Question 1

The United States has celebrated independence and rugged individualism from the time of its inception. This suggests that American attitudes toward conformity are __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  generally positive 
B)  situation-specific 
C)  generally negative 
D)  interdependent

Question 2

You can build tolerance, over time, by conforming to group norms. Then, on some occasion when you deviate from the group, you will not suffer any retribution. These "credits" are referred to as __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  kudo points 
B)  idiosyncrasy credits 
C)  deviation forgiveness credits 
D)  grace credits

Question 3

According to the authors of your text, Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi official responsible for transporting Jews to death camps, can best be described as __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  a madman in a mad world 
B)  an ordinary man in an extraordinary circumstance 
C)  a simple bureaucrat easily manipulated by false promises 
D)  Hitler's "fall guy"

Question 4

It could be argued that participants in Muzafer Sherif's (1936) study converged in their estimates of the amount of movement of a point of light because they were avoiding public embarrassment or social censure from other participants. Sherif demonstrated that this was unlikely when he found similar results __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  when participants completed the task with their friends 
B)  two years later 
C)  when participants later completed the task alone 
D)  when participants completed an auditory task in groups

Question 5

Recall that Solomon Asch (1951, 1956) asked participants to estimate the lengths of lines. In response to the incorrect answers of others, some participants actually denied what their eyes saw. These studies provide evidence of __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  normative social influence 
B)  informational social influence 
C)  private acceptance 
D)  contagion

Question 6

Informational social influence is most likely to play a significant role in which of the following situations?

Accepted Answer

A)  Members of a jury trying to reach a verdict in a murder trial 
B)  Family members sitting around the living room trying to guess answers to a TV game show 
C)  Fraternity members encouraging each other to "chug-a-lug" 
D)  Two art students viewing a museum exhibit and discussing their preferences for different works

Question 7

Moibi participates in two groups at school. One is the chess club. She is not very attached to this group and really only joined because they meet on Tuesdays and she needed to find something to do until 5 that day of the week. Moibi also is a cheerleader. Most of the other cheerleaders are her very close friends. If Moibi disagreed with a decision made by each of these two groups, what would be the most likely outcome, according to social impact theory?

Accepted Answer

A)  Moibi would not conform to the chess club or to the cheerleaders. 
B)  Moibi would conform to both the chess club and the cheerleaders. 
C)  Moibi would conform to the chess club but not the cheerleaders. 
D)  Moibi would not conform to the chess club but would conform to the cheerleaders.

Question 8

Execution teams who work at prisons tend to deny personal responsibility for the executions and state that they are just following orders. Such justifications for taking a human life illustrate that when people obey authority they can __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  internally justify their actions 
B)  externally justify their actions 
C)  control the situation psychologically 
D)  influence others to do so as well

Question 9

Victor goes to a fancy French restaurant. There are utensils on the table that he's never even seen before, and more spoons and forks than he's ever seen on one table. Eager to dine in an appropriate and sophisticated way, Victor secretly watches other diners to see what they do. This is an example of __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  normative social influence 
B)  situational interdependence 
C)  informational social influence 
D)  normative conformity

Question 10

You have been hired to help design a campaign to get people to conserve energy. Based on the research by Nolan and colleagues (2008), what is the most effective way to convince people to conserve?

Accepted Answer

A)  Emphasize the money they would save 
B)  Explain the benefits to society 
C)  Explain that they are protecting the environment 
D)  Tell them that their neighbors are doing it

Question 11

Informational social influence does not always produce conformity, but informational conformity is more likely in some situations than in others. What factors increase conformity to informational social influence?

Accepted Answer

The answer of Informational social influence does not always produce...

Question 12

Majorities tend to rely on __________, whereas minorities tend to rely on __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  informational social influence; normative social influence 
B)  normative social influence; informational social influence 
C)  normative social influence; idiosyncrasy credits 
D)  informational social influence; conversion

Question 13

The major downside risk of informational social influence is that the more __________ the situation is, the more we rely on others who are no more likely to be knowledgeable or accurate than we ourselves are, leading us each to adopt others' mistakes and misinterpretations.

Accepted Answer

A)  clearly defined 
B)  superficial 
C)  familiar 
D)  ambiguous

Question 14

Milgram found that about __________ percent of his participants went all the way to 450 volts in his original experiment.

Accepted Answer

A)  25 
B)  45 
C)  65 
D)  85

Question 15

According to research presented in the text (Baron et al., 1996), participants were asked to select perpetrators after a lineup in conditions of high ambiguity; the perpetrator wore different clothing in the lineup than in the original photo, and the slides were shown very quickly. Recall also that some participants were told that the task was one that was being designed for use by the police department and were offered $20 if they were the most accurate, while others were told that it was just a laboratory task under development. This study demonstrated that __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  the more important it was to the participants to be accurate, the more they conformed to other group members' answers 
B)  the more important it was to participants to be accurate, the less they conformed to other group members' answers 
C)  when the task was more important, people conformed more but their self-esteem decreased 
D)  people were more resistant to influence in this study than in the Sherif study because of the greater degree of mundane realism

Question 16

Cross-cultural replications of Solomon Asch's original (1951) conformity studies (in which participants gave public judgments of the lengths of lines) have revealed that __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  because humans are a social species, normative conformity pressures are universal 
B)  people's conformity in these situations varies depending on the culture in which they were reared 
C)  cultures differ in the extent to which private acceptance follows from public compliance 
D)  implicit conformity pressures vary from culture to culture, but explicit pressures do not

Question 17

Believing that others are right is to __________ as conforming without believing is to __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  public compliance; private acceptance 
B)  private acceptance; autokinetic effect 
C)  private acceptance: public compliance 
D)  public compliance; autokinetic effect

Question 18

Mass psychogenic illness, when many people in a group suddenly begin to feel sick, shows the power of __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  informational social influence 
B)  normative social influence 
C)  compliance 
D)  the immune system

Question 19

A(n) __________ norm concerns our perceptions of the way people actually behave in a given situation, regardless of whether others approve or disapprove of the behavior.

Accepted Answer

A)  prescriptive 
B)  descriptive 
C)  injunctive 
D)  deductive

Question 20

According to your text, what seems to drive an idea "going viral" through social influence?

Accepted Answer

A)  That it cognitively makes sense 
B)  That it is funny 
C)  That it is emotionally arousing 
D)  That it has many rewards for liking it

Exam 8: Conformity and Obedience: Influencing Behavior