PRACTICE QUESTIONS, TEST 2
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, SPRING 2007
PROFESSOR LEE JUSSIM

updated 4/2/07

The 2nd test, originally scheduled for 4/17, has been rescheduled
for 4/19.  I will hold office hours from 11 to 12:30 on Thurs, 4/19.


For the first practice test, I found 2 places
where the page number for the answer were wrong.
I changed those.  However, there may be other places.
These questions come from support materials that come with the text.
I apologize if some of the "you can find the answer here" page numbers
are wrong.  However, even the two places that were wrong, were only
off by a page.  So, if you cannot find the correct answer on the page
it says, look a page or two earlier and later, too.

Lee Jussim


1)                  Conformity that involves publicly acting in accord with an implied or explicit request, while privately disagreeing is called

 

A.     obedience.

B.     acceptance.

C.     conformity.

D.     compliance.

 

Answer page 188

 

 

2)                  If you clean your room only because your parents order you to, your behavior is a form of

 

A.     obedience.

B.     acceptance.

C.     conformity.

D.     compliance.

 

Answer page 188

 

 

3)                  Milgram’s studies explored _______; Asch’s studies explored _______.

 

A.     obedience; conformity

B.     conformity; norm formation

C.     obedience; norm formation

D.     conformity; obedience

 

Answer, page 194

 

 

4)                  Milgram’s studies explored _______; Asch’s studies explored _______.

 

A.     obedience; conformity

B.     conformity; norm formation

C.     obedience; norm formation

D.     conformity; obedience

 

Answer page 194

 

5)                  A psychiatrist who interviewed 40 of Milgram’s participants a year after their participation concluded that

 

A.     none had been harmed.

B.     many were suspicious of all authorities.

C.     a minority of them had lowered self-esteem.

D.     most regretted having served in Milgram’s study.

 

Answer page 198

 

 

6)                  In one variation of his original experiment, Milgram arranged for a confederate “clerk” (posing as a fellow participant) to assume command in the experimenter’s absence. As a result of this manipulation,

 

A.     most teachers agreed to comply with the orders of their fellow group member.

B.     the teachers competed with him and with each other for the role of leader.

C.     participants became more positive about their roles in this cohesive group, and some even became enthusiastic.

D.     80% of the teachers refused to comply fully.

 

Answer page 199

 

7)                  The relationship between the degree to which a group is cohesive and the degree to which the group has power over its members is a _______ one.

 

A.     positive

B.     negative

C.     neutral

D.     curvilinear

 

Answer page 209

 

8)                  Mullen and her colleagues (1990) found that the average baseline jaywalking rate _______ in the presence of a non-jaywalking confederate.

 

A.     increases

B.     decreases

C.     stays the same

D.     increases, then gradually decreases

 

Answer, page 210

 

9)                  Conformity is greater when people respond publicly before a group. This pattern reflects

 

A.     compliance.

B.     acceptance.

C.     normative influence.

D.     informational influence.

 

Answer, page 214

 

10)              Compared to people in individualistic countries, those in collectivist countries are

 

A.     more likely to express psychological reactance.

B.     more responsive to others’ influence.

C.     more susceptible to the fundamental attribution error.

D.     more likely to be independent.

 

Answer, page 215

 

11)              Research in both the United States and Canada revealed that the percentage of those who reported having been drunk in the last year was lower for those over the legal drinking age than for those under the legal drinking age. This exemplifies which of the following concepts?

 

A.     reaction formation

B.     regression

C.     psychological reactance

D.     the self-serving bias

 

Answer, page 218

 

12)              When William McGuire and his Yale University colleagues invited children to “tell us about yourself,” they found that the children were most likely to mention their

 

A.     gender.

B.     nationality.

C.     distinctive attributes.

D.     most common personal characteristics.

 

Answer, page 219

 

13)  You were walking down the street with your friend Sabrina when she stopped to ask a child why he was crying. The boy said that he was lost, so Sabrina took time out of her busy day to help the child find his way home. Sabrina’s behavior can be characterized by

 

A.     the reciprocity norm. 

B.     egoism.

C.     the social-exchange theory.

D.     altruism.

 

Answer page 429

 

14)  Who of the following is most likely to respond favorably to an unexpected request for a charitable donation to a local hospital?

 

A.     Melvin’s older sister, who is hurrying to get to her scheduled appointment with the family doctor

B.     Melvin’s mother, who just received a very favorable job evaluation from her employer

C.     Melvin’s younger brother, who is depressed over receiving a D on a physics exam

D.     Melvin’s father, who is annoyed over the newspaper boy’s trampling of his flower bed

 

Answer, page 432

 

15)  The social responsibility norm refers to the expectation that

 

A.     people will help when necessary in order to receive help themselves later.

B.     leaders will help more than regular group members.

C.     people will help those dependent upon them.

D.     to receive help, people must ask for it.

 

Answer page 435

 

 

16)  If victims seem to have created their own problems by laziness or lack of foresight, people are less willing to offer help. Helping responses are thus closely tied to

 

A.     the overjustification effect.

B.     attributions.

C.     self-concepts.

D.     empathy.

 

Answer, page 436

 

17)  Evolutionary psychology contends that the essence of life is

 

A.     gene survival.

B.     self-actualization.

C.     holistic health.

D.     the discovery of meaning.

 

Answer, page 437

 

18)  The idea that altruism towards one’s close relatives enhances the survival of mutually shared genes is referred to as

 

A.     evolutionary kinship.

B.     altruistic selection.

C.     kin selection.

D.     self-serving helpfulness.

 

Answer page 438

 

 

19)  From an evolutionary perspective it would be most difficult to explain why

 

A.     John paid his son’s hospital bill.

B.     Phyllis helped her mother clean the house.

C.     William helped his next-door neighbor paint his house.

D.     Ruth risked her life to save a stranger from being murdered.

 

Answer, page 439

 

 

20)  In observing people’s responses to staged emergencies, Darley and Latané (1970) found that _______ greatly decreased intervention.

 

A.     social alienation

B.     a lack of empathy

C.     the presence of other bystanders

D.     self-concern

 

Answer, page 446

 

21)  Darley and Latané described a sequence of decisions a bystander must make before he or she will intervene in an emergency. Which of the following is NOT one of the specific steps?

 

A.     noticing the incident

B.     interpreting the incident as an emergency

C.     assessing the victim’s desire for help

D.     assuming personal responsibility for intervening

 

Answer page 446

 

22)  The fact that a person is less likely to help in an emergency when other people are present is called

 

A.     the bystander effect.

B.     pluralistic ignorance.

C.     the self-interest effect.

D.     the suppression of responsibility effect.

 

Answer page 447

 

23)  Darley and Batson (1973) gave Princeton seminary students time to think about a talk that they were about to have recorded, and then sent them to the recording studio. Participants who had been _______ were most likely to stop and offer aid to a “victim” they encountered en route to the recording studio.

 

A.     asked to talk about career opportunities

B.     asked to talk about the Good Samaritan parable

C.     given extra time to reach the studio

D.     told they were already late in departing for the studio

 

Answer page 452

 

24)  Confederates who were dressed either conservatively or in counterculture garb approached either “straight” or “hip” college students and asked for change to make a phone call. Results of this experiment confirmed a _______ bias in helping.

 

A.     familiarity

B.     similarity

C.     credibility

D.     complementarity

 

Answer, page 452

 

 

25)  An institutional practice that subordinates people of a given race is called

 

A.     racism.

B.     prejudice.

C.     discrimination.

D.     a stereotype.

 

Answer page 303

 

26)    A belief about the personal attributes of a group of people is called a(n)

 

A.     affect.

B.     behavioral tendency.

C.     cognition.

D.     stereotype.

 

Answer page 302

 

27)  Prejudiced and stereotyped evaluations

 

A.     are more widespread than formerly believed.

B.     are higher among females than males.

C.     are higher among males than females.

D.     can occur outside of one’s conscious awareness.

 

Answer, page 304

 

28)  Ayres’ (1991) research team visited 90 Chicago-area car dealers using a uniform strategy to negotiate the lowest price on an $11,000 car. The results indicated that _______ were given the highest quote.

 

A.     White males

B.     White females

C.     Black males

D.     Black females

 

Answer  page 306

 

29)  Ideas about how men and women ought to behave are called _______, whereas people’s ideas about how women and men do behave are called _______.

 

A.     gender-role norms; gender stereotypes

B.     gender stereotypes; gender-role norms

C.     gender preferences; gender roles

D.     sexist attitudes; sexists stereotypes

 

Answer, page 308

 

 

 

 

30)  Most Americans agree that

 

A.     the activities of married women are best confined to the home and family.

B.     they would probably move if Black people came to live in great numbers in their neighborhood.

C.     the two sexes are equally emotional.

D.     they would vote for a qualified woman whom their party nominated for president.

 

Answer, page 309

 

31)  Bob is high in social dominance. Which of the following majors is he UNLIKELY to choose in college?

 

A.     business

B.     politics

C.     social work

D.     law

 

Answer, page 312

 

32)  Children of _______ have less stereotyped views of men and women.

 

A.     authoritarian parents

B.     employed women

C.     devoutly religious parents

D.     stay-at-home mothers

 

Answer, page 314

 

 

33)  The tendency for people to more accurately recognize faces of their own race is called the

 

A.     ingroup heterogeneity effect.

B.     outgroup homogeneity effect.

C.     own-race bias.

D.     faceism effect.

 

Answer, page 325

 

34)  Although most suspects in cases of incest, child molestation, and sexual abuse are heterosexual males, the local newspaper omits the word “heterosexual” in any related headlines. In contrast, whenever a self-described gay male is arrested for a crime, the headline proclaims “homosexual arrested”. The resulting prejudice that gay males are more likely to commit violent crimes can in part be blamed on

 

A.     an illusory correlation.

B.     ingroup bias.

C.     outgroup homogeneity effects.

D.     group-serving biases.

 

Answer  page 330

 

 

35)  Describing positive behaviors by an ingroup member in terms of their general disposition, but describing the same behavior by an outgroup member as a specific isolated act has been called the

 

A.     overgeneralization bias.

B.     ingroup homogeneity effect.

C.     outgroup specificity phenomenon.

D.     linguistic intergroup bias.

 

Answer, page 331

 

36)  Linking good fortune with virtue and misfortune with moral failure enables fortunate people to feel pride and enables unfortunate people to avoid responsibility. This is an example of the _______ phenomenon.

 

A.     retribution

B.     just-world

C.     ingroup bias

D.     stereotype invulnerability

 

Answer, page 332

 

37)  Which of the following is an example of aggression as it is defined in the text?

 

A.     Sam accidentally slams the car door too quickly, and it hits Tim’s knee.

B.     Luisa urges her classmates not to vote for Marcy for dormitory senator, citing some rumors about Marcy’s social life.

C.     Carla, a dentist, delivers a shot of Novocain before pulling her patient’s tooth.

D.     Joe’s eagerness and enthusiasm resulted in his being promoted to sales manager in a very short time.

 

Answer, page 345

 

 

38)  _______ aggression aims to hurt only as a means to some other end.

 

A.     Manipulative

B.     Duplicitous

C.     Hostile

D.     Instrumental

 

Answer page 345

 

 

39)  How intense and reactive we are in infancy reflects our

 

A.     serotonin levels.

B.     aggressive instinct.

C.     temperament.

D.     social learning.

 

Answer, page 347

 

 

40)  MacDonald and her colleagues (2000) found that intoxicated people administered stronger shocks and felt angrier when thinking about

 

A.     their physical shortcomings.

B.     their grades in college.

C.     relationship conflicts.

D.     their families.

 

Answer, page 347

 

41)  The redirection of aggression to a target other than the source of the frustration is referred to as

 

A.     displacement.

B.     substitution.

C.     instrumental aggression.

D.     projection.

 

Answer, page 349

 

42)  Arthur did not work very hard on his last class essay assignment, so he was relieved at first to find that he had gotten a C. But when he learned that most of his classmates had gotten B’s and A’s, he felt unhappy and angry about his grade. Arthur’s experience is best explained in terms of

 

A.     the adaptation-level phenomenon.

B.     the relative deprivation principle.

C.     displacement.

D.     Parkinson’s second law.

 

Answer B,  page 351\

 

43)  Juveniles who grow up without a father

 

A.     are less violent.

B.     are more violent.

C.     seem to be unaffected.

D.     are more sensitive to media violence.

 

Answer, page 353

 

44)  Within U.S. subcultures,

 

A.     cities and areas populated by southerners have much higher White homicide rates than those populated by northerners.

B.     cities and areas populated by Midwesterners have much higher White homicide rates than those populated by southerners.

C.     White southern men are less likely to own a gun.

D.     White southern men are half as likely as rural Midwesterner White men to support wars.

 

Answer, page 354

 

45)  In an experiment conducted by Griffitt (1970), students who answered questionnaires while they were _______ reported feeling more tired and aggressive, and expressed more hostility toward a stranger than did participants in a control group.

 

A.     distracted by loud noises

B.     in an uncomfortably hot room

C.     being closely observed

D.     eating popcorn and peanuts

 

Answer, page 356

 

46)  “Watching violence on television gives people a harmless opportunity to vent their aggression.”  This statement is most clearly consistent with the _______ hypothesis.

 

A.     sensitization

B.     catharsis

C.     frustration-aggression

D.     social learning

 

Answer, page 363

 

47)  Surveys of adults and adolescents indicate that heavy viewers of TV violence

 

A.     become more sensitized to violence.

B.     underestimate the frequency of violence in the world.

C.     are more fearful of being personally assaulted.

D.     feel safer and better able to protect themselves.

 

Answer, page 367

 

48)  Myers suggests that one way we could reduce aggression is by

 

A.     reacting to crime after it happens.

B.     forbidding children to watch TV.

C.     training parents how to discipline without violence.

D.     outlawing video games.

 

Answer, page 377

 

 

 

 

49.  ________ can explain _________

A.     diffusion of responsibility; the bystander effect

B.     the bystander effect; diffusion of responsibility

C.     the bystander effect; obedience to authority

D.     obedience to authority; the bystander effect

 

Answer: Lecture

 

 

50.  _____ explains why _________

A.     kin selection; we help those who are dependent on us

B.     reciprocity norm; we help our relatives

C.     social responsibility norm; we help those who have helped us

D.     none of the above

 

Answer: Lecture

 

51.  One in class demonstration showed that those who claimed to be familiar with Milgram’s studies of obedience:

A.     Underestimated how many people gave 450 volts of shock

B.     Overestimated how many people gave 450 volts of shock

C.     Correctly remembered the proportion of people who gave 450 volts of shock

D.     none of the above.

 

Answer: Lecture

 


 

52.  In one in-class demonstration, you were informed of one of the studies Milgram performed as a follow-up to his obedience studies.  In that study, everything was the same as the original, except that there was no experimenter insisting that the teacher continue, and there were no instructions to increase the shock after each incorrect answer (the teacher could give any shock level).  Students in 321 were asked to predict the results of the study.  Those predictions showed that:

A.     Students underestimated how much shock the teachers would give.

B.     Students committed hindsight bias

C.     Students committed obfuscatory consensus.

D.     Students committed the fundamental attribution error.

 

Answer: Lecture

 

53. According to Dr. Jussim,

 

A.     discrimination is a type of mass murder

B.     all mass murder is discrimination

C.     all ethnic cleansing is discrimination

D.     all ethnic cleansing is genocide

 

Answer: Lecture

 

54. According to Dr. Jussim, genocide is something that

 

A.     Is unique to African nations and cultures

B.     Is unique to European nations and cultures

C.     Is unique to Asian nations and cultures

D.     Has been committed by nations and cultures all over the world

 

Answer: Lecture

 

55. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has openly called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

This is a call for:

 

A.     Genocide

B.     Mass murder

C.     Ethnic cleansing

D.     All of the above

 

Answer: Lecture