1. ____________ is the study of human cognition, emotion, and behavior in relation to others.

d. Social psychology

2. A researcher is interested in studying how students attend to social information and use it in their lives. Her general focus is:

b. social cognition.

3. ____________ is an uneasy feeling that occurs with the recognition that a mismatch exists between an attitude and a behavior.

a. Cognitive dissonance

4. One common bias we have is to more often attribute causes of behaviors to the individual rather than to the environment, thus underestimating the powerful influence of the environment on behavior. This is known as:

d. the fundamental attribution error.

5. Hovland proposed that persuasive communication involves three important components, and we must consider factors associated with them. The three components are:

d. the source, the message, and the audience.

6. When someone changes his behavior at the request or direction of another person who does not have authority over him, this is known as:

c. compliance.

7. Your neighbor seems to follow the lead in terms of decorating his house. If he sees others hanging lights, he immediately does the same. His urge to modify his behaviors to match those of others in the neighborhood is known as:

a. conformity.

8. Milgram reported that 65% of the participants in his study gave shocks marked as the highest voltage level to a confederate. Researchers have found that the degree of compliance of participants in such studies is associated with the:

c. legitimacy of the authority figure.

9. ____________ occurs when the sharing of duties among all members of the group leads to feelings of decreased accountability.

b. Diffusion of responsibility

10. One study found that 80% of trick-or-treaters in a group who were anonymous took more candy or money than they were supposed to. The children’s sense of anonymity as well as inclusion in a group likely led to their sense of:

a. deindividuation.

11. A family friend of yours constantly goes on about how suburban teenagers with tongue rings are rebelling against their parents and most of them are troublemakers. These ____________ are conclusions he has drawn based on his subjective observations and value judgments.

d. stereotypes

12. Psychologists define ____________ as intimidating or threatening behavior or as attitudes intended to hurt someone.

c. aggression

13. When teachers in an elementary school in San Francisco were given a list of students who were likely to “show surprising gains in intellectual competence” during the coming year, the students on that list achieved greater increases in test scores than students not on it. This example demonstrates the power of ____________, a form of social influence.

b. expectations

14. ____________ suggests that the more we are exposed to people, food, jingles, or songs, the more positive a reaction we have toward them.

a. The mere-exposure effect

15. According to Sternberg, the three elements that make up love are:

d. passion, intimacy, and commitment.

16. You are trying to explain why a colleague of yours is frequently absent from work. Can you come up with an attribution that is external, uncontrollable, and unstable? Can you think of a different attribution that is internal, controllable, and stable?

Answers will vary, but may be based on the following information (see Infographic 14.1). The internal–external dimension refers to the location of the cause. The controllable–uncontrollable dimension refers to whether the outcome can be controlled. The stable–unstable dimension refers to whether the cause is long-lasting. As an example, the reason your colleague has recently been absent is that she is caring for her father (external) who has just been diagnosed with an illness and there is no other family member available to help him (uncontrollable). This set of circumstances, however, has only caused problems this week (unstable).

17. The findings from Milgram’s experiment on obedience seemed surprising when they were first published, but they remain relevant today. Why is it important to pay attention to the way you behave when under the influence of an authority figure?

Answers will vary. Obedience occurs when we change our behavior, or act in a way that we might not normally, because we have been ordered to do so by an authority figure. An imbalance of power exists, and the person with more power generally has an advantage over a person with less power. It is important for us to pay attention to how we react when under the influence of an authority figure, as we could inflict harm on others. One person can make a difference when he or she stands up for what is right.

18. Knowledge about the bystander effect provides a lesson for all of us, particularly in terms of crisis situations in a group setting. How would you describe this lesson to others?

Answers will vary. When a person is in trouble, bystanders have the tendency to assume that someone else will help—and therefore they stand by and do nothing, a phenomenon that is partly due to the diffusion of responsibility. This bystander effect is particularly common when there are many other people present. Individuals are more likely to aid a person in distress if no one else is present.

19. Identify any stereotypes you might harbor about certain groups of people. How did your association with specific groups impact the development of these stereotypes?

Answers will vary, but can be based on the following definition. Stereotypes are the conclusions or inferences we make about people who are different from us, based on their group membership (such as race, religion, age, or gender). We tend to see the world in terms of ingroups (the group to which we belong) and outgroups (people who are outside the group to which we belong), which can impact the stereotypes we hold.

20. Think about someone you are close to and try to determine if—and how—proximity, similarity, and physical attractiveness played a role in your attraction to each other.

Answers will vary, but can be based on the following definitions. Proximity means nearness, which may play an important role in the formation of relationships. Similarity has to do with how much you have in common with someone else. We tend to prefer those who share our interests, viewpoints, ethnicity, values, and other characteristics.