Question 1

According to Kelley's covariation principle

Accepted Answer

A)  actors attribute behavior to the situation, but observers attribute behavior to persons. 
B)  people fail to use statistical information, instead relying on intuitive theories to make personality inferences. 
C)  people infer that something is the cause of a behavior if it is present when the behavior occurs and absent when it does not occur. 
D)  people infer the causes of a behavior as a function of the intended consequences of the behavior.

Question 2

Vito finished first in the school spelling bee, Fabrizio finished second, and Luigi finished third. The first place winner gets a cash prize and the opportunity to compete at the regional spelling bee, but the others get nothing. Which of the following is most likely to occur?

Accepted Answer

A)  Fabrizio will engage in more counterfactual thinking than Luigi. 
B)  Luigi will engage in more counterfactual thinking than Fabrizio. 
C)  Fabrizio and Luigi will engage in counterfactual thinking to about the same extent, but more so than Vito. 
D)  Fabrizio and Luigi will engage in counterfactual thinking to about the same extent, but less so than Vito.

Question 3

Social perceivers are most likely to agree in their judgments of which of the following traits?

Accepted Answer

A)  Openness to experience 
B)  Extroversion 
C)  Agreeableness 
D)  Emotional Stability

Question 4

Hassin and Trope's (2000) study of physiognomy found that participants assigned traits to others based on their

Accepted Answer

A)  hair style. 
B)  facial features. 
C)  perceived age. 
D)  perceived race.

Question 5

Sophia voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. She believes that approximately 90% of college students also voted for Obama, when in reality that number is much lower. Sophia's overestimation is consistent with

Accepted Answer

A)  the false-consensus effect. 
B)  the confirmation bias. 
C)  the self-fulfilling prophecy. 
D)  the representativeness heuristic.

Question 6

Which of the following research findings is most consistent with Darwin's hypothesis that the ability to interpret emotion from facial expressions has survival value?

Accepted Answer

A)  People are quicker to recognize angry faces than happy faces. 
B)  People are better able to interpret emotions from video than still pictures. 
C)  People are able to identify six primary emotions. 
D)  People sometimes infer emotions from situations rather than facial expressions.

Question 7

Everyone you know seems to love the TV show The Apprentice . You're a huge fan of reality TV as well, as you never miss an episode of The Amazing Race , American Idol , or Project Runway . But every time you watch The Apprentice , you have the same reaction: you hate it with a passion. According to Kelley's (1967) covariation theory of attribution, your dislike of this show would be

Accepted Answer

A)  high in consensus, low in distinctiveness, and high in consistency. 
B)  low in consensus, high in distinctiveness, and high in consistency. 
C)  high in consensus, high in distinctiveness, and low in consistency. 
D)  low in consensus, low in distinctiveness, and low in consistency.

Question 8

A baseball manager who clings to old strategies that are ineffective, a lawyer who selects juries according to false stereotypes, and a political leader who does not withdraw support for a failing program are all exhibiting

Accepted Answer

A)  belief perseverance. 
B)  confirmatory hypothesis testing. 
C)  the fundamental attribution error. 
D)  need for closure.

Question 9

Vernell is being interviewed for a job. Though it isn't really true, the interviewer suspects that Vernell is incompetent. Because the interviewer doesn't expect much from Vernell, he sits far away from her during the interview, interrupts her frequently, and seems distracted when she speaks. As a result, Vernell becomes nervous, starts to stutter, and loses her train of thought several times. The interviewer's final impression is that Vernell is, as he suspected, incompetent. This impression is most likely the result of

Accepted Answer

A)  the trait negativity bias. 
B)  a self-fulfilling prophecy. 
C)  primacy effects. 
D)  the fundamental attribution error.

Question 10

Research using bicultural participants, such as China-born students attending college in the U.S., indicates that

Accepted Answer

A)  attributional style is dictated by the culture in which one is born and does not vary much due to cultural influences later in life. 
B)  at some point such individuals completely abandon the attributional tendencies of their nation of origin and replace them with the tendencies of their new country of residence. 
C)  people can simultaneously hold differing cultural worldviews, either of which can influence attributional tendencies depending on the situation. 
D)  All of these.

Question 11

The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to attribute

Accepted Answer

A)  one's own behavior to personal factors rather than to the situation. 
B)  one's own behavior to the situation rather than to personal factors. 
C)  another person's behavior to personal factors rather than to the situation. 
D)  another person's behavior to situational factors rather than to personal factors.

Question 12

Research suggests that people seem to commit the fundamental attribution error

Accepted Answer

A)  only if they use the availability heuristic to make attributions. 
B)  only if they are unaware of the actor's feelings about the particular behavior. 
C)  even when they attempt to explain their own behavior. 
D)  even when they are aware of the situational constraints of the behavior.

Question 13

Scripts are often culture-specific. This means that

Accepted Answer

A)  there is a great deal of agreement about the order of events across cultures. 
B)  the more experience one has with a particular behavior, the more successfully one can execute the relevant script. 
C)  the more general the script is, the greater cross-cultural consistency it has. 
D)  the same behaviors may be perceived very differently in different cultures.

Question 14

Whenever Elaine goes to the casino, the noise from all the winning slot machines convinces her that she will be able to win enough money to pay off all her debts. Elaine is a victim of

Accepted Answer

A)  counterfactual thinking. 
B)  the base-rate fallacy. 
C)  the confirmation bias. 
D)  the false-consensus effect.

Question 15

According to correspondent inference theory, in which of the following situations would a personal attribution be most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

A)  Serena, a professor, helps students during her office hours. 
B)  Sally, a naval officer, salutes when her commanding officer enters the room. 
C)  Sam, a wealthy athlete, is ordered by the court to attend a drug rehabilitation program. 
D)  Steve, a world renowned playboy, joins a monastery and takes a vow of celibacy.

Question 16

The primacy effect refers to the tendency for

Accepted Answer

A)  people's impressions of others to be influenced by their memory of events that have just recently occurred. 
B)  perceivers to choose to make personal versus situational attributions as a function of which type is initially available. 
C)  people to first make situational attributions and then, only later, to insufficiently correct these attributions so as to take dispositions into account. 
D)  people's impressions of others to be more affected by information that is learned early rather than late in a sequence.

Question 17

A confirmation bias refers to people's tendency to

Accepted Answer

A)  agree with others whose attitudes differ from theirs. 
B)  behave according to others' expectations. 
C)  interpret, seek, and create information in ways that support existing beliefs. 
D)  reinterpret earlier information to make it more consistent with subsequent information.

Question 18

Deception is most likely to be detected by attending to which channel of communication?

Accepted Answer

A)  Spoken words 
B)  Body posture 
C)  Voice pitch 
D)  Facial expression

Question 19

Carol is asked to rate her husband in terms of how helpful he is with the household chores. Because she cannot think of a single instance of helpful behavior, she gives him a very low rating. Carol relied on _____ to make her judgment.

Accepted Answer

A)  counterfactual thinking 
B)  the base-rate fallacy 
C)  the availability heuristic 
D)  a confirmation bias

Question 20

Fritz is a social psychologist who specializes in studying the processes of social perception. Given this interest, Fritz is least likely to specialize in which of the following research questions?

Accepted Answer

A)  How do employers infer traits and abilities about job candidates based on observing their behavior in a job interview? 
B)  How do police officers and customs agents make judgments concerning how truthful or deceptive particular individuals are? 
C)  How are consumers influenced in their choices by the packaging and positioning of different products? 
D)  How does the performance of athletes vary as a function of their coach's expectations about their ability and potential?

Exam 4: Perceiving Persons