilling prophecies?

A) Participants primed to think of the elderly actually walk slower down a hallway.
B) Teachers who expect that some children will do well in school actually lead those children to perform better.
C) People are more likely to apply the trait of dependence to a female character in a novel compared to a male character.
D) A schema that is frequently activated will be more likely to be applied to a new stimulus.

Question 17

According to the textbook's description of positive and negative framing, which of the following statements would be most likely to influence someone NOT to undergo a risky surgery?

A) Ninety out of one hundred people who have this surgery survive.
B) Ten out of one hundred people who have this surgery die.
C) The odds are very high that you will survive this surgery.
D) Of one hundred people who have had this surgery, sixty-eight were still alive after a year.

Question 18

According to construal level theory, if you are imagining working on your thesis in graduate school in several years, you are most likely to be thinking about

A) the specific details of how you will conduct the research.
B) how you will block out your time each day to get the work done.
C) the overall goal of how your thesis will help you to finish graduate school.
D) the type of computer you will use to write your thesis.

Question 19

When information ________ has the most influence on people, the primacy effect has occurred. When information ________ has the most influence on people, the recency effect has occurred.

A) experienced secondhand; experienced firsthand
B) experience firsthand; experienced secondhand
C) presented last; presented first
D) presented first; presented last

Question 20

Janet means well when she tells her daughter, "Please do not ever date a boy with a tattoo. People with tattoos are dangerous. A girl down the street dated a boy with a huge tattoo and he ended up assaulting her." If this story is a deceptive exaggeration, Janet is engaging in

A) secondhand extremism.
B) ideological distortion.
C) the embellishment fallacy.
D) heuristic processing.

Question 21

Having prior knowledge about a situation can influence how we construe ambiguous situations. This is a result of a heavy reliance on

A) bottom-up processing.
B) top-down processing.
C) pluralistic ignorance.
D) the recency effect.

Question 22

In which situation would someone be more likely to perform well on a test?

A) when a professor schema is activated
B) when a soccer hooligan schema is activated
C) when a specific example of a supermodel is activated
D) when a specific example of a genius is activated

Question 23

Because schemas have been shown to influence ________, participants who are told to watch a video of a basketball game and count the number of times people in white shirts pass the ball might completely miss seeing a person in a black gorilla suit walk through the game.

A) behaviors
B) attention
C) bottom-up processes
D) priming

Question 24

The research in which participants who were primed to think of elderly people later walked more slowly down a hallway best shows

A) the influence of schemas on memory.
B) that bottom-up processing can have a strong influence on our behaviors.
C) that schemas lead us to notice more information in our environment.
D) the influence of schemas on behavior.

Question 25

The confirmation bias makes what prediction about human behavior?

A) People will seek out supporting evidence for their beliefs.
B) People judge the probability of an event by how it is framed.
C) People will prefer sure wins over gambles.
D) People will prefer gambles over sure losses.

Question 26

The textbook describes an experiment conducted by Bargh and Pietromonaco (1982) in which participants were exposed to a list of words too quickly to discern them. Participants were exposed to either a list composed mainly of hostile words or a list composed mainly of nonhostile words. Consistent with the argument that ________ stimuli influence schemas, results showed that those exposed to the hostile list ________.

A) subliminal; subsequently rated a target person more negatively
B) consciously experienced; were friendlier during a subsequent conversation
C) subliminal; remembered fewer hostile words on a memory test
D) consciously experienced; enjoyed the experiment to a greater degree

Question 27

In her economics class, Nancy has been assigned to do a group project with Mario, someone she does not know well. Nancy's friend Tia knows Mario from another class and tells Nancy about him. According to the primacy effect, Nancy will form the best impression of Mario if Tia describes him in which way?

A) impulsive, critical, stubborn, intelligent, industrious, warm
B) critical, impulsive, stubborn, warm, industrious, intelligent
C) intelligent, industrious, warm, impulsive, critical, stubborn
D) stubborn, intelligent, critical, industrious, impulsive, warm

Question 28

________ processes consist of observing and remembering relevant stimuli from the outside world, and ________ processes filter and interpret stimuli in light of preexisting knowledge and expectations.

A) Deductive; inductive
B) Attentive; elaborative
C) Bottom-up; top-down
D) Perceptual; constructive

Question 29

Procedures that momentarily activate a particular schema are referred to as

A) bottom-up procedures.
B) encoding.
C) top-down procedures.
D) priming.

Question 30

Jim watched a videotape of a woman talking about her life. Throughout the tape, the woman said many things that are stereotypical of a professor. She also said many things that are stereotypical of a waitress. Before watching the video, Jim was told that the woman was employed as a waitress. According to schema research, Jim will probably remember

A) an equal amount of waitress-consistent and professor-consistent information.
B) little information about the woman due to her gender.
C) more waitress-consistent information than professor-consistent information.
D) more professor-consistent utterances than waitress-consistent utterances.

Question 31

Top-down processing is most useful

A) in clearly defined situations with very little ambiguity.
B) in situations where we have very little prior knowledge.
C) in ambiguous situations where we have at least some prior knowledge.
D) Top-down processing is rarely useful.

Question 32

The textbook describes a study in which one group of participants was asked to determine whether working out a day before a tennis match made the player more likely to win, and another group of participants was asked to determine whether working out a day before a tennis match made a player more likely to lose. Consistent with the confirmation bias, participants in the group examining a connection between working out and winning were most likely to search for information about how many players________ and then ________ their matches.

A) did not work out; lost
B) did not work out; won
C) worked out; lost
D) worked out; won

Question 33

You think of Jan as a very introverted person. The confirmation bias predicts that you will

A) look for examples of introverted behaviors in Jan.
B) look for examples of extroverted behaviors in Jan.
C) be likely to form a strong relationship with her.
D) be unlikely to form a strong relationship with her.

Question 34

According to the textbook, which of the following is NOT directly associated with schema activation?

A) subliminal stimuli
B) recent activation of a schema
C) expectations
D) novel information

Question 35

Ahmed went to the Museum of Modern Art during his vacation to New York City. Afterward, he remembers that he liked so many pieces, but he can really only recall the details of the Andy Warhol painting he saw at the very end, as he was walking out the door. Ahmed is displaying

A) the primacy effect.
B) the recency effect.
C) spin framing.
D) positive framing.

Question 36

Jenny has just read a novel about a husband who treats his wife badly. She then meets her new boyfriend for a dinner date. According to research on schemas, Jenny is likely to

A) break up with her boyfriend.
B) view her boyfriend's actions in a more negative light.
C) tell her boyfriend how much she loves him.
D) talk about how they should get married.

Question 37

Barbara mostly chooses to watch news programs that support her political beliefs while avoiding news programs that may disagree with her views. This is an example of the

A) information bias.
B) hindsight bias.
C) misinformation effect.
D) motivated confirmation bias.

Question 38

Psychologists have discovered that people store information in coherent configurations called

A) information nodes.
B) schemas.
C) primes.
D) flashbulb memories.

Question 39

Luis has negative schemas about his looks and his intelligence. He believes he is unattractive and doubts his smarts. At school on Friday, Luis interacted with a few different people. Which of these interactions is Luis likely to remember the following week?

A) Luis's track coach said he needs to practice more.
B) Luis's friend told him she did poorly on the SATs.
C) Luis's classmate told him his new haircut looks good.
D) Luis's history teacher said his paper was not clear.

Question 40

When people form judgments about everyday events, the feature-matching process usually

A) leads to inaccurate perceptions of a given event.
B) leads people to select the right schema to encode a given event.
C) creates a mismatch between the features of a schema and a given event.
D) ensures that irrelevant similarities or superficial features of a given event will not influence a person's schema.

Question 41

The planning fallacy refers to the tendency to

A) be unrealistically pessimistic about someone else's ability to perform a task.
B) be unrealistically optimistic about how quickly you can complete a project.
C) overestimate how much time you need to complete a project.
D) overestimate how much time another person needs to complete a project.

Question 42

Define pluralistic ignorance and explain how it can undermine learning in the classroom or the development of friendship across ethnic groups.

Question 43

People sometimes have to assess whether someone is a member of a particular group. In assessing whether someone is gay or a Republican, for example, we often rely on the ________ heuristic, which entails figuring out the degree to which ________.

A) availability; someone resembles a category prototype
B) availability; someone can be categorized quickly
C) representativeness; someone resembles a category prototype
D) representativeness; someone can be categorized quickly

Question 44

Hedwig just met her friend's new boyfriend and her initial impression wasn't positive. He was so reserved; he barely talked at all. Hedwig then spends some time and energy thinking about all of the good things her friend has told her about him, and considers the fact that sometimes it takes a little while to feel comfortable around new people. She decides he is probably cool after all. In forming this new, positive impression of the boyfriend, Hedwig relied on

A) the rational system.
B) the intuitive system.
C) top-down processing.
D) schema-driven processing.

Question 45

The availability and representativeness heuristics sometimes can operate in tandem. The joint effect of these two heuristics can create a(n)

A) unmemorable association.
B) co-occurrence fallacy.
C) statistical association.
D) illusory correlation.

Question 46

When forming judgments about others, people often rely on the representativeness heuristic. Unfortunately, this can lead people to

A) ignore how much a person resembles a prototypical group member.
B) use information that is causally relevant.
C) rely too heavily on base-rate frequency information.
D) ignore base-rate information.

Question 47

Which of the following instances of "common sense" may be due to the representativeness heuristic?

A) Handwriting analysis cannot reveal certain things about your personality.
B) Eating turtle meat makes you a worse swimmer.
C) You should avoid potato chips if you suffer from greasy skin and acne.
D) You should drink milk when you have a cold.

Question 48

People sometimes work together on a project and later decide who should get the most credit. According to research by Michael Ross, this decision often entails ________ one's own contributions to joint projects. Moreover, this tendency arises from ________.

A) overestimating; self-enhancement motives
B) overestimating; the availability heuristic
C) underestimating; self-enhancement motives
D) underestimating; the availability heuristic

Question 49

People rely on the ________ heuristic when they judge the frequency or probability of some event by the readiness with which similar events come to mind.

A) encoding
B) representativeness
C) accessibility
D) availability

Question 50

How accurate are snap judgments? Take a position one way or the other and support it with two pieces of evidence.

Question 51

Lola visits Trish in Weston, CT. At some point, Lola asks Trish whether there is a lot of crime in Weston. Although crime rarely occurs there, Trish recalls a recent news story about a Weston drug store robbery. On the basis of this memory, she then tells Lola that there is a lot of crime in Weston. This scenario illustrates reliance on the ________ heuristic.

A) representativeness
B) recollection
C) availability
D) anchoring

Question 52

________ are mental shortcuts that provide serviceable but often inexact answers to common judgmental problems.

A) Pluralistic judgments
B) Base rates
C) Mental deliberations
D) Heuristics

Question 53

Because of the availability heuristic, people can be more likely to

A) underestimate the frequency of dramatic natural disasters.
B) overestimate the frequency of dramatic natural disasters.
C) overestimate the frequency of common illnesses that can become fatal, such as diabetes or asthma.
D) underestimate the frequency of dramatic accidents that lead to death.

Question 54

Recall that Norbert Schwarz and colleagues conducted an experiment to explain why the availability heuristic occurs. Their results showed clear support for a(n) ________ explanation.

A) ease of retrieval
B) ease of encoding
C) affective primacy
D) planning fallacy

Question 55

Give two examples of variables that influence the accuracy of secondhand information. Then, for each, describe a situation in everyday life where it could occur.

Question 56

Recall that the Chapmans studied how experienced clinical psychologists and college students would interpret individuals' responses to the Draw-a-Person test, which often is used to diagnose psychiatric disorders. Results showed that ________ perceived illusory correlations between individuals' mental disorders and their drawings.

A) only the students
B) only the clinicians
C) both the students and the clinicians
D) neither the students nor the clinicians

Question 57

Give two examples of how order and framing effects influence specific types of judgments.

Question 58

People use the ________ heuristic when they try to categorize something by judging how similar the object is to their conception of the typical member of the relevant category.

A) representativeness
B) anchoring
C) availability
D) correspondence

Question 59

According to Tversky and Kahneman, when an initial intuitive assessment of a situation is not modified or overridden by a more deliberative analysis,

A) the intuitive system always produces inaccurate judgments.
B) important factors may be ignored and our judgments may be systematically biased.
C) more efficient and accurate information processing occurs.
D) the rational system takes over to produce accurate judgments.

Question 60

Imagine you are part of a marketing team designing an ad campaign for an expensive new sneaker. Define spin framing and then design an ad for the sneaker using this approach.

Question 61

The media (television news programs, newspaper articles, news websites) tend to emphasize dangerous and/or criminal events. How does this so-called bad-news bias influence people's judgments about danger and crime? In addition, discuss how the availability heuristic is relevant to these judgments.

Question 62

Imagine that you have just finished a joint project for your psychology class. According to research on heuristics, will other people take more credit for the project than you think they deserve? Why or why not? Use research to justify your answer.

Question 63

Describe the confirmation bias and explain how it can affect people's decision making. Make sure to indicate when people will make good decisions.

Question 64

Describe two examples of how a person could apply the wrong schemas to situations. In your examples, clearly explain the processes that led to the use of the wrong schema.

Question 65

Describe the planning fallacy and summarize research on why this fallacy occurs.

Question 66

Explain illusory correlation and show how the availability and representativeness heuristics are relevant to this phenomenon.

Question 67

Describe top-down processing and bottom-up processing.

Question 68

Describe the factors that determine whether a schema is accessible (activated) and whether it is applied.

Question 69

What is the intuitive system? What are the advantages of relying on this system? What are the disadvantages?

Question 70

Explain how schemas can influence: (a) attention; (b) inferences about other people; and (c) behavior.