Question 1

Based on his experiences in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II, Victor Frankl came to believe that the ability of people to survive the horrors of the death camps depended on their ability to

Accepted Answer

A)  develop social support from fellow prisoners. 
B)  find some sustaining meaning and hopeful vision of the future. 
C)  maintain their personal integrity and identity despite dehumanizing and brutalizing conditions. 
D)  rationalize, deny, and therefore buffer the reality of their situation.

Question 2

As defined by the Values in Action Project, wisdom refers to

Accepted Answer

A)  high intelligence and technical knowledge. 
B)  being successful and famous. 
C)  practical knowledge and intelligence in dealing with the challenges and uncertainties of life. 
D)  being "right" before the fact - accuracy in predictions about future events and the consequences of people's actions and choices.

Question 3

In Allport's analysis, the relationship between religion and prejudice depends upon whether a person

Accepted Answer

A)  has an intrinsic or extrinsic religious orientation. 
B)  uses religion to justify his or her prejudice. 
C)  is taught to be prejudiced by their family and community. 
D)  does or does not have firsthand experience with the people he or she is prejudiced against.

Question 4

Surveys show that about 20% of people endorse the statement that "I am spiritual but not religious." What is distinctive about this group?

Accepted Answer

A)  They are likely to baby boomers who adhere to "new age" beliefs and are critical of traditional religious institutions. 
B)  Such people tend to be scientists, particularly biologists, who believe evolution and physics explains more than religion. 
C)  They are more often social scientists (e.g., psychologists & sociologists) who believe religion is a "convenient illusion." 
D)  Nearly all have had a significant negative experience with one or another traditional religion.

Question 5

In the SOC Model of Effective Life Management developed by Baltes and his colleagues, S, O, and C refer to

Accepted Answer

A)  selection, organization, and commitment. 
B)  selection, optimization, and compensation. 
C)  seriousness, optimism, and challenge 
D)  sensibility, optimism, and competence

Question 6

"God is generally impersonal and distant. I frequently feel he doesn't care very much about me and may not like me." People who agree with this statement have what type of attachment style?

Accepted Answer

A)  secure 
B)  avoidant 
C)  anxious/ambivalent 
D)  fearful

Question 7

Some people believe that personal tragedies represent God's punishment for their sins and some people wait passively wait for God's solutions to their problems. According to research by Pargament and his colleagues, each of these examples represent

Accepted Answer

A)  anxious/ambivalent attachment. 
B)  avoidant attachment. 
C)  a negative religious coping style. 
D)  a self-directing religious coping style.

Question 8

Baumeister and Exline argue that the Seven Deadly Sins (e.g., gluttony, greed, lust, anger) result from

Accepted Answer

A)  unwise choices, suggesting wisdom is a master virtue. 
B)  the conflict between virtue and self-interest, suggesting commitment to your principles is the basis of virtue and therefore integrity is a master virtue. 
C)  self-control failure, suggesting self-control is the "moral muscle" behind virtuous behaviors and therefore the master virtue. 
D)  too much temptation, suggesting that today's culture of individualism and "me first" is partly to blame for the decline in virtuous behaviors.

Question 9

Overall, what have researchers concluded about the well-being benefits of religion?

Accepted Answer

A)  Religion shows small but consistently positive well-being benefits. 
B)  There are no significant differences in the well-being of religious and non-religious people. 
C)  The overall effects of religion are "washed out" because about half do better and half do worse. 
D)  Until individual differences in religious experience and involvement are sorted out, no overall conclusion is possible.

Question 10

The major goal of the Values in Action Project was

Accepted Answer

A)  to examine and classify the strengths that are the exact opposites of the weaknesses identified by traditional psychology. 
B)  evaluate character strengths and virtues according to their impact on social behavior and society. 
C)  develop a classification system of character strengths that would parallel psychology's existing classification of weaknesses and pathologies described by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 
D)  to identify the character strengths and virtues that are most central to modern Western cultural life.

Question 11

Baby boomers have been described as the "sandwich generation" because they are "sandwiched" between the needs and demands of their own children and those of their aging parents. According to Sternberg's balance theory of wisdom, a wise response to the sandwich generation dilemmas presented in the text example would involve

Accepted Answer

A)  putting ethical principles first and practical matters second. 
B)  finding a compromise solution in which each person's sacrifice was as equal as possible. 
C)  balancing demands with available resources. 
D)  balancing competing interests and courses of action concerning who and what needs to change.

Question 12

Based on five criteria, Baltes and his colleagues, who developed the Berlin model of wisdom, define wisdom as

Accepted Answer

A)  expert knowledge in the conduct of life. 
B)  skill in balancing competing interests and courses of action concerning who and what needs to change. 
C)  accumulated knowledge based on a wide array of human experiences. 
D)  a natural developmental consequence of aging.

Question 13

In studies evaluating the extent to which people follow and endorse the SOC model in their own lives, Baltes and his colleagues have found that higher levels of endorsement are

Accepted Answer

A)  associated with increased optimism, self-esteem, and happiness. 
B)  unrelated to age unless the person has overcome challenge or tragedy. 
C)  associated with increasing age and higher levels of hedonic well-being. 
D)  associated with increasing age and higher levels of eudaimonic well-being and positive emotion.

Question 14

To measure wisdom, Baltes and his colleagues use trained judge's evaluation of people's responses to various life dilemmas. In one study using the life dilemma measure, Baltes and Kunzman asked whether wise people are happier than the less wise. Results from their study found that

Accepted Answer

A)  wisdom and happiness seem to go hand in hand. 
B)  wise people experience less happiness because they are more aware of pain and suffering in the world. 
C)  wise people report both less negative and less positive emotional experiences suggesting skill at self-control. 
D)  wise people report both more negative and more positive emotional experiences suggesting they are more reactive to emotional events.

Question 15

A person who has good self-control, avoids excesses, and "looks before he or she leaps" would fit the virtue of

Accepted Answer

A)  humility. 
B)  social intelligence. 
C)  wisdom. 
D)  temperance.

Question 16

Baumeister and Exline argue that one of the most important functions of virtue and morality is to

Accepted Answer

A)  maintain harmonious relationships with others by controlling selfish needs. 
B)  provide a foundation for religion and spirituality. 
C)  enhance the development of a "mature " personality. 
D)  counteract the negative effects of our relativistic and "anything goes" popular culture.

Question 17

Does the average person see a distinction between wisdom, intelligence, creativity, and sheer fame? When researchers asked people to nominate historic and contemporary exemplars of these characteristics they found that the answer to this question was

Accepted Answer

A)  no, because most people perceive wisdom, intelligence, creativity, and sheer fame as essentially the same thing. 
B)  no, because people distinguished between wisdom and sheer fame, but wisdom, intelligence, and creativity overlapped extensively. 
C)  yes, because people could only think of few wise nominees, but thought of many nominees for intelligence, creativity, and sheer fame. 
D)  yes, because there was a low degree of overlap in the people nominated for wisdom, intelligence, creativity, and sheer fame.

Question 18

When Pargament and his colleagues asked college students and clergy members to rate the degree of religiousness of 100 profiles of hypothetical people they found

Accepted Answer

A)  a high degree of consensus between students and clergy about what it means to be a religious person. 
B)  little consensus between students and clergy about what it means to be a religious person. 
C)  consensus only among deeply religious students. 
D)  consensus only among the clergy who used depth of commitment rather than simply attending church as their cue to religiousness.

Question 19

The Signature Strengths Questionnaire was developed by Values in Action Project (VIA) researchers to measure 24 strengths of character. This questionnaire has been taken by over 350,000 people in 50 different countries. Analysis of character strengths profiles suggest that

Accepted Answer

A)  people in widely different cultures share a common understanding of character strengths. 
B)  the meaning of character strengths varies widely across different cultures. 
C)  the Signature Strengths Questionnaire contains a substantial Western value bias. 
D)  gender, age, and social class have a substantial influence on people's understanding of character strengths.

Question 20

According to Roy Baumeister, a sense of purpose, value, self-efficacy, interpretive control, and self-worth represent

Accepted Answer

A)  psychological needs that underlie people's motivation to find meaning in life. 
B)  psychological needs that people rely on when they cannot find deeper meanings in life. 
C)  psychological needs that can only be fulfilled by spiritual and religious beliefs. 
D)  criteria for evaluating "good" versus "bad" religions from a psychological point of view.

Exam 10: Virtue and Strength of Character