MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS – REVISION

1. According to Fiske (2005), the core social motive that reflects the need for
shared meaning and prediction is:
(a) belonging
(b) understanding
(c) controlling
(d) trusting

2. Havila knows that she does not like the colour green because she does not
have anything of that colour in her wardrobe. This illustrates the ideas
associated with:
(a) the naive scientist
(b) belief in a just world
(c) self-perception theory
(d) self-discrepancy theory

3. According to Asch (1946), which model do people use to form first

impressions of others?
(a) a tangential model
(b) a behavioural model
(c) a configural model
(d) a cognitive model

4. Upon completion of a study that involves deception, it is essential that

participants are informed of the true nature of the research. This is known as:
(a) respect for privacy
(b) informed consent
(c) deception
(d) debriefing

5. Which of these refers to the self-concept in a relatively collective sense?

(a) social identity
(b) personal identity
(c) self schema
(d) ideal self

6. Carl describes Anaya as organised, conscientious, and punctual. However,

his impression of her is more favourable when thinking of her as a co-worker
than as a romantic partner. After reading about impression formation in social
psychology, you reach which of the following conclusions?
(a) Carl has used a configural model to form his impression
(b) Carl has used an algebraic model to form his impression
(c) Carl has used a covariation model to form his impression
(d) none of the above

7. A long-term effect of peer rejection is:

(a) substance abuse
(b) academic failure
(c) relationship problems
(d) all of the above
8. Which of the following would be classed as a description of the relational self?
(a) being the son of Jack
(b) being a caring person
(c) being a psychologist
(d) both (a) and (b)

9. According to the discounting principle of attribution:

(a) we reject the first explanation that comes to mind
(b) we tend to accept the most likely explanation if there is more than
one plausible cause
(c) we tend to reject dispositional factors when making an attribution
(d) we tend to reject situational factors when making an attribution

10. Rakeem is interested in examining whether people from different cultures

form impressions in different ways. This type of question aligns most closely
with the field of:
(a) social psychology
(b) individual psychology
(c) cultural psychology
(d) cross-cultural psychology

11. When a distinction is made between primary and secondary motives, which of
the following is classified as a secondary motive?
(a) affiliation
(b) sex
(c) aggression
(d) both (a) and (c)

12. Hiroshi was recently at a party and met lots of people. However, he
particularly remembers Nicole because Hiroshi’s wife is also called Nicole.
This is an example of:
(a) self-verification
(b) the self-reference effect
(c) the social-comparison effect
(d) self-reflection

13. The actor-observer bias is the tendency to attribute others’ behaviour to

_________ factors and our own behaviour to _________ factors.
(a) internal; external
(b) controllable; uncontrollable
(c) external; internal
(d) uncontrollable; controllable

14. According to social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954), if you want to feel
good about your performance in 2008PSY, to which of the following people
should you compare yourself?
(a) a student in the class who is doing better than you
(b) a student in the class who is doing equally as well as you
(c) a student in the class who is doing worse than you
(d) a student not in the class who is doing engineering
15. The theory of reasoned action (Fisbein & Azjen, 1975) proposes that the
extent to which we value a particular outcome of a behaviour is important in
understanding our:
(a) attitude toward the behaviour
(b) subjective norm for the behaviour
(c) perceived behaviour control over the behaviour
(d) motivation to comply with the behaviour

16. When considering cultural differences in the self, which of the following is a
self-activity more typical of those from Western rather than Eastern cultures?
(a) being self-expressive
(b) being non-confrontational
(c) promoting group goals
(d) both (a) and (b)

17. When holding a specific attitude leads to greater rewards and fewer costs, the
attitude is serving a(n) __________ function.
(a) ego-defensive
(b) knowledge
(c) value-expressive
(d) instrumental

18. The _________ motive refers to the desire to have accurate and valid
information about oneself.
(a) self-assessment
(b) self-esteem
(c) self-enhancement
(d) self-verification

19. Compared to those with low self-esteem, those with high self-esteem:
(a) are vulnerable to failure
(b) have a self-enhancement motivational orientation
(c) have an inconsistent self-concept
(d) are emotionally unstable

20. According to Hofstede, in nations scoring high on the value dimension of

power distance:
(a) managers would tend to consult with subordinates
(b) parents would expect obedience from their children
(c) autocratic leaders (i.e., leaders who accept little input from group
members) would be expected and accepted
(d) both (b) and (c)

21. Jemima knew little about photography but enrolled in a beginner’s course to
see what it was all about. She was praised for her first effort, but thought this
was just a bit of luck, making an _____________ attribution. When she
continued to be praised for her later work she concluded that anyone could be
a good photographer because photography is so easy. This time her
attribution was _____________.
(a) external-stable; internal-unstable
(b) internal-unstable; external-stable
(c) external-unstable; external-stable
(d) internal-stable; internal-unstable
22. The expression “the looking glass self” refers to a concept of self that is:
(a) derived from what is reflected back to us about ourselves by
others
(b) narcissistic
(c) learned through observation
(d) developed through introspection

23. José likes Armani aftershave because people always compliment how he
smells when he wears it. This is an example of what type of explanation for
attitude formation?
(a) classical conditioning
(b) operant conditioning
(c) mere exposure
(d) modelling

24. In relation to schemas, a prototype is:

(a) a script
(b) a self-schema
(c) the first impression you form about someone
(d) a mental image of a typical example of a category

25. According to Tracey, the living standard in Europe has improved since the
establishment of the European Union (EU). She says she knows this
because she has recently been reading about the EU in the local paper.
Which heuristic is she likely to be using?
(a) simulation
(b) representativeness
(c) availability
(d) illusory correlation

26. Troy is always very nice to his boss, but is never nice to his co-workers.
According to Kelley’s covariation model of attribution, Troy’s behaviour:
(a) has low hedonic relevance
(b) has low consistency
(c) has high consensus
(d) has high distinctiveness

27. In a study of self-monitoring and advertising on social networking sites (Kim et

al., 2017), the findings revealed that:
(a) different social networking sites (i.e., Pinterest versus Instagram)
influenced the level of situational self-monitoring in which participants
engaged
(b) participants primed for low self-monitoring (via use of Pinterest)
reported greater purchase intentions in response to a product-oriented
versus image-oriented advertisement
(c) the priming of different levels of self-monitoring (either via Pinterest or
Instagram) had no impact on purchasing intentions in response to
image-oriented versus product-oriented advertisements
(d) both (a) and (b)

28. Integrating an unfamiliar event, person, or idea into an existing structure of

knowledge is known as:
(a) objectification
(b) stereotyping
(c) anchoring
(d) covariation
29. The fact that you instantly know how to act when going to the movies is due to
a(n):
(a) role schema
(b) self schema
(c) event schema
(d) none of the above

30. What was the main contribution of LaPiere’s (1934) Chinese couple study to
the social psychological literature?
(a) people are discriminatory towards Asian individuals
(b) people’s attitudes are sometimes inconsistent with their
behaviour
(c) people are very friendly towards Asian individuals
(d) people report on surveys that they would accept Asian individuals into
their establishments, but don’t do so in reality

31. In a study that attempted to predict women’s use of birth control pills
(Davidson & Jacard, 1979), which of the following attitudes was most strongly
correlated with the use of birth control pills?
(a) attitude toward birth control
(b) attitude toward birth control pills
(c) attitude toward using birth control pills
(d) each of the above attitudes (i.e., a to c) were equally correlated with
the use of birth control bills

32. Schwartz’ (1992) theory of basic values includes the dimension of

conservation versus __________.
(a) openness to change
(b) exploitation
(c) self-enhancement
(d) self-transcendence

33. In the theory of planned behaviour, which of the following can bypass
intentions to directly affect behaviour?
(a) attitudes towards the behaviour
(b) subjective norms about the behaviour
(c) perceived control over engaging in the behaviour
(d) all of the above

34. The practice of convincing people who participate in an experiment that they
cannot hide their true attitudes (e.g., by connecting them to an electronic
recording machine that, in reality, does not record anything) is referred to as:
(a) the semantic differential strategy
(b) the bogus pipeline technique
(c) attitude priming
(d) the multiple act technique

35. Which of the following statements about ideologies is true?

(a) ideologies are shared cognitive frameworks
(b) ideologies define a set of goals for society and ways to attain these
goals
(c) ideologies are a coherent set of attitudes
(d) all of the above
 WRITTEN ANSWER QUESTIONS – REVISION

1. Briefly describe the method that Williams and colleagues used to examine the
effects of exclusion/ostracism. What was the main conclusion from their work?

Key aspects of the methodology that would need to be identified to answer this
question include:
- A ball-tossing task was used. The original method involved a face-to-face
interaction (i.e., participants showed up to a specified room to take part in the
experiment and two confederates were also there), whereas additional
studies used online interactions (i.e., participants were led to believe they
were taking part in a cyber-ball tossing game).
- Within this task, ostracism was manipulated by varying the degree to which
participants were thrown the ball by confederates.
- Outcome measures included things such as liking for the confederates, self-
esteem, etc.

The main conclusion from these types of studies was that greater ostracism
(whether face-to-face or online) was associated with more aversive outcomes
(e.g., less liking towards confederates, lower self-esteem, etc).

2. Social psychologists have identified three motives that might influence our
search for self-understanding. Name and describe these motives. Also specify
which motive has been identified as the most important.

To answer this question, the three motives of self-assessment, self-verification,

and self-enhancement need to be identified. A description of each should then
be provided (e.g., self-assessment refers to the desire to have accurate and valid
information about oneself). Finally, self-enhancement needs to be identified as
the most important/strongest of the three motives.

3. Describe the weighted averaging model of impression-formation. Provide an

example of how this model works.

Key aspects of this model include:

- That each personality trait is assigned a valence (i.e., how positive or
negative the trait is).
- These valences are then weighted, depending on how important they are
within a context (noting that the importance of a particular trait might vary
depending on the impression-formation context - e.g., the importance of a
particular trait might differ if you are forming the impression of a friend
versus a potential employee).
- For each trait, valence is multiplied by weight, before an average is
calculated to give an overall positive or negative impression.

In providing an example, it would be important to include several traits, indicating

their valence and weighting across a couple of contexts.
4. Name and describe three types of heuristics. Of what value are they?

Heuristics described in the Week 3 lecture and textbook are: (1) the
representativeness heuristic, (2) the availability heuristic, (3) the simulation
heuristic, (4) the illusory correlation, and (5) the false consensus effect. To
answer this question, you need to:

(1) Provide the correct names for the three heuristics selected.
(2) Provide a basic description of each.

For example, you might identify the “availability heuristic” as one example of a
heuristic and describe it as being “used to infer the frequency/likelihood of an
event based on how quickly instances or associations come to mind”

In terms of their value, heuristics are of value as they are “cognitive short-cuts”,
helping us to reduce complex judgements to simpler ones. They also provide
adequately accurate inferences for most of us, most of the time.

5. Name and describe the three dimensions identified by Weiner (1986) in his
model of achievement attributions. Provide two examples of the attributions that
could be made using this model, highlighting how differences on a particular
dimension lead to different attributions for success or failure.

The three performance dimensions identified by Weiner (1986) are (1) locus, (2)
stability, and (3) controllability. To answer to this question, you would identify
these three dimensions and include a description of each of them (e.g., “locus
refers to whether the achievement is caused by the actor [internal] or the situation
[external]”).

The two examples you provide then need to highlight differences on one
particular dimension. For example, you could highlight “typical effort” as an
example of an internal, stable, controllable attribution and “ability” as an example
of an internal, stable, uncontrollable attribution (noting that these attributions differ
on the “controllability” dimension).

6. What does the theory of reasoned action (Fishbein & Azjen, 1975) suggest about
the relationship between attitudes and behaviours?

To answer this question, you would need to recognise that the theory of
reasoned action does suggest that attitudes contribute to the explanation of
behaviours, but that it further suggests that subjective norms and behaviour
intentions also need to be taken into account when considering this link.

More specifically, you would note that:

- the theory suggests that attitudes (determined based on our outcome
expectancies and the value we place on these outcomes) lead to
behaviour intentions
- subjective norms (based on our normative beliefs and our motivation to
comply with these beliefs) also contribute to the prediction of behaviour
intentions
- it is behaviour intentions that then lead to behaviour