5 Steps to a 5 AP Psychology, 2010-2011 Edition (71 page)

13. B—
Cognitive dissonance research states that in order to reduce tension created by opposing actions and values or beliefs, a person will modify either the actions or the beliefs to create cognitive consistency.

14. B—
Reciprocity is the compliance technique often used by groups to get others to donate money out of obligation since the group has given them a small gift first.

15. E—
Letters A–D are all instrumental factors in determining who will become friends, but opposing views on social issues may cause initial conflict and a lesser tendency for people to be motivated to form a friendship.

Social psychology
—study of how groups influence individuals’ attitudes and behavior.

Group dynamics:

•
Social group
—two or more people sharing common goals and interests interact and influence behavior of the other(s).

•
Norms
—rules either implicit or explicit that govern the behavior of group members.

•
In-groups
—groups to which we belong and tend to favor.

•
Out-group
—groups to which we do not belong, we tend to attribute negative qualities to out-groups.

•
Roles
—ascribed social positions and defined behavior expectations in groups.

•
Social loafing
—the tendency of individuals to put less effort into group projects than when individually accountable.

•
Deindividuation
—loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in situations that promote high arousal and anonymity in groups.

•
Social facilitation
—improved performance of well-learned tasks in front of others.

•
Group polarization
—like-minded people share ideas resulting in a more extreme position for every individual.

•
Groupthink
—individuals self-censor beliefs to preserve harmony in the group.

•
Bystander intervention
—the active involvement of a person in a situation that appears to require his/her aid.

•
Diffusion of responsibility
—an explanation of the failure of bystander intervention stating that when several bystanders are present, no one person assumes responsibility for helping.

•
Altruism
—the unselfish concern of one individual for the welfare of another.

Attributions:

Social cognition
—the way people gather, use, and interpret information about social world.

Attribution theory
—a way to understand how people explain others’ behaviors.

Dispositional factors
—individual personality characteristics that affect a person’s behavior.

Situational factors
—environmental stimuli that affect a person’s behavior.

Fundamental attribution error
—tendency when judging others’ behaviors to overestimate the role of personal factors and underestimate situational factors.

Self-serving bias
—to take personal credit for our own achievements and blame our failures on situational factors.

Self-fulfilling prophecy
—a tendency to let preconceived expectations influence one’s behavior, thus evoking those very expectations.

Actor–observer bias
—tendency to attribute our behaviors to situational factors and others’ behaviors to dispositional factors.

Interpersonal perception:

Stereotype
—scheme used to quickly judge others; can be an overgeneralized belief about the characteristics of members of a particular group.

Prejudice
—unjustified attitudes we hold about others.

Discrimination
—unjustified action against an individual or group.

Scapegoat theory
—attributes prejudice to frustration; when own self-worth is in doubt or in jeopardy, we find others to blame.

Ethnocentrism
—belief that our culture or social group is superior to others.

Just-world phenomenon
—tendency to believe in fairness, that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get.

Out-group homogeneity
—belief that members of another group are more similar in their attitudes than they actually are.

Contact theory
—if members of two opposing groups are brought together in an emergency situation, group cooperation will reduce prejudicial thinking.

Jigsaw classroom
—expert groups of diverse backgrounds learn one part of a lesson and share information in jigsaw groups. Students are dependent upon others; self-esteem and achievement of “poorer” students improve; former stereotypes are diminished. Friendships are based on proximity, similarity, reciprocal liking, and utilitarian value.

Conformity, compliance, and obedience:

Conformity
—the adoption of attitudes and behaviors shared by a particular group of people.

Compliance
—engaging in a particular behavior at another person’s request.

Foot-in-the-door
—agreement to smaller request leads to agreement with larger request later.

Reciprocity
—small gift makes others feel obligation to agree to later request.

Attitudes and change:

Attitudes
—learned predisposition to respond favorably or unfavorably to certain people, objects, or events.

Mere exposure effect
—increased liking for a person or another stimulus resulting from repeated presentation (exposure).

Elaboration likelihood model
(ELM)—attitudinal change through two routes: central or peripheral.

Central route of persuasion
—relatively stable change by carefully scrutinizing facts, statistics, and other information.

Peripheral route of persuasion
—pairs superficial positive factors (supermodels and celebrities) with an argument leading to less stable change in attitudes.

Communicators should be experts, likable, admired, and good-looking.

Messages should be geared to the audience—one-sided if in agreement, two-sided if audience differs.

Informational social influence
—accepting others’ opinions about reality, especially in conditions of uncertainty.

Normative social influence
—going along with the decisions of a group in order to gain its social approval.

Aggression
—the intention to do harm to others.

•
Instrumental aggression
—to achieve some goal.

•
Hostile aggression
—to inflict pain upon someone else.

Though Freud and Lorenz believed aggression is innate, the fact that different cultures display differing levels of aggression supports the belief that aggression is learned.

Table 18.1 Overview of Social Psychological Experiments

AP Psychology Practice Exam 1 and Answers

AP Psychology Practice Exam 2 and Answers

AP Psychology Practice Exam 1

ANSWER SHEET FOR MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS

AP Psychology Practice Exam 1

SECTION I
Time—70 minutes
100 Questions

Directions:
Each of the questions or incomplete statements below is followed by five suggested answers or completions. Select the one that is best in each case and then fill in the corresponding oval on the answer sheet.

1.
Which of the following would play a role in quickly alerting you to a gas leak in your car?

(A) olfactory receptors

(B) gustatory receptors

(C) feature detectors

(D) basilar membrane

(E) pacinian corpuscles

2.
A population frequently studied to best assess the relative effects of nature vs. nurture is

(A) identical twins

(B) identical quadruplets

(C) adopted children and their adoptive parents

(D) couples who have been married for many years

(E) families with genetic diseases

3.
After watching cartoons in which characters hit, punch, and kick other characters, nursery school students engage in more aggressive behavior than after watching
Barney
. This observation best supports

(A) psychoanalytic theory

(B) psychodynamic theory

(C) social learning theory

(D) humanistic theory

(E) opponent process theory

4.
The smallest unit of language that carries meaning is a

(A) concept

(B) word

(C) phoneme

(D) morpheme

(E) grammar

5.
Nat’s therapist tells him to relax, close his eyes, and breathe slowly whenever he begins to experience fear associated with being in an enclosed space. The therapist is using a technique that is central to

(A) person-centered therapy

(B) psychoanalysis

(C) rational-emotive therapy

(D) Gestalt therapy

(E) systematic desensitization

6.
Which of the following perspectives is most concerned with self-esteem and actualizing one’s potential?

(A) humanistic

(B) behavioral

(C) cognitive

(D) psychodynamic

(E) sociocultural

7.
A therapist used the Rorschach inkblot test to help him analyze his patient’s problems. He was most likely a

(A) psychoanalyst

(B) person-centered therapist

(C) behavioral psychologist

(D) certified clinical social worker

(E) psychiatrist

8.
A pigeon trained to peck at a green light pecks at a yellow light also. This illustrates

(A) generalization

(B) discrimination

(C) extinction

(D) spontaneous recovery

(E) shaping

9.
Who would most likely have said, “People are basically good”?

(A) Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud

(B) Behaviorist B. F. Skinner

(C) Cognitivist Albert Ellis

(D) Humanist Carl Rogers

(E) Gestaltist Fritz Perls

10.
More than half of the volume of the human brain is composed of the

(A) cerebral cortex

(B) septum, amygdala, hippocampus, and cingu-late cortex

(C) medulla, pons, and cerebellum

(D) hypothalamus and thalamus

(E) olfactory bulbs, optic chiasma, pituitary gland, and reticular formation

11.
Joey, a 25-year-old convict, has a history of conduct disorder in elementary school and bullying in junior high. By high school, he was mugging peers and taking whatever he wanted from elderly shoppers without caring if he hurt anyone. Joey would most likely be diagnosed with

(A) antisocial personality disorder

(B) dissociative identity disorder

(C) paranoid schizophrenia

(D) somatoform disorder

(E) amnesia

12.
Your little cousin watches you at the computer, and when you get up he immediately tries to use the keyboard. His behavior in this situation can best be explained on the basis of

(A) superstition

(B) classical conditioning

(C) operant aversive conditioning

(D) modeling

(E) discrimination

13.
Although Andy wanted to cut class to get to the Yankee opener, he came to class to take a quiz and review for an exam. According to Freud, this behavior evidences a strong

(A) egocentricity

(B) super id

(C) id

(D) superego

(E) libido