Deck 3: Social Cognition: How We Think About the Social World

Question 1

Psychologists distinguish between two types of cognitive processing.________ thinking is nonconscious and unintentional, whereas ________ thinking is conscious and intentional.

A) Accurate; inaccurate
B) Automatic; controlled
C) Inefficient; efficient
D) Controlled; automatic

Answer 1

Automatic; controlled

Question 2

According to the authors of your text, when people use automatic thinking, they tend to size up new situations

A) slowly and inaccurately.
B) quickly and inaccurately.
C) slowly and accurately.
D) quickly and accurately.

Answer 2

quickly and accurately.

Question 3

Watson, the computer, won his game of Jeopardy! against two very skilled opponents.However, he would not do very well at

A) checkers.
B) chess.
C) poker.
D) trivia games.

Answer 3

poker.

Question 4

New professors often have to concentrate very hard to give a lecture, and monitor themselves carefully to make sure they're not talking too fast and that they are using appropriate and clear examples.More seasoned professors do not have to concentrate as much, and can talk clearly and engagingly, and keep an eye on students all at the same time.This example represents the transition from ________ thinking to ________ thinking as professors gain experience.

A) automatic; controlled
B) unconscious; conscious
C) controlled; automatic
D) random; systematic

Question 5

________ refer(s) to the way people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgments and decisions about themselves and others.

A) Social cognition
B) Schemas
C) Counterfactual thinking
D) Decision rules

Question 6

In general, when people first encounter a novel situation, they tend to

A) be in a state of complete confusion until they have explored extensively.
B) size up the situation quickly and effortlessly and, for the most part, correctly.
C) size up the situation quickly and effortlessly, but with frequent and extensive errors that are corrected only with experience.
D) size up the situation quickly and effortlessly, but with frequent and extensive errors that are impervious to change.

Question 7

Most initial impressions of a novel situation are made using

A) controlled thinking.
B) the representativeness heuristic.
C) counterfactual thinking.
D) automatic thinking.

Question 8

Complete the following analogy.Nonconscious thinking: _______ :: conscious thinking: ________.

A) biased; accurate
B) automatic; controlled
C) controlled; automatic
D) illogical; logical

Question 9

The way that automatic and controlled thinking tend to work together can be best compared to a

A) computer graphics system that relies on both bitmap (pixel by pixel) and vector (mathematically generated line) images.
B) modern jet system that can fly on automatic pilot but also has a manual override.
C) car that can drive in either four-wheel or two-wheel drive.
D) deciduous tree that has leaves in spring through fall but is bare in the winter.

Question 10

The fact that students "instantly" know the difference between a classroom and a party is an example of

A) controlled thinking.
B) automatic thinking.
C) a schema.
D) social cognition.

Question 11

We can form impressions of people we interact with rather quickly and effortlessly.We do this by engaging in an automatic analysis of our environments, based on

A) our past experiences and knowledge of the world.
B) information provided by our parents.
C) biological signals we receive from other people.
D) rewards given to us by our friends.

Question 12

According to the authors of your text, automatic thinking is based on

A) subconscious desires and impulses.
B) biological responses and cognitive thought.
C) one's sense of self and identity.
D) past experiences and knowledge.

Question 13

Parents seldom spend a lot of time explaining to their children how to ride a bicycle.Instead, they often get a bike with training wheels and let the children learn for themselves how to ride a bike.This is because our understanding about how to ride a bicycle is based on

A) automatic thinking, which is difficult to describe to someone else.
B) controlled thinking that can only be learned by experience.
C) intuition, which is difficult to express in language that a child can understand.
D) personal experience that is not likely to be believed by the child.

Question 14

Schemas are most like which of the following?

A) an experiment
B) a hypothesis
C) interjudge reliability
D) a correlation coefficient

Question 15

________ are the cognitive structures we use to organize our knowledge of the social world.

A) Heuristics
B) Schemas
C) Cognitive filters
D) Counterfactuals

Question 16

Which of the following is NOT an example of automatic thinking?

A) forming a first impression of someone within seconds of meeting him or her
B) conducting a search on the Internet
C) having a sense of whether an object is near or far from us
D) driving down the highway while also carrying on a conversation

Question 17

________ thinking is nonconscious, effortless, and unintentional, whereas ________ thinking is conscious, effortful, and intentional.

A) Biased; accurate
B) Automatic; controlled
C) Controlled; automatic
D) Illogical; logical

Question 18

Automatic thinking tends to be all of the following EXCEPT

A) nonconscious.
B) effortless.
C) voluntary.
D) unintentional.

Question 19

Christopher is considering breaking up with his high-school sweetheart.He spends many hours weighing the benefits and drawbacks, he asks his friends for advice, and he thinks about it further before coming to his decision.In this case, Christopher is using

A) automatic thinking.
B) the representativeness heuristic.
C) controlled thinking.
D) self-fulfilling prophecies.

Question 20

Karen is so used to driving to her boyfriend's house that when she is taking her little brother to softball practice early one morning, before she is fully awake, she finds herself driving to her boyfriend's house instead.This is an example of

A) judgmental heuristics.
B) counterfactual thinking.
C) controlled thinking.
D) automatic thinking.

Question 21

Jennifer was walking along the street when she saw a man run out of a convenience store clutching on to a bag.The owner of the store runs out and shouts for the man to stop and come back.Jennifer immediately assumes that there has been a robbery, not that the man was in a hurry and forgot his change.How did she fill in this gap in her knowledge of the situation?

A) She was using the base rate heuristic.
B) She considered self-fulfilling prophecies.
C) She was using racial profiling.
D) She was relying on a schema.

Question 22

Which of the following is NOT a typical example of the kind of knowledge that is contained in a schema? Your knowledge

A) of the typical character traits and behaviors of lawyers.
B) of the first date when you spilled red punch all over your partner.
C) that fairy tales begin, "Once upon a time...."
D) that it is common to leave a 15-percent tip when dining at an eat-in restaurant.

Question 23

Based on the information in this chapter, when we meet someone new, we are likely to

A) consider carefully all information about him or her before forming an impression.
B) use only internal characteristics such as personality to form an impression.
C) categorize this person based on our schemas and other people we know.
D) rely on scripts to form an accurate impression.

Question 24

Which of the following is true?

A) Construals use schemas to make sense of the social world.
B) Schemas use construals to make sense of the social world.
C) Construals and schemas are interchangeable concepts.
D) Construals and schemas don't relate to one another at all.

Question 25

Carol has a subtle "Mona Lisa" smile that is much harder to detect than an obvious toothy grin.Assume that before you met Carol, a mutual friend described her as warm and friendly.The first time Carol smiled at you, if you were to rely on your schemas, you would probably conclude that she is

A) bored talking to you.
B) a friendly person.
C) a cool, aloof person.
D) very hard to read.

Question 26

Schemas are most like which of the following?

A) lenses through which we look at and learn about the world
B) tires on which we move about in the world
C) food, which helps us stay energized to explore the world
D) pillows, which help us recover from our time in the world

Question 27

We are most likely to rely on schemas when the situation we confront is

A) arousing.
B) ambiguous.
C) exciting.
D) forgettable.

Question 28

When Matilda met Joe, she instantly categorized him as a nerd because of his appearance and intense interest in technology and mathematics.Matilda's categorization is an example of her use of

A) scripts.
B) schemas.
C) controlled processes.
D) base rate information.

Question 29

Which of the following does not describe a schema?

A) organizes the social world
B) fills in the gaps of the social world
C) makes sense of the social world
D) increases the accessibility of a trait

Question 30

When you meet your new roommate for the first time, he is wearing glasses, listening to classical music, and reading a copy of the New Yorker Review of Books.You think, "Well, maybe rooming with an intellectual this year will be good for me." You instantly categorized your roommate as an intellectual on the basis of your

A) schemas.
B) memories.
C) intuitions.
D) heuristics.

Question 31

When Robin meets her friend's new roommate, she sees that she has easels and paints strewn about, and has decorated her side of the room with lots of hand-made ceramic pots and paintings.At first, Robin is most likely

A) to use her "artistic" person schema and assume that her friend's roommate is free-thinking and creative.
B) not to make any assumptions about her friend's roommate's preferences and tastes.
C) to use her "artistic" person schema and focus on her friend's roommate's deviations from the schema, such as the fact that she is majoring in business.
D) to change her "artistic" person schema when she discovers that her friend's roommate is a business major.

Question 32

According to the authors of your text, people are likely to quickly categorize people they have just met.This is due to people's reliance on

A) self-fulfilling prophecies.
B) counterfactual thinking.
C) controlled thinking
D) schemas.

Question 33

Recall that Harold Kelley (1950) told some college students that their guest instructor was a warm person, and others that he was a cold person.Students who were told that the guest instructor was a warm person evaluated him more positively and participated more in class discussion than did students who were told that he was cold.These results support the idea that schemas are

A) universal.
B) impossible to modify.
C) especially influential when we encounter ambiguous information.
D) different, depending on the information to which we are exposed.

Question 34

Korsakov's syndrome is a neurological disorder that makes sufferers unable to form new memories.The world is disorienting and incoherent to patients with this disorder, so they often confabulate and invent fictions to make the world less scary and confusing.A social psychologist might say that these patients

A) invent schemas where none exist.
B) have lost their schemas.
C) can only use controlled but not automatic processes.
D) are not concerned with reducing ambiguity.

Question 35

Schemas are most helpful when the situation we confront is

A) arousing.
B) ambiguous.
C) exciting.
D) forgettable.

Question 36

Recall that Harold Kelley (1950) told some college students that their guest lecturer was a warm person, and others that he was a cold person.The visitor then lectured for twenty minutes, and behaved in a very cocky, arrogant way during the lecture.All students viewed the lecturer as arrogant, but differed in their assessments of how humorous he was.These results suggest that schemas are

A) modifiable.
B) more likely to be used to interpret ambiguous behaviors.
C) abandoned in the face of ambiguous behaviors.
D) specific to a particular situation.

Question 37

Recall that Harold Kelley (1950) told some college students that their guest lecturer was a warm person, and others that he was a cold person.The visitor then lectured for twenty minutes, and behaved in a very arrogant way during the lecture.When students evaluated the lecturer,

A) no matter what the expectation, none of the students liked the arrogant lecturer.
B) those students who expected a warm person interpreted his "arrogance" as insecurity.
C) students expecting a warm person rated the lecturer as funnier, but no less arrogant than students who expected a cold person.
D) students who expected a cold person rated the lecturer as less arrogant than students who expected a warm person.

Question 38

Recall that Kelley (1950) told some students that a guest instructor was a warm person and others that a guest instructor was a cold person.When the instructor behaved in an arrogant way, he was rated as immodest, no matter what students were told about him at the outset.These findings suggest that

A) in tense situations, we seldom rely on our schemas.
B) schemas change according to the situation they are applied in.
C) when behaviors are clear, we rely less on our schemas.
D) schemas are specific to the situation in which we find ourselves.

Question 39

Why do we use schemas?

A) Humans are born with schemas.
B) Schemas are taught to us in our early childhood.
C) Without schemas, the world would seem inexplicable and confusing.
D) Schemas ensure that we interpret the world accurately.

Question 40

When most Americans walk into a fast food restaurant chain, they know they should walk up to the counter to order, pay, and pick up their food, rather than sit down and wait to be served.This knowledge of how to act in such a situation is called

A) controlled thinking.
B) a stereotype.
C) a counterfactual thought.
D) a schema.

Question 41

Based on the study by Harold Kelley (1950) presented in your text, if you were to describe yourself to a blind date as being witty, how would she be most likely to view a slightly sarcastic comment you make?

A) as rude
B) as insensitive
C) as being funny and witty
D) as extremely sarcastic

Question 42

In Kelley's 1950 research about the guest lecturer, the independent variable was the

A) students' impressions.
B) personality descriptions.
C) teacher's expectations.
D) bloomers.

Question 43

The authors of your textbook point out that it is reasonable to use schemas to resolve ambiguity, but that this can become problematic when the schema is

A) negative.
B) unclear.
C) newly developed.
D) inaccurate.

Question 44

Diana currently has a goal to lose fifteen pounds by the summer, and she notices that lately her friend, Sarah, hasn't been eating much.Based on your text's discussion of how current goals can affect accessibility, how is Diana most likely to interpret Sarah's behavior?

A) Sarah is ill and has no appetite.
B) Sarah has symptoms of depression.
C) Sarah must be on a diet, too.
D) Sarah must not like the food.

Question 45

When the psychologist asks, "Tell me the first thing that comes to mind," he/she is asking for the most _______ schema.

A) functional
B) accessible
C) colorful
D) fulfilled

Question 46

According to the perspective presented in Chapter 3 (Social Cognition), a person who grew up in a home with an alcoholic parent who sees a man acting in a somewhat strange manner may be ________ likely to interpret this behavior as due to alcohol because of ________.

A) more; chronic accessibility of an alcoholic schema
B) more; ego-defensive biases
C) less; chronic accessibility of an alcoholic schema
D) less; ego-defensive biases

Question 47

In Kelley's 1950 research about the guest lecturer, the dependent variable was the

A) students' impressions.
B) personality descriptions.
C) teacher's expectations.
D) bloomers.

Question 48

Marco is an athlete and plays three different types of sports.When he sees Emma in a track suit, he assumes that she is an athlete as well.The reason this happens is that Marco's schema is

A) accessible because of his experience with sports.
B) primed by seeing Emma in the track suit.
C) accessible because getting her number is his immediate goal.
D) primed by the representativeness heuristic.

Question 49

If you grew up in a household with a brother who was incredibly shy, you might have a different belief about a man you meet who avoids dating women than a person who grew up in a household with a brother who was gay.This difference in interpretation is due to differences in your and the other person's

A) schemas for gay men and shy men.
B) prejudices against gays.
C) chronic accessibility of gay vs.shy schemas.
D) temporary priming of gay vs.shy schemas.

Question 50

Ethan and Heather see a man stumbling around as he walks down the street.Ethan, who belongs to Alcoholics Anonymous, thinks the man is drunk, but Heather, who just watched a TV special on Michael J.Fox, thinks the man has Parkinson's disease.These differing interpretations of the same behavior seem to be caused by Ethan and Heather's differences in

A) accessibility.
B) current goals.
C) stereotypes.
D) self-fulfilling prophecies.

Question 51

Fidan wrecked his dad's car.When his dad got home from work, Fidan met him at the door with a cold beer and his favorite magazine.The smell from his dad's favorite meal was wafting through the house, and his dad's favorite CD was playing.Fidan is trying to use ________ to get his father to think of him as a good, responsible son before he tells him about the car.

A) representativeness heuristic
B) priming
C) controlled thinking
D) counterfactual thinking

Question 52

Professor Chadwick is young and looks even younger than his years.He dresses in jeans, grubby tennis shoes, and Hawaiian print shirts.One day in the hallway, he strikes up a conversation with a student.During the conversation, the student begins to complain about the poor teaching of the faculty in the department and about the bad things he's heard about the course that Professor Chadwick teaches.Needless to say, when the student finds out he was actually talking to a professor, he feels embarrassed and avoids Professor Chadwick.What is the moral of this story?

A) Students should be seen and not heard.
B) Schemas may make us efficient, but sometimes at a cost in accuracy.
C) Heuristics make us more efficient, but only if we apply them to schemas.
D) The world would be a better place if people abandoned their schemas altogether.

Question 53

James has a goal of being able to run a marathon by next year.When he sees a woman dart out of a store and start running, he immediately thinks, "Oh, she must be a runner, too!" rather than, "She's a shoplifter trying to get away." Which of the following is the best explanation for why one schema was accessible rather than another?

A) chronic accessibility due to past experience
B) a current goal
C) base-rate information
D) applicability of priming

Question 54

Priming is similar to which of the following since they both influence our behavior, even without our awareness?

A) self-esteem
B) social influence
C) behaviorism
D) Gestalt psychology

Question 55

According to the authors of your text, what are the three reasons why schemas become accessible?

A) chronic accessibility due to experience; a current goal; priming
B) priming; recent experiences; current goals
C) chronic accessibility due to experience; priming; base rate information
D) priming; chronic accessibility due to experience; non-applicable information

Question 56

Chronic accessibility is to long-term exposure to a stimulus as temporary accessibility is to

A) awareness.
B) positive mood.
C) priming.
D) heuristics.

Question 57

Recall that Harold Kelley (1950) told some college students that their guest lecturer was a warm person, and others that he was a cold person.The visitor then lectured for twenty minutes.After the lecture, those students who expected the lecturer to be warm

A) rated him higher and participated more in class discussion than those who expected him to be cold.
B) rated him higher but did not talk in class any more than those who expected him to be cold.
C) participated in class more than those who expected him to be cold, but did not rate him any differently.
D) and those who expected him to be cold did not differ in their assessments, since they both saw the same person.

Question 58

The text discusses three reasons why schemas can become accessible.Which of the following is NOT one of these reasons?

A) chronic accessibility due to past experience
B) base rate information about a person
C) related to a current goal
D) temporary accessibility due to recent experiences

Question 59

Alice goes to see a rerun of Jaws (a movie about a vicious shark) a few days before she takes off to Florida on spring break.On break, she finds that she is now too nervous to spend much time actually in the water, since she is convinced that anything she sees in the water is a shark.Her heightened sensitivity is due to

A) self-fulfilling prophecy.
B) priming.
C) anchoring and adjustment.
D) representativeness.

Question 60

Winston is looking for a job, and he notices a man in the coffee shop wearing a tie and white shirt, working on his computer, while also flipping through the ads in the paper.Based on your text's discussion of how current goals can affect accessibility, how is Winston most likely to interpret the man's behavior?

A) The man must be waiting on a client.
B) The man must be depressed.
C) The man must be looking for a job, too.
D) The man must be angry and tired.

Question 61

The self-fulfilling prophecy occurs because we often

A) work to revise our schemas when necessary.
B) act based on our schemas.
C) distort our perception of reality to support our schemas.
D) abandon our schemas when we're under pressure.

Question 62

Self-fulfilling prophecies most often are a result of

A) deliberate attempts by people to confirm their schemas.
B) inadvertent and unconscious influences of individuals' schemas.
C) deliberate attempts to treat people in an unbiased manner.
D) priming.

Question 63

In the 1977 study regarding Donald using priming, the dependent variable was

A) word types participants learned.
B) impressions of Donald.
C) teacher's expectations of students.
D) bloomers' IQs.

Question 64

Researchers had participants memorize a number of words before reading an ambiguous passage about a character named Donald.The results of this study showed that people

A) who memorized any positive words about Donald, whether or not they applied to the passage, viewed him more positively.
B) who memorized positive words about Donald viewed him positively only when those words were also applicable to the passage.
C) who memorized negative words about Donald made a concerted attempt to overcome their prejudices and viewed him more positively.
D) were not affected by the positivity or negativity of the words they memorized.

Question 65

You are listening to a radio broadcast which describes a person who donated a kidney to a complete stranger in need of a transplant, when the phone rings and the fireman's association asks you to make a donation.The idea of priming suggests that you will

A) be less likely to make a donation because your self-esteem has been threatened by realizing that you will never be as saintly as the person in the story.
B) be more likely to make a donation because you are in a good mood after hearing the heartwarming story.
C) be more likely to make a donation because the schema of being charitable has been made more accessible.
D) not be affected in your likelihood of making a donation by the radio broadcast.

Question 66

Self-fulfilling prophecies can best be described as

A) someone who believes he or she can do something and does it.
B) when people inadvertently make schemas come true by the way they treat others.
C) the perseverance of a schema after it has been discredited.
D) the nonconscious processes that help us function in daily life.

Question 67

Which of the following provides the best example of the self-fulfilling prophecy?

A) A lawyer asks you to describe the last fight you were in and the jury now believes you have a pronounced history of aggressive behavior, even though that was your only fight.
B) A person tries to bring a shy person out of her shell by acting in a very friendly manner.
C) Due to a rumor of a stock market crash, Wall Street has a significant drop when too many people take their money out of the market.
D) You remember that your waitress friend prefers beer to wine, but mistakenly recall that your librarian friend prefers wine to beer.

Question 68

In a study described in the textbook, participants memorized either words such as neat or disrespectful before reading an ambiguous passage about Donald, in which he was described as engaging in a number of recreational activities (e.g., driving in a demolition derby, white-water rafting) in which he had risked injury and even death.How did these words influence the impressions of Donald?

A) They made the impression of his behavior appear more extreme.
B) They did not affect the impression of him because they were not related to his behavior.
C) They helped make the impression of Donald more sympathetic.
D) They made the impression of Donald more negative.

Question 69

Tiffany has a hard time trusting other people her age because she believes they are irresponsible.Accordingly, when she makes dinner plans with one friend, she also makes backup plans with someone else, and she goes to one or the other.Her friends soon in turn begin to "blow off" their arrangements since it is not clear whether or not Tiffany will show up.Tiffany has created

A) a confirmation bias.
B) a self-fulfilling prophecy.
C) counterfactual thinking.
D) controlled unbelieving.

Question 70

In order for priming to work successfully, thoughts need to be both

A) accessible and salient.
B) chronic and experiential.
C) applicable and accessible.
D) long-term and chronic.

Question 71

In the 1977 study regarding Donald using priming, the independent variable was

A) word types participants learned.
B) impressions of Donald.
C) teacher's expectations of students.
D) bloomers' IQs.

Question 72

"People literally create their own realities" is the basic idea behind ________.

A) the representativeness heuristic
B) counterfactual thinking
C) ironic processing
D) the self-fulfilling prophecy

Question 73

In the self-fulfilling prophecy, a perceiver has a(n) ________ that affects the ________ of the target of perception.

A) bias; emotional reaction
B) expectation; behavior
C) schema; schema
D) emotional reaction; expectation

Question 74

Allison is a very sweet, intelligent, amicable person.However, Joe hears from her ex-boyfriend that she is hard to get along with and very snobby.According to research on the self-fulfilling prophecy, Joe acts in a(n)

A) neutral way toward Allison, even though he has heard bad things about her.
B) unfriendly way toward Allison.This in turn causes Allison to act unfriendly toward Joe, and Joe to believe that her ex-boyfriend was right about her.
C) unfriendly way toward Allison, yet he finds her to be very amicable and decides that her ex-boyfriend must not know her very well.
D) friendly way toward Allison even though he has heard bad things about her, and finds her to be much friendlier than her ex-boyfriend said she was.

Question 75

A self-fulfilling prophecy is like a(n) ________ you want to come true.

A) independent variable
B) dependent variable
C) hypothesis
D) random sample

Question 76

In a study described in the textbook, participants memorized either the word reckless or the word adventurous before reading an ambiguous passage about Donald in which he was described as engaging in a number of recreational activities (e.g., driving in a demolition derby, white-water rafting) in which he had risked injury and even death.This method was used to study the concept of

A) priming.
B) attribution formation.
C) representativeness.
D) counterfactual thinking.

Question 77

How are self-fulfilling prophecies and schemas related?

A) Self-fulfilling prophecies are deliberate attempts by people to confirm their schemas.
B) Self-fulfilling prophecies are inadvertent and unconscious influences on behavior by an individual's schemas.
C) Self-fulfilling prophecies are deliberate attempts to treat people in an unbiased manner.
D) Self-fulfilling prophecies are examples of priming of schemas.

Question 78

Warren believes that Tom is an outgoing, gregarious person."Whom did you hang out with this weekend?" Warren asks Tom."Tell me about all of the fun things that you have planned for the summer," Warren continues.Although Tom is usually rather quiet and reserved, he responds to Warren in an outgoing, friendly manner.This is an example of

A) the perseverance effect.
B) the primacy effect.
C) reconstructive memory.
D) a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Question 79

Researchers had participants memorize a number of words before reading an ambiguous passage about a character named Donald.The words participants read influenced how they interpreted Donald's somewhat ambiguous behavior.The take-home message of this study is that thoughts have to be ________ before they affect our impressions of the social world.

A) either accessible or applicable
B) accessible, but not necessarily applicable
C) applicable, but not necessarily accessible
D) both accessible and applicable

Question 80

The news often points out girls' relatively poor academic performance on standardized tests compared to boys' performance on those tests.Based on the research presented in this chapter, these gender differences may be due in part to

A) the gender bias that pervades standardized tests.
B) biological differences in the ways males and females process information.
C) girls' and young women's "fear of success" schemas.
D) the power of teachers' self-fulfilling prophecies.