Question 1

Members of the military may need to engage in behaviors, such as killing or wounding the enemy, which may go against personal moral standards such as "Thou shalt not kill." To get people to adhere to group rather than individual standards, the military acts to increase soldiers' sense of __________ when they are on the battlefield.

Accepted Answer

A)  cognitive dissonance 
B)  self-awareness 
C)  emotional arousal 
D)  deindividuation

Question 2

Process loss can best be defined as __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  the poor decisions groups make when they become more concerned with cohesion than their task 
B)  the poor performance of group members when they feel anonymous 
C)  any aspect of group interaction that inhibits good problem solving 
D)  an increase of cohesion resulting in a decrease in performance

Question 3

Why is it important to study how effectively groups make decisions?

Accepted Answer

A)  to keep social psychologists employed 
B)  because many important decisions are made by groups such as juries 
C)  because many people wrongly assume that individuals are better at decision-making 
D)  to understand how individuals can improve to make decisions as well as groups do

Question 4

An ambitious study of leadership in 62 countries determined that __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  the best leaders in any culture are agentic leaders 
B)  different traits for leaders are preferred in different cultures 
C)  Latin American and Eastern European cultures preferred the same types of leaders 
D)  the best leaders are autonomous leaders

Question 5

Baron (1986) has found that flashing lights can cause the same social facilitation effects as the presence of other people. These findings support the idea that __________ is the source of arousal that enhances performance on simple tasks.

Accepted Answer

A)  evaluation apprehension 
B)  increased vigilance 
C)  distraction 
D)  reactance

Question 6

What is the primary benefit of having diversity within a group?

Accepted Answer

A)  Different perspectives lead to improved problem solving. 
B)  It leads to more liking of other group members. 
C)  It helps group members to know what to expect from each other. 
D)  The personal identities and personalities are less likely to get lost.

Question 7

The key to success in the "prisoner's dilemma" game is to __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  always be competitive 
B)  withdraw when one's partner chooses a competitive response 
C)  trust one's partner 
D)  respond randomly

Question 8

When studying deindividuation in adolescents, what intervention message seemed to be the most powerful in decreasing negative behavior in these adolescents?

Accepted Answer

A)  the warning that using bad words is not a societal norm 
B)  the warning that other people would disprove of their behavior 
C)  the warning that their comments could hurt someone's feelings 
D)  the warning that their parents could read their comments

Question 9

The resident assistant of a campus residence hall notices that when a team of five students is assigned to clean the common room, the room is not as well cleaned as when only one student is assigned to clean it. What phenomenon does this example illustrate?

Accepted Answer

A)  a minimal group paradigm 
B)  social loafing 
C)  social inhibition 
D)  social facilitation

Question 10

Which of the following collections of people best represents the social-psychological concept of a group?

Accepted Answer

A)  deliberating members of a twelve-person jury 
B)  students in a large lecture course 
C)  undergraduates enrolled at a large public university 
D)  personnel employed at a large corporation

Question 11

Researchers (Karau & Williams, 1993) reviewed more than 150 studies on social loafing, and found that the tendency to loaf is stronger in men than in women. According to this text, why is this true?

Accepted Answer

A)  Men typically occupy positions of higher status than do women. 
B)  Women are higher in relational interdependence than men. 
C)  Women have less power than men, who induce women to do more work. 
D)  Women's tasks are typically more complex than the typical male task.

Question 12

Consider the following antisocial acts: European soccer fans sometimes attack and bludgeon players and other fans; in the United States, members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) burned houses and lynched innocents; frenzied rock and roll fans trample one another, sometimes resulting in deaths. What do these situations have in common? They __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  represent the downside of social facilitation 
B)  demonstrate the tragedies sometimes caused by anonymity 
C)  represent an unexpected hazard of group cohesion 
D)  reflect mass actions caused by relative deprivation

Question 13

Recall that in the Stanford Prison Study conducted by Haney, Banks, and Zimbardo (1973), guards became increasingly aggressive and prisoners became increasingly submissive and withdrawn, all in under a week. Results of this (aborted) study suggest that __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  social roles can take on a power all their own 
B)  norms in the real world are often adopted in artificial settings 
C)  humans are inherently aggressive and will "act out" in the appropriate situation 
D)  interdependence can be reduced in powerful situations

Question 14

One explanation for social facilitation focuses on the role of evaluation apprehension-the anxiety associated with being judged by others-in creating a state of arousal in people. What is the weakness of this explanation?

Accepted Answer

A)  Evaluation apprehension is probably not an important issue to cockroaches. 
B)  People often misattribute the reasons for their arousal. 
C)  Arousal can lead to the social inhibition effect. 
D)  Cognitive appraisal processes precede physiological arousal.

Question 15

Jan is the leader of a cohesive "knowledge masters" group that is preparing to compete against teams from other colleges. To prevent groupthink and ensure that her group is successful, she should __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  assess group members' opinions frequently using show?of?hand voting 
B)  create a unified, cohesive membership to devise strategies together 
C)  invite experts who are not members of the group to attend practice sessions and provide critical feedback 
D)  take the group to a cabin in the mountains so that they are not distracted by other things

Question 16

Complete the following analogy regarding social facilitation. Better: __________:: worse: __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  simple; complex 
B)  complex; simple 
C)  group; individual 
D)  physical; academic

Question 17

In cross-cultural studies, what qualities of a leader seem to be valued by all cultures?

Accepted Answer

A)  strength and power 
B)  intelligence and compassion 
C)  charisma and team orientation 
D)  arrogance and willingness to be honest

Question 18

In describing his experiences during the decision-making process that preceded the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy's adviser, Arthur Schlesinger, reported that although he was opposed to the invasion, he didn't speak out because "others would regard it as presumptuous of him, a college professor, to take issue with august heads of government institutions." This example best reflects __________ as a symptom of groupthink.

Accepted Answer

A)  group members' sense of invulnerability 
B)  decisive leaders' refusal to solicit other points of view 
C)  self-censorship in the interest of avoiding criticism 
D)  the isolation of groups

Question 19

At first blush, it would appear that integrative solutions (in which each side in a conflict agrees to concede something to the other) would be relatively easy to achieve. However, these kinds of solutions are difficult to achieve because __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  when involved parties negotiate, they often wield threats 
B)  involved parties are bad at discovering their adversaries' true interests, and therefore mistrust them 
C)  adversaries would rather experience a stalemate than cede a point to their opponents 
D)  seldom does one adversary want what the other adversary offers to give up

Question 20

Transactional leaders focus on __________ goals.

Accepted Answer

A)  short-term 
B)  long-term 
C)  task-oriented 
D)  relationship-oriented

Exam 9: Group Processes: Influence in Social Groups