Question 1

What are the three motives that drive the conclusion a person makes in a given instance of social cognition, according to lay epistemology theory? Consider the case of a person trying to make a decision between two candidates in a local political election. How might each of the motives lead that person to a different decision?

Accepted Answer

The answer of What are the three motives that drive...

Question 2

In a study by Williams and Bargh (2008) on the role of metaphor in person perception, researchers found that:

Accepted Answer

A)  people holding a warm coffee cup evaluated a stranger as more friendly than people holding a cold coffee cup. 
B)  people holding a cold coffee cup evaluated a stranger as more friendly than people holding a warm coffee cup. 
C)  people who interacted with a friendly person were more likely to order a hot coffee than people who interacted with an unfriendly person. 
D)  people who interacted with a friendly person were more likely to order an iced coffee than people who interacted with an unfriendly person.

Question 3

In priming, an assimilation effect occurs when:

Accepted Answer

A)  bringing a schema to mind causes a person's thinking and judgment to change in the direction of that schema. 
B)  bringing a schema to mind causes a person's thinking and judgment to change in the opposite direction of that schema. 
C)  a person sees the figure in an image, instead of the ground. 
D)  a person sees the ground in an image, instead of the figure.

Question 4

Of the following pairs of attitudes, which set has been shown to have the strongest correlation between people's explicit and implicit attitudes?

Accepted Answer

A)  thin people-fat people 
B)  Jay Leno-David Letterman 
C)  Democrat-Republican 
D)  Yankees-Diamondbacks

Question 5

Provide at least three examples from research demonstrating the ways in which confirmation bias influences our interpretation of information and decision making. Can you offer an example from your own life of a situation in which you and another person arrived at opposite conclusions after being exposed to the same information, as a result of these processes?

Accepted Answer

The answer of Provide at least three examples from research...

Question 6

What does the research on attitudes suggest?

Accepted Answer

A)  It is not possible to have implicit and explicit attitudes towards an object that are different in valence (or direction) from each other. 
B)  It is possible for people to have opposite implicit and explicit attitudes (in terms of valence and direction) towards the same object. 
C)  People's implicit and explicit attitudes towards objects are never correlated with each other. 
D)  Some people have only implicit attitudes towards a certain object, while others only have an explicit attitude towards it.

Question 7

The experiential system is _____, while the cognitive system is _____.

Accepted Answer

A)  automatic and intuitive; conscious and controlled 
B)  conscious and controlled; automatic and intuitive 
C)  evolutionarily functional; evolutionarily nonfunctional 
D)  evolutionarily nonfunctional; evolutionarily functional

Question 8

What does the existential perspective suggest is the reason why people are quite sensitive to even small violations of expected meanings?

Accepted Answer

A)  People prefer to seek out moments of uncertainty in the hope that they will discover new sources of meaning in life. 
B)  People experience negative arousal whenever their standard meanings are violated. 
C)  If the world is not an orderly place, people may be unable to maintain faith that any of their accomplishments will be remembered after they die. 
D)  The earliest humans who were sensitive to violated meanings were more likely to survive and reproduce than those who were insensitive to such violations.

Question 9

In a classic study by Darley and Gross (1983), participants were shown a video of a fourth-grade girl and asked to evaluate her math ability. Before the video they were told that the girl was from either an upper-class or lower-class background. They were also either shown a video of the girl playing on the playground, or performing somewhat well on an oral test. What was the main finding of the study?

Accepted Answer

A)  Those who watched the playground video rated the girl as more intelligent when they thought she was upper- (rather than lower-) class. 
B)  Those who watched the oral test video rated the girl as equally intelligent whether they thought she was upper- or lower-class. 
C)  Those who watched the oral test video rated the girl as more intelligent when they thought she was lower- (rather than upper-) class. 
D)  Those who watched the oral test video rated the girl as more intelligent when they thought she was upper- (rather than lower-) class.

Question 10

Amartya is interviewing several candidates for a position at his firm. If he makes the right decision with the hiring choice, the firm will prosper, his superiors will look favorably on him, and Amartya will likely receive a promotion. However, if he makes a poor choice, the firm will suffer, and Amartya may even be demoted. When evaluating candidates for the position, Amartya will be primarily motivated by a need for:

Accepted Answer

A)  accurate knowledge. 
B)  specific closure. 
C)  nonspecific closure. 
D)  structure and meaning.

Question 11

In which of the following situations are people MOST likely to make a decision about another person based on the first information they are given, rather than considering all of the information they receive equally?

Accepted Answer

A)  when they are under a time limit to make a decision 
B)  when they believe they are going to spend substantial time interacting with that person 
C)  when the environment is quiet and comfortable 
D)  when the stakes of making a wrong decision are quite high

Question 12

Kenji is attempting to learn French. He is seated in a library with headphones on, listening to classical music, as he stares at a textbook and tries to memorize French words. In a single moment, a new song comes on that Kenji particularly enjoys, and he suddenly finds it easier to remember the French words he is looking at. In this moment, the French words are being processed by Kenji's _____, while the music is being processed by Kenji's _____.

Accepted Answer

A)  cognitive system; experiential system 
B)  experiential system; cognitive system 
C)  schema; script 
D)  script; schema

Question 13

What is the definition of mood?

Accepted Answer

A)  a generalized state of affect that persists longer than the experience of an emotion 
B)  a state that involves a particular appraisal, a physiological state, and a concrete behavioral intention 
C)  a diffuse feeling state that we can cognitively trace back to a single, identifiable incident 
D)  a general cognitive perception of the environment

Question 14

Janet loves children's movies about princesses. One day, she watches a children's movie about a princess, and shortly afterwards she is introduced to a friend of a friend, a woman named Tamara who is rich. What does research on priming suggest will occur?

Accepted Answer

A)  Janet will have a negative impression of Tamara. 
B)  Janet will have a positive impression of Tamara. 
C)  Janet will have a mixed impression of Tamara. 
D)  Janet will be unable to make up her mind about Tamara.

Question 15

Rodrigo is watching his favorite basketball team play an important game. When it comes to the number of potential penalties committed by his favored team, what does research suggest Rodrigo will likely perceive?

Accepted Answer

A)  Rodrigo will perceive the exact number of potential penalties committed by the team, as judged by independent observers. 
B)  Rodrigo will perceive more potential penalties committed by the team than they actually commit. 
C)  Rodrigo will perceive fewer potential penalties committed by the team than they actually commit. 
D)  The number of potential penalties perceived by Rodrigo will depend on whether the team is winning or losing this season.

Question 16

Research suggests that people in a positive mood process information:

Accepted Answer

A)  in terms of relevance to the self. 
B)  in terms of relevance to others. 
C)  experientially and heuristically. 
D)  carefully and deliberately.

Question 17

What is the primary implication of the meaning maintenance model?

Accepted Answer

A)  People are primarily motivated by a need for nonspecific closure. 
B)  The sense of meaning that a person develops in childhood is maintained throughout the rest of their life. 
C)  People are willing to completely revise their meaning systems in order to accommodate incoming information. 
D)  When people are exposed to seemingly meaningless or uncertain situations, they strive to affirm familiar meanings and morals, even in unrelated areas.

Question 18

What is the primary function of an implicit association test?

Accepted Answer

A)  determining a person's "unconscious intelligence" 
B)  to explore people's network of cognitive associations by asking them to name one word after another without conscious reflection 
C)  to determine the extent to which people tend to think more implicitly, as opposed to explicitly 
D)  to determine the extent to which people mentally associate two concepts, even outside of conscious awareness

Question 19

If a person is primed with words related to hunger, and they are then offered a candy bar by one of their friends, what does research on priming and motivation suggest will occur?

Accepted Answer

A)  They will refuse the candy bar. 
B)  They will be more likely to eat the candy bar. 
C)  They will be more likely to eat the candy bar if they were already hungry. 
D)  They will like that particular friend more than they otherwise would.

Question 20

The cognitive system is the origin of _____, while the experiential system is the origin of _____.

Accepted Answer

A)  explicit attitudes; implicit attitudes 
B)  implicit attitudes; explicit attitudes 
C)  bias; rationality 
D)  rationality; bias

Exam 3: The Core Elements of Social Cognition