Deck 2: Social Cognition and Social Thinking

Question 1

The most important difference between the 'cognitive miser' model and the 'motivated tactician' model is:

A) the role of thought.
B) the role of motivation.
C) the role of behaviour.
D) the role of structure.

Answer 1

the role of motivation.

Question 2

The recency effect refers to:

A) a tendency to like a person you have recently met.
B) a loss of long-term memory in people.
C) later information more strongly influencing an impression.
D) assessing the quality of recently purchased items.

Answer 2

later information more strongly influencing an impression.

Question 3

'Motivated tactician', 'cognitive consistency' and 'naïve scientist' are concepts that provide evidence of:

A) the emphasis on cognition in social psychology.
B) a researcher's ulterior motives when conducting experiments.
C) the validity of equity theory in social psychology.
D) an inability of humans to conduct 'objective' science.

Answer 3

the emphasis on cognition in social psychology.

Question 4

Social cognition is a field of social psychology dealing with how:

A) attitudes need to be cognitively consistent.
B) genes influence our thinking.
C) we construct a self-image.
D) cognition and social behaviour are linked.

Question 5

Mental processes and structures, often automatic, that influence and are influenced by social behaviour are collectively known as:

A) social cognition.
B) social construction.
C) social identity theory.
D) evolutionary social psychology.

Question 6

Asch (1946) found that some traits (central traits) perceived in others strongly affect how we decide if other traits also apply. For example, we are more likely to judge Mary as 'generous' if we also believe that she is:

A) 'warm'
B) 'cold'
C) 'polite'
D) 'self-centred'

Question 7

Kurt Lewin was one of the early psychologists who stressed:

A) evolutionary principles in human mate selection.
B) the human tendency to use mental shortcuts.
C) the fundamental importance of perception.
D) the use of schemas as the basis of cognition.

Question 8

'Cognitive misers' are people who:

A) do not make much effort when they make judgements.
B) think that everyone is after their possessions.
C) have great difficulty in relating emotionally to others.
D) are short on brain power.

Question 9

In addition to self-observation, which other method did Wilhelm Wundt use to study thinking processes?

A) Reaction times
B) Stimulus-response connections
C) Introspection
D) Looking-glass self

Question 10

Who is often referred to as the father of experimental social psychology?

A) Wundt
B) Lewin
C) Chomsky
D) Skinner

Question 11

By the 1960s, psychologists had begun to take a fresh interest in cognition. This development continued with which revolution that encouraged and enabled psychologists to model or simulate highly complex human cognitive processes?

A) The computer revolution
B) The sexual revolution
C) The social revolution
D) The political revolution

Question 12

What characterises 'naïve scientists' is that they:

A) are generally of average rather than superior intelligence.
B) fail to understand that their inventions can make money.
C) are often isolated from the real world.
D) use cause-effect interpretations of events around them.

Question 13

Following Asch (1946), which model do people use to form first impressions of others?

A) A cognitive model
B) A configural model
C) A behavioural model
D) A tangential model

Question 14

What is the major difference between the terms 'thought' and 'cognition' as used by social psychologists?

A) There are no differences; the terms are always used interchangeably
B) Thought is often conscious or at least we are often aware of it, whereas we are unaware of cognition and it takes effort to notice it
C) Cognition is the internal language and symbols we use; thought refers to largely automatic mental processing
D) Cognition is often conscious or at least we are often aware of it, whereas we are unaware of thought and it takes effort to notice it

Question 15

Which model of social cognition noted the powerful effect that first impressions have on the way we judge people?

A) The 'first come, first served' model
B) Asch's configural model
C) Bem's self-perception model
D) The recency effect model

Question 16

The model in which people are motivated to reduce perceived discrepancies between their various cognitions, because such discrepancies are aversive or unpleasant, is called:

A) cognitive balance.
B) cognitive harmony.
C) cognitive similarity.
D) cognitive consistency.

Question 17

In the early 20^th century, because psychologists felt that theories should be based on publicly observable and replicable data, there was a shift away from studying internal (cognitive) events towards studying external, publicly observable events. What was the term classifying this change in emphasis?

A) Group psychology
B) Evolutionary social psychology
C) Behaviourism
D) Social cognition

Question 18

Which concept has NOT played a role in the development of modern social cognition?

A) Group mind
B) Attribution
C) Cognitive miser
D) Motivated tactician

Question 19

An advance in a particular field coincided with renewed interest in the study of general cognition. Which field?

A) The manipulation and transfer of information
B) Organisational psychology
C) The experimental analysis of behaviour
D) Assessing individual differences

Question 20

Hiram Bluster has been the Human Resources manager at his company for a long time now. 'It is easy to sum up applicants in the first interview' he says. 'I just look 'em in the eye. If they look back at me they're trustworthy. If they look away they're not!' Hiram's views of people are an example of:

A) an implicit personality theory.
B) weighted averaging.
C) negativity bias.
D) the primacy effect.

Question 21

Ted's high school brother says that university students hang out in cafes and pubs and party a lot. Ted's brother's views are:

A) person schemas.
B) content-free schemas.
C) self-schemas.
D) role schemas.

Question 22

Prototypes of social groups (e.g., teachers) that are shared by members of a social group (e.g., students) can be considered:

A) social attitudes.
B) social stereotypes.
C) group think.
D) social beliefs.

Question 23

When we perform mental calculations using summation, averaging and weighted averaging, we are actually using:

A) coordinate geometry.
B) cluster analysis.
C) cognitive algebra.
D) trigonometry.

Question 24

Your brother is having a buck's party. Your knowledge about what goes on is based on:

A) an event schema and a script
B) a top-down attitude
C) an impression management script
D) balance theory perception

Question 25

You met Sarah in your very first Introduction to Psychology lecture. Throughout the semester, you have discovered that Sarah is intelligent, humorous, generous, and really social. However, you have also noticed she is quite lazy and bossy. Using your knowledge of cognitive algebra, you have worked out that your final impression of Sarah as a potential friend is quite high at +3.60. However, your final impression of Sarah as a partner for an assignment is -1.70. This is an example of:

A) averaging.
B) stereotyping.
C) summation.
D) weighted averaging.

Question 26

Cognitive representations of instances in a category are:

A) extremes of a fuzzy set.
B) schemata.
C) prototypes.
D) stereotypes.

Question 27

Stimuli that share a family resemblance are:

A) categories.
B) stereotypes.
C) a family tree.
D) prototypes.

Question 28

You undertake your personal assessment of Alexandra on a likeability scale ranging from +3 (favourable) to -3 (unfavourable). You rate her as somewhat lazy (-2), but very funny (+3). Overall, you rate her +0.5. Your impression is based on:

A) summation.
B) averaging.
C) a central trait.
D) a prototype.

Question 29

Let us say that you plan to be a nurse. You might picture yourself with a white coat, comfortable shoes, and a little badge on your lapel. These ideas contribute to your knowledge structure of being a 'nurse', and constitute an instance of a(n):

A) fuzzy set.
B) schema.
C) attribution.
D) value.

Question 30

Stephanie is a firm believer in 'not judging a book by its cover'. In her Introduction to Psychology class, Stephanie has been partnered up with Chris for a group assignment. When she looks across the room to see her new partner, Stephanie finds Chris very physically attractive. Based on her first impressions, Stephanie is likely to judge Chris as:

A) intelligent, interesting, capable and a good worker.
B) dumb, incompetent, unreliable and boring.
C) average, mediocre and middle of the range.
D) nothing yet, she cannot make a judgement based solely on his looks.

Question 31

Prue describes Penny as sloppy, lazy and arrogant. After reading about impression formation in social psychology you reach a conclusion about Prue's cognitive algebra.

A) There is not enough information to draw a conclusion in this example
B) She has used averaging to draw a conclusion in this example
C) She has used summation to draw a conclusion in this example
D) She has used weighted averaging to draw a conclusion in this example

Question 32

People use schemas to process information. Schemas function to:

A) encode new information to find missing gaps.
B) encode new information to fill in the missing gaps.
C) encode old information and find missing gaps.
D) encode old information and fill in the missing gaps.

Question 33

Your friend claims that guys in rock bands 'snort drugs, stub out cigarettes on the carpet and steal people's knickers'. Your studies suggest that these descriptions are:

A) associative networks.
B) stereotypes.
C) content-free schemas.
D) exemplary prototypes.

Question 34

The best definition of a schema is that it is:

A) a cognitive structure that represents knowledge about a concept or type of stimulus.
B) a cognitive representation of the typical or ideal defining features of a category.
C) a collection of instances that have a family resemblance.
D) a cognitive structure specific to a social group and is widely shared.

Question 35

Alyson, Cara and Hilda agree that Prince Harry is the perfect male. They:

A) are using an associative network.
B) are creating a stereotype.
C) have clarified a fuzzy set.
D) are using an exemplar.

Question 36

When you started your degree perhaps you were confident of graduating because you are hardworking, at least as intelligent as the average student and otherwise a determined person. Such traits are aspects of your:

A) self-schema.
B) genes.
C) ideal self.
D) ego.

Question 37

Which kind of information about another person really attracts our attention? Information that is:

A) distinctive and unusual.
B) usual and common.
C) common and safe.
D) safe and unusual.

Question 38

Before meeting the new member coming to your seminar group, your friend tells you that the new member, Sue, left school at the age of 14 to work in a factory, and later entered university as a mature student. Then, another member of your group remarks that Sue usually scores A+s in her work. You are uneasy because you don't know what to make of this. But we know the two kinds of information are:

A) stereotype inconsistent.
B) stereotype consistent.
C) social inconsistent.
D) social consistent.

Question 39

In social psychology, a prototype is:

A) a script.
B) a self-schema.
C) an exemplar.
D) a cognitive representation.

Question 40

Asche identifies traits that influence our impression as which of the following?

A) Assigned
B) Central
C) Peripheral
D) Primacy

Question 41

Prototypes and schemas are:

A) types of responses people make to threat.
B) principles central to organisational psychology.
C) dependent on each other.
D) often used interchangeably by social psychologists.

Question 42

The main difference between prototypes and schemas is:

A) schemas are relatively vague and unorganised, whereas prototypes are highly organised.
B) there is no difference; they are always used interchangeably.
C) prototypes are relatively vague and unorganised, whereas schemas are highly organised.
D) prototypes are structured, whereas schemas are fuzzy representations of a category.

Question 43

Which of the following is NOT one way Rothbart (1981) suggested schemas can change?

A) Subtyping
B) Bookkeeping
C) Prototyping
D) Conversion

Question 44

Schemas become more complex as:

A) more instances are encountered.
B) we continue to study social psychology.
C) information overload is reduced.
D) fewer instances relate to it.

Question 45

With regard to the study of schemas, a racist:

A) categorises everyone they meet as either 'black' or 'white'.
B) is someone who does not like anyone who is not 'white'.
C) tends to use racial schemas less than someone who is not a racist.
D) tends to use racial schemas more than someone who is not a racist.

Question 46

Which of the following does NOT describe vivid stimuli? Stimuli that are:

A) emotionally interesting.
B) concrete and image-provoking.
C) close to you in time and place.
D) important to your goals.

Question 47

According to Rothbart (1981), bookkeeping is:

A) a gradual schema change.
B) a subset of auditing.
C) forbidden by the Gaming Act.
D) a schema associated with 'librarian'.

Question 48

We may be more reliant on schematic processing to make a quick decision or form a quick impression when:

A) we are under performance pressure, decreased anxiety, and concentrating.
B) we are under minor levels of anxiety, communicating something highly technical, and the costs of being wrong are high.
C) the costs of being wrong are high, but there is no underlying schema to use during processing.
D) we are under performance pressure, increased levels of anxiety or we are distracted.

Question 49

Categories of stimuli that are accessible are those that are:

A) recently learned.
B) inconsistent.
C) in our subconscious.
D) normal.

Question 50

Which of the following statements is one an individual difference that may influence the type of schema people use?

A) A need to find the norm
B) A need to gain new information
C) A need for cognitive closure
D) A need for simplicity of thought

Question 51

You attend your well-to-do cousin's party. Your cousin quickly whispers to you about Nick's career background. Then you are introduced to Nick. Your reading of social psychology tells you that, in 'pigeonholing' him, you are more likely to use a subtype rather than a subordinate or superordinate category. Thus, you are most likely to label him as a:

A) chauvinist pig
B) highly intelligent
C) 'Nick-ish' kind of guy
D) corporate executive

Question 52

Joy has just unexpectedly scored a ticket to Mozart's 'The Magic Flute' performed at the Vienna State Opera-a very posh affair! However, it is now 7.30pm following a hot summer's day of serious sightseeing, and Joy is dressed in T-shirt and shorts. The event starts at 8pm, so Joy has no time to get changed. To others in the audience, Joy is:

A) a socially salient stimulus.
B) a subversive non-salient stimulus.
C) a prototype vividness stimulus.
D) an outcast non-vividness stimulus.

Question 53

You are having Sunday brunch with your friend at a quiet, family-friendly cafe when suddenly three cross-dressers enter and perform an aria usually sung by three famous tenors. Excited, you and your friend continue to discuss this event after the three artists have left because you:

A) have discovered what a 'prototype' means.
B) have just experienced an accentuation effect.
C) have just perceived stimuli that are vivid.
D) want to get similar outfits for the upcoming dress-up ball.

Question 54

Which of the following statements is INCORRECT?

A) Negative stereotypes become more hostile during times of intergroup conflict.
B) Once formed, stereotypes change very slowly.
C) Stereotypes are acquired through contact with members of outgroups.
D) Stereotypes make sense of intergroup relations.

Question 55

Widely shared generalisations about members of a social group are:

A) exemplars.
B) stereotypes.
C) prototypes.
D) None of the above

Question 56

Who was the most influential person of the 20th century? Europeans may refer to Hitler, Indians to Gandhi and Americans to Kennedy. These are different responses, so that the category 'influential person' is a(n):

A) stereotype.
B) prototype.
C) exemplar.
D) fuzzy set.

Question 57

The property of a stimulus to make it stand out relative to other stimuli is called:

A) vividness.
B) salience.
C) accessibility.
D) attention-seeking.

Question 58

Which of the following statements is INCORRECT?

A) Schemas become less abstract, and more tied to concrete instances, as more instances are encountered
B) Schemas become richer and more complex as more instances are encountered
C) With increasing complexity, schemas also become more tightly organised
D) Schemas become more resilient and better able to incorporate, rather than disregard, exceptions that might threaten the schema's validity

Question 59

Use the accentuation principle to solve this: Suppose that John thinks that people's weight is an important human attribute, and he categorises people as either 'fat' or 'slim'. Consequently:

A) slim people who weigh a bit more than other people in the slim category will be judged by John as slimmer than they really are.
B) fat people who weigh a bit more than other people in the fat category will be judged by John as fatter than they really are.
C) slim people will appear even slimmer when there are fat people near them.
D) John is more likely to recall people who are really fat or really slim.

Question 60

When categorising stimuli, the accentuation effect is enhanced when:

A) the categorisation has importance, relevance or value to the person.
B) it is easy to categorise the stimuli based on differing attributes.
C) the categorisation is based on easily observable, physical characteristics.
D) the categorisation is not important or relevant to the person.

Question 61

You are relaxing at the beach when a young guy races noisily past you into the water. He is tanned, skinny with frizzy blond hair. You shrug your shoulders and, using the ________ heuristic, you just 'know' that he is an immature 'surfie'.

A) anchoring
B) regression
C) representativeness
D) availability

Question 62

According to Forgas' affect-infusion model:

A) moods modify the way we see ourselves to a greater degree for central rather than peripheral traits.
B) moods modify our judgements by direct access and motivate processing information.
C) people recall information more readily if it is NOT congruent with their present mood.
D) people recall information more readily if it is congruent with their present mood.

Question 63

Sally assumes two unusually tall boys at her school are brothers. Her social inference may be flawed due to:

A) base-rate information
B) paired distinctiveness
C) availability heuristic
D) regression

Question 64

Heidi is an exchange student from Sweden. Her host family told her to avoid the central city park 'because last week a weird-looking man was seen hanging around there'. Heidi, in her final year majoring in psychology, reasons that this advice is an instance of the:

A) representativeness heuristic.
B) fundamental attribution error.
C) availability heuristic.
D) self-serving bias.

Question 65

Recall is the process of:

A) activating long-term memory from impressions.
B) activating cognitive rehearsal by chemical links.
C) activating nodes along established links.
D) activating attention to cognitive processing.

Question 66

If you knew that only one per cent of inventors actually have a handsome income you would have an example of:

A) representativeness.
B) the illusory correlation.
C) regression to the mean.
D) base-rate information.

Question 67

According to Tracey, the living standard in Europe has improved since the establishment of the EU. She says she knows this because she has been reading about the EU in the local paper. Which heuristic bias is she likely to be using?

A) Regression
B) Representativeness
C) Anchoring
D) Availability

Question 68

How is our memory about people organised? Fiske and Taylor (1991) say that it is by:

A) person and group.
B) language and ethnicity.
C) race and ability.
D) gender and age.

Question 69

Lauren does not consider herself to be very artistic or creative. When she meets Ben in her Introduction to Psychology class, and finds out he plays guitar, she may infer that he is extremely artistic. What cognitive heuristic is Lauren most likely to be using?

A) Anchoring
B) Availability
C) Representativeness
D) Prejudice

Question 70

In terms of our general impression of someone, we are more likely to recall information that is inconsistent, rather than consistent, with our impression. Why is this?

A) Because inconsistent information attracts attention and generates more cognition and thought, strengthening memory retrieval routes
B) Because inconsistent information attracts attention and generates more cognition and thought, weakening memory retrieval routes
C) Because we don't want to believe that our original impressions about someone are wrong
D) Because cognitively it is easier to attend to information that is consistent with our original schema

Question 71

Accessible categories can easily be:

A) changed.
B) forgotten.
C) primed automatically.
D) repressed.

Question 72

Reliance on person schemas, often unconsciously activated, to make judgements is referred to as:

A) discrimination.
B) clinical judgement.
C) categorising.
D) subliminal assessment.

Question 73

What is Margaret Wetherell's (2012) recent concern with regard to the contemporary social psychology of affect and emotion?

A) It is too tied to the study of animals
B) It is too tied to the study of personality
C) It is too tied to the exploration of cognitive and neurological processes associated with complex emotions
D) It is too tied to the exploration of cognitive and neurological processes associated with simple or basic emotions

Question 74

What is the difference between memory-based judgements and forming impressions of people on-line?

A) When forming impressions of people on-line, people rely on the Internet to gather information, whereas to make memory-based judgements people must draw on their own memory
B) Memory-based judgements are more accurate than the impressions we form of people on-line
C) Impressions we form of people on-line are more accurate than memory-based judgements
D) When forming impressions of people on-line, people rely disproportionately on incoming data, whereas to make memory-based judgements people must draw on memory

Question 75

The other day you stumbled across a new cafe near university where you had the best coffee. You tell your friends immediately that you have found 'the most amazing cafe'. You go back there the next day but the coffee isn't as good. Your friends also tell you that they have visited the cafe since you told them about it, and the coffee was average. The next week you decide to give the cafe another go, and the coffee is better but still not as good as the first time you went. This is an example of:

A) base-rate information.
B) clinical judgement.
C) regression.
D) false comparison.

Question 76

That people tend to recall current mood-congruent information more readily than current mood-incongruent information suggests that:

A) affect influences social memory.
B) affect has no relation with social memory.
C) people who are angry tend to have poorer memory.
D) people who are happier tend to have better memory.

Question 77

Your close friend, Dorothy, is usually mild mannered and soft-spoken. However, today Dorothy assertively tells someone who has just unpacked a shopping trolley to return it to 'its proper place'. Which of the following stages are you most likely to encode?

A) Pay close attention to what is going on
B) Attribute it to stress in Dorothy's private life
C) Remember that Dorothy can be as assertive as yourself
D) Forget about it at present, but store it up to think about it later

Question 78

Better recall of inconsistent information does not occur when:

A) we already have a well-established impression.
B) we are making a simple judgement.
C) we have to make a quick first impression.
D) the inconsistency is descriptive and evaluative.

Question 79

When people feel there is a demand on them, they appraise their resources for dealing with the demand. If perceived resources are inadequate to meet the demand, people:

A) experience a feeling of threat that motivates approach behaviours (fight).
B) experience a feeling of challenge that motivates avoidance behaviours (flight).
C) experience a feeling of challenge that motivates approach behaviours (fight).
D) experience a feeling of threat that motivates avoidance behaviours (flight).

Question 80

When people assume that a relationship exists between two variables, the phenomenon where they tend to overestimate the degree of correlation or see a correlation where none actually exists is called:

A) illusory correlation.
B) illusion correlation.
C) heuristic correlation.
D) associative correlation.