Social Psychology Quiz

According to the text, which of the following is an underlying explanation for normative influence?

• We like to maintain a positive view of ourselves.

• We like being accepted by others.

• We like to look to others for information about what to do when the situation is uncertain.

• We like to be seen by other people as obedient.

Answer explanation

Normative social influence involves a change in behaviour that is deemed necessary in order to fit in a particular group. The need for a positive relationship with the people around leads us to conformity. This fact often leads to people exhibiting public compliance—but not necessarily private acceptance—of the group's social norms in order to be accepted by the group. Social norms refers to the unwritten rules that govern social behavior. These are customary standards for behavior that are widely shared by members of a culture.

According to the textbook, which of the following is not a common symptom of groupthink?

• Group members believe that the group is always right.

• Group members discount the opinions given by members who disagree with the group.

• Members who disagree with the group are pressured to conform.

• Group members who agree with the leader tend to think in terms of the group’s interest.

Answer explanation

Symptoms:

To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink:

Type I: Overestimations of the group — its power and morality

• Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.

• Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.

Type II: Closed-mindedness

• Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group's assumptions.

• Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, impotent, or stupid.

Type III: Pressures toward uniformity

• Self-censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.

• Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.

• Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of "disloyalty"

• Mindguards— self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.

As observed by Aldag and Fuller (1993), the groupthink phenomenon seems to rest on a set of unstated and generally restrictive assumptions:^[22]

• The purpose of group problem solving is mainly to improve decision quality

• Group problem solving is considered a rational process.

• Benefits of group problem solving:

  • variety of perspectives

  • more information about possible alternatives

  • better decision reliability

  • dampening of biases

  • social presence effects

• Groupthink prevents these benefits due to structural faults and provocative situational context

• Groupthink prevention methods will produce better decisions

• An illusion of well-being is presumed to be inherently dysfunctional.

• Group pressures towards consensus lead to concurrence-seeking tendencies.

Which of the following helps to alleviate groupthink?

• The group leader asks group members for their opinions on a regular basis.

• Focusing on the opinions given by group members, as they are more knowledgeable about the group.

• Enforcing anonymity in voting.

• Providing group members with more information about competing groups.

Answer explanation

According to Janis, decision-making groups are not necessarily destined to groupthink. He devised ways of preventing groupthink:

• Leaders should assign each member the role of "critical evaluator". This allows each member to freely air objections and doubts.

• Leaders should not express an opinion when assigning a task to a group.

• Leaders should absent themselves from many of the group meetings to avoid excessively influencing the outcome.

• The organization should set up several independent groups, working on the same problem.

• All effective alternatives should be examined.

• Each member should discuss the group's ideas with trusted people outside of the group.

• The group should invite outside experts into meetings. Group members should be allowed to discuss with and question the outside experts.

• At least one group member should be assigned the role of devil's advocate. This should be a different person for each meeting.

Which of the following is a key feature of the foot-in-the-door technique?

• The sequence of presenting a small request and a larger request

• The sequence of presenting a large request and a smaller request

• The sequence of presenting a relevant request and an irrelevant request

• The sequence of presenting an irrelevant request and a relevant request

Abstract thinkers have been found to be more resistant to the

• foot-in-the-door technique.

• door-in-the-face technique.

• lowballing technique.

• abstract-then-concrete technique.

Answer explanation

Door-in-the-Face Technique Closely related to the foot-in-the-door technique is its opposite: the door-in-the-face technique (Cialdini et al., 1975). In this method, the larger request comes first, which is usually refused. This is followed by a second smaller and more reasonable request that often gets compliance. An example of this would be if the neighbor first asked you to take care of his dog and cat in your home. After you refused to do so, the neighbor might ask if you would at least water his plants, which you would now be more likely to do. This technique may not be as effective with people who are abstract thinkers, however. You may remember the discussion concerning abstract versus concrete thinking in an earlier chapter. to Learning Objective 8.7. While a concrete thinker would look at an American flag and see the material and the red and white stripes, for example, an abstract thinker might look at the same flag and think about the concept of freedom. In one study, the door-in-the-face technique proved to be as effective as making a direct request for concrete thinkers, but abstract thinkers were less likely to comply with that technique (Henderson & Burgoon, 2013). This may be due to the tendency of abstract thinkers to have a more global perception of themselves when turning down the larger request as somewhat selfish, which then makes them more likely to also turn down the smaller request.

In Milgram’s experiment, which of the following was the key ingredient that promoted obedience?

• The electric shock

• The teacher-learner relationship

• The difficulty of the task administered by the teacher to the learner

• An authority figure

Answer explanation

Some aspects of the situation that may have influenced their behavior include the formality of the location, the behavior of the experimenter, and the fact that it was an experiment for which they had volunteered and been paid.

Ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being.  Obedience to authority is ingrained in us all from the way we are brought up.

People tend to obey orders from other people if they recognize their authority as morally right and/or legally based. This response to legitimate authority is learned in a variety of situations, for example in the family, school, and workplace.

In the ABC model of attitudes, attitudes are made up of

• the affective, belief, and cognitive components.

• the affective, behavioral, and cognitive components.

• the attentional, behavioral, and cognitive components.

• the affective, behavioral, and cultural components.

Answer explanation

The ABC Model of Attitudes Attitudes are actually made up of three different parts, or components, as shown in Figure 12.3. These components should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been reading the other chapters in this text because, throughout the text, references have been made to personality and traits being composed of the ways people think, feel, and act. By using certain terms to describe these three things, psychologists have come up with a handy way to describe the three components of attitudes (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993, 1998; Fazio & Olson, 2003). Affective Component The affective component of an attitude is the way a person feels toward the object, person, or situation. Affect is used in psychology to mean “emotions” or “feelings,” so the affective component is the emotional component. For example, some people might feel that country music is fun and uplifting. Behavior Component The behavior component of an attitude is the action that a person takes in regard to the person, object, or situation. For example, a person who feels that country music is fun is likely to listen to a country music station, buy country music MP3s, or go to a country music concert.

Cognitive Component Finally, the cognitive component of an attitude is the way a person thinks about himself or herself, an object, or a situation. These thoughts, or cognitions, include beliefs and ideas about the focus of the attitude. For example, the country music lover might believe that country music is superior to other forms of music.

Which of these strategies will not help in the reduction of cognitive dissonance?

• Changing conflicting behaviors to match attitudes

• Changing the conflicted cognition to justify behavior

• Bringing self-awareness to attention

• Forming new cognitions to justify behavior

Answer explanation

There are three basic things that people can do to reduce cognitive dissonance:

1. Change their conflicting behavior to make it match their attitude.

2. Change their current conflicting cognition to justify their behavior.

3. Form new cognitions to justify their behavior.

Take the example of Larry, who is a college graduate and a cigarette smoker. On one hand, Larry is educated enough to know that cigarette smoking is extremely harmful, causing lung problems, cancer, and eventually death. On the other hand, Larry enjoys smoking, feeling that it calms him and helps him deal with stress—not to mention the fact that he’s thoroughly addicted and finds it difficult to quit. His attitude (smoking is bad for you) doesn’t match his behavior. Larry is experiencing cognitive dissonance and knows he needs to do something to resolve his dilemma.

What was the key finding of the cognitive dissonance experiment conducted by Festinger and Carlsmith?

• Participants who were paid less were more likely to quit a boring task sooner.

• Participants who were paid more were more likely to quit a boring task sooner.

• Participants who were paid more were more likely to convince themselves that a boring task was interesting.

• Participants who were paid less were more likely to convince themselves that a boring task was interesting.

Answer explanation

In a classic experiment conducted at Stanford University by psychologist Leon Festinger and colleague James Carlsmith (1959), each male student volunteer was given an hour-long, very boring task of sorting wooden spools and turning wooden pegs. After the hour, the experimenters asked the participant to tell the female volunteer in the waiting room that the task was enjoyable. While half of the participants were paid only $1 to try to convince the waiting woman, the other participants were paid $20. (In the late 1950s, $20 was a considerable sum of money—the average income was $5,000, the average car cost $3,000, and gas was only 25 cents a gallon.) At the time of this study, many researchers would have predicted that the more the participants were paid to lie, the more they would come to like the task, because they were getting more reinforcement ($20) for doing so. But what actually happened was that those participants who were paid only $1 for lying actually convinced themselves that the task was interesting and fun. The reason is cognitive dissonance: Participants who were paid only $1 experienced discomfort at thinking that they would lie to someone for only a dollar. Therefore, they must not be lying—the task really was pretty interesting, after all, and fun, too! Those who were paid more experienced no dissonance, because they knew exactly why they were lying—for lots of money—and the money was a sufficient amount to explain their behavior to their satisfaction. Although most people don’t want to be thought of as liars, back then, getting paid enough money to fill the gas tank of one’s car three or four times over was incentive enough to tell what probably seemed to be a harmless fib. Those who were paid only $1 had to change their attitude toward the task so that they would not really be lying and could maintain their self-image of honesty

Which of these statements about stereotypes is false?

• Stereotypes are always negative in content.

• Stereotypes cause people to misjudge what others are like.

• Stereotypes are beliefs that certain characteristics are shared by all members of a particular social group.

• Stereotypes can be resistant to change.

Answer explanation

In social psychology, a positive stereotype refers to a subjectively favourable belief held about a social group. Common examples of positive stereotypes are Asians with better math ability, African Americans with greater athletic ability, and women with being warmer and more communal.

Stereotype vulnerability is highly related to stereotype threat, in which members of a stereotyped group are made anxious and wary of any situation in which their behavior might confirm a stereotype (Abdou et al., 2016; Hartley & Sutton, 2013; Hyde & Kling, 2001; Steele, 1999). ( to Learning Objective 7.10.) In one study, researchers administered a difficult verbal test to both Caucasian and African American participants (Steele & Aronson, 1995). Half of the African American participants were asked to record their race on a demographic* question before the test, making them very aware of their minority status. Those participants showed a significant decrease in scores on the test when compared to the other participants, both African American and Caucasian, who did not answer such a demographic question. They had more incorrect answers, had slower response times, answered fewer questions, and demonstrated more anxiety when compared to the other participants (Steele & Aronson, 1995). Similar effects of stereotype threat on performance have been found in women (Gonzales et al., 2002; Steele, 1997; Steele et al., 2002) and for athletes in academic settings (Yopyk & Prentice, 2005). A recent study did find that some people can overcome feelings of stereotype threat by identifying themselves with a different social identity, such as a woman who identifies herself with “college students” when taking a math exam rather than with “females,” since the latter group is often stereotyped as being math deficient (Rydell & Boucher, 2010). This effect only held for those women with fairly high self-esteem, however