Name: Nguyen Minh Chau – EBBA 12.

Mid-Term Exam
Social Psychology Class – EBBA12/EBDB2
May 2021

1) Find an online article that demonstrates a positive correlation between two

variables. Does the article prove causation? If so, why or why not?

The online article: *link*

The article topic: Study finds correlation between amount of soda children
drink and violent behaviors
The article does prove causation because it was said from the article that:
“Solnick agreed there is no reason to think soda consumption causes
students to be aggressive. Anything from low blood sugar to poor parenting
could cause students to pursue both habits - violence and soda - at the
same time.
It’s possible, she said, that soda consumption is a “red flag” of an overall
poor diet, and that the absence of key nutrients makes students prone to
aggression.”
What causes children to be more aggressive is not just the amount of soda
they drink. It could be the poor parenting, poor diet, having bad days…There
could be more variables in this situation.
We cannot conclude that the assumption of soda can lead to violence in
children.

2) You are driving your motorbike and you pass through an intersection when all
of a sudden a person in the other direction runs the red light causing you to
immediately break. What concept in social psychology is being used when we
make a judgment towards this individual? Give another example of this
cognitive bias.

We could be using the Fundamental attribution error toward this individual

because when accident happens, what first comes to us is pain, and this
leads to loss our temper and not thinking deeply. We use our intuition to
blame that person for breaking traffic laws, and the result is us being injured
despite knowing why he/she runs the red light. There are many reasons why
a person runs the red light; it could be he/she does that deliberately, or
he/she is in a rush and needs to be on time for a business meeting…

Another example of Fundamental attribution error

- When you have studied a lot for the Math exam and you are so confident of
your exam but it turns out to be a bad score, your automatic thought is “the
teacher must have marked my exam wrong” but maybe, the wrong person is
you because maybe your exam is not answer properly, or you may calculate
wrong in some steps.
- Your friend is an active, positive and outspoken. One day she came to
class and didn’t talk to you, and even showed some attitude, your automatic
thought is “Does she hate me? What have I done to her?” but maybe her

1
 attitude towards you is not because of you, it could be that she is having
trouble at home, at school, at her projects…

3) You are in charge of a government office on environmental policy. Your task is

to encourage people to recycle more. What strategies and/or methods would
you use to influence people to recycle more?

Many people nowadays are more aware of the environmental problems, like
deforestation, climate change, carbon footprints… So they tend to use some
eco-friendly things and care more about some environment projects.
I would be open more workshops to propagandize some recycle methods
and give options leading to eco-friendlier life. I will decorate my workshop in
green and invite some environmentalist to share their options about recycle.
After that I will have some actual activities for the attendances to practice
recycle so that they could do it at home. What I want to do is that I can give
them a clearer view on recycling and show them real actions of recycling,
not just any lessons in theory.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the quarantine, my workshop could be
held online through GG meeting, MS Teams or Zoom. For online workshop
like this, the interaction could be harder, so we will encourage people to find
what items they are now having at home could be recycled and what would
they do to recycle them? It’s all based on their creativity.