Deck 8: Social Cognition

Question 1

Explanations that people construct about behavior in which the cause resides outside the actor are called dispositional attributions.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

When a person ignores evidence of decline or blames it on something else he or she is said to be engaging in assimilative activities.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Social knowledge structures and social beliefs are defined in terms of how we represent and interpret the behavior of others in a social situation.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Social knowledge includes scripts regarding social activities, our knowledge of social rules, and our ideas about how to behave in social situations.

Question 5

When older adults do not correct their initial impression because negative information is more striking and affects them more strongly, they are exhibiting a negativity bias.

Question 6

Researchers have found that although younger and older adults can process social information similarly, older adults are at an advantage when the social context is cognitively demanding.

Question 7

When two or more people work together to solve a problem, they are said to be engaging in collaborative cognition.

Question 8

Research in the United States and Brazil reveals that children have a more positive view of aging when compared with younger adults.

Question 9

Explanations that people construct about the causes of behavior are referred to as casual.

Question 10

Explanations that people construct about the causes of behavior that are based on a person's traits are called situational.

Question 11

A person is considered high in emotional intelligence when they can change emotions quickly.

Question 12

There is correspondence bias when young adults rely more on dispositional information in explaining behavior and ignore compelling situational information.

Question 13

Confronting a negative stereotype and rejecting that view in favor of a more positive self-perception is called labeling theory.

Question 14

How you solve problems is known as your cognitive style.

Question 15

Cognitive control refers to the degree to which you believe that the outcome of a task depends on your personal characteristics.

Question 16

Older adults are more likely to change their initial impressions when positive information follows initially negative information.

Question 17

A(n) age-based double standard is operating when memory failures in older adults are seen as worse than memory failures in younger adults.

Question 18

Much like Brandtstadter's assimilative activities, secondary control strategies involve bringing the environment into line with one's desires and goals.

Question 19

The differences in the beliefs held by younger adults and older adults usually stem from cohort differences.

Question 20

The activation of strong stereotypes, called implicit stereotyping, is not only automatic but also conscious.

Question 21

Adults of different generations invoke the social rule "marriage is more important than career" more so with increasing age. This is evidence of

A) cohort effects of how different generations were socialized with respect to the social rules of marriage.
B) differences in religiosity across time with respect to the rules of marriage.
C) stereotype threat's impact on views of marriage.
D) changing morals regarding sexual behavior.

Question 22

The need for __________ results in a desire for predictability, being uncomfortable with ambiguity, and a preference for quick and decisive answers.

A) personal control
B) closure
C) emotional selectivity
D) ego integrity

Question 23

The explanations that people create to account for behavior vary depending on

A) the type of situation.
B) the age of the person.
C) the strength of the social beliefs and whether they have been violated.
D) all of these are correct

Question 24

According to Brandtstädter, a person who uses all sorts of memory aids (such as an iPhone calendar) because they pride themselves on not forgetting appointments is said to be engaging in

A) primary control.
B) secondary control.
C) assimilative activities.
D) emotion-focused coping.

Question 25

Adams argues _________________ is influenced when the task approximates a real-world experience.

A) physical performance
B) spatial ability
C) memory performance
D) pattern recognition ability

Question 26

Cross-culturally it holds that older adults are perceived as

A) reliable.
B) competent.
C) incompetent.
D) decisive.

Question 27

In the theory of personal control developed by Heckhausen, Wrosch, and Schulz, control is viewed as

A) a motivational system that regulates individuals' abilities to control important outcomes over the life span.
B) the give and take of mechanisms that regulate human behavior.
C) minimizing the impact of failures in performance.
D) none of these are correct

Question 28

Steven J. Gould suggests in __________________ societies the emphasis is not on individualistic strategies, such as those found in primary control.

A) industrial
B) agrarian
C) religious
D) collectivist

Question 29

Older adults remember positive images ___________ than negative ones, whereas younger adults remember ______________.

A) less; negative images more than positive images
B) more; negative images more than positive images
C) more; negative images and positive images equally well
D) less; negative images and positive images equally well

Question 30

When considering the social rule "You should never live with a romantic partner before you are married," results from a research study examining generational differences in making social judgments showed __________ how different generations were socialized with respect to important social rules..

A) no correlation in
B) cohort effects on
C) age differences caused a correlational difference in
D) cross-generational similarities in

Question 31

The activation of an automatic, unconscious stereotype is known as

A) implicit social beliefs.
B) implicit stereotyping.
C) implicit attributions.
D) explicit stereotyping.

Question 32

When people develop explanations of behavior based on things outside the person's control, this is known as a(n)

A) situational attribution.
B) inherent attribution.
C) causation.
D) dispositional attribution.

Question 33

Katharine has forgotten a few appointments. However, she doesn't think it's her fault, and she blames her assistant for forgetting to remind her. According to Brandtstädter, Katharine is engaging in

A) immunizing mechanisms.
B) secondary control.
C) assimilative activities.
D) accommodations.

Question 34

When two or more people work together to solve a problem or task, they are engaging in

A) primary control.
B) collaborative cognition.
C) metacognition.
D) problem-focused coping.

Question 35

According to Brandtstädter, a person who engages in activities to alleviate declines is said to be engaging in

A) primary control.
B) accommodations.
C) assimilative activities.
D) emotion-focused coping.

Question 36

Using the Young-Old Implicit Attitudes test, researchers discovered that

A) younger individuals were more likely to use patronizing talk toward older people.
B) younger people were faster to respond to young-pleasant and old-unpleasant trials rather than young-unpleasant and old-pleasant trials.
C) older people were faster to respond to young-unpleasant and old-pleasant trials.
D) all subjects, regardless of age, were faster to respond to young-pleasant and old-unpleasant trials rather than young-unpleasant and old-pleasant trials.

Question 37

Which of the following is not an indicator focused on by Miles and Crisp in reducing stereotype bias?

A) emotions
B) intentions
C) generosity
D) behaviors

Question 38

Deciding that you did poorly on an exam because you did not study is which type of attribution?

A) effort attribution
B) personality attribution
C) dispositional attribution
D) situational attribution

Question 39

Believing that aging is ___________ and pretty much ______________ results in decrements in cognitive performance.

A) the enemy; a challenge to resist
B) inevitable; all decline
C) a social construct; part of one's imagination
D) a path to wisdom; a challenge to face bravely

Question 40

Stereotypes about older adults are

A) positive.
B) negative.
C) both positive and negative.
D) irrelevant because people take other factors into consideration when forming impressions of older persons.

Question 41

When older adults take their time to form social judgments, they process information similarly to younger adults. But what happens when older adults have to make social judgments and are given a time limit?

A) They make better, more informed decisions than younger adults.
B) They have difficulty remembering the information they need to make their social judgments.
C) They become confused.
D) They show a positivity bias.

Question 42

__________ is an important factor in understanding how older adults process and access social information.

A) Processing resources
B) Memory
C) General intelligence
D) Social belief

Question 43

Given the research, the most apt conclusion to draw regarding personal control is that

A) personal control increases with age.
B) personal control decreases with age.
C) personal control is multidimensional and complex.
D) personal control is highly stable across domains.

Question 44

According to Brandtstädter, a person who readjusts his/her goals to lessen the impact of declines is said to be engaging in

A) primary control.
B) secondary control.
C) assimilative activities.
D) accommodations.

Question 45

Older adults consistently __________ of why negative events occur more often than younger adults.

A) change their appraisal
B) hold to their initial judgments or conclusions
C) forget the reasons
D) use global attributions

Question 46

Which of the following psychological constructs refers to the belief that one's performance in a situation depends on something that one personally does?

A) personal control
B) locus of control
C) personal locus of control
D) external locus of control

Question 47

Crisp and Turner created an intervention strategy to help people change their

A) implicit stereotypes.
B) explicit stereotypes.
C) personal level of stereotype threat.
D) threat biases.

Question 48

Socially shared beliefs about characteristics and behaviors of a particular social group are called

A) assumptions.
B) biases.
C) evaluative adjectives.
D) stereotypes.

Question 49

Brandtstädter proposes that a positive view of self in later life requires

A) accommodations.
B) immunizing mechanisms.
C) assimilative activities.
D) all of these are correct

Question 50

In the theory of personal control developed by Heckhausen, Wrosch, and Schulz, changing one's goals is referred to as

A) primary control.
B) secondary control.
C) possible selves.
D) problem-focused coping mechanism.

Question 51

The results of Adams and colleagues' study of adults' storytelling illustrate the importance of considering

A) social context when examining age-related performance.
B) processing demands when examining age-related performance.
C) causal attributions when examining age-related performance.
D) gender when examining age-related performance.

Question 52

No area is more susceptible to negative stereotyped attributions of aging than

A) physical decline.
B) memory competence.
C) hearing impairment.
D) sexual behavior.

Question 53

In the theory of personal control developed by Heckhausen, Wrosch, and Schulz, changing the environment to achieve one's goals is referred to as

A) primary control.
B) secondary control.
C) possible selves.
D) problem-focused coping mechanisms.

Question 54

Personal goals consist of underlying ____________________ our behavior and how we _________________ our own ever-changing environment.

A) perceptions of; appraise
B) motivations for; perceive
C) motivations for; control
D) perceptions of; evaluate

Question 55

When presented with examples of older and younger adults who are forgetful, older adults

A) judge the older forgetful person more harshly.
B) are more likely to have confidence in younger people.
C) are more lenient toward memory failures in older adults.
D) showed an age-based double standard in favor of younger adults.

Question 56

Social psychologists suggest that the reason stereotypes are automatically activated is that they become __________ and are thus spontaneously activated when we encounter a member or members of a stereotyped group.

A) increasingly complicated
B) increasingly negative
C) impossible to change
D) overlearned

Question 57

Older adults are more likely to pay attention to and seek out emotional information than younger adults. This might help explain why older adults have a __________ bias.

A) positivity
B) negativity
C) first impression
D) age

Question 58

If older adults are primed with negative aging stereotypes, and their subsequent performance on memory tests is worse than older adults who were primed with positive aging stereotypes, then we can conclude that older persons are vulnerable to

A) bias in memory testing.
B) stereotype threat.
C) activation of implicit beliefs.
D) learned helplessness.

Question 59

Older adults make impressions influenced by __________ information they receive; younger adults make impressions based on the most ______________information they have.

A) emotional; logical
B) all the; recent
C) negative; positive
D) positive; consistent

Question 60

The preservation and stabilization of a positive view of the self in later life involves

A) immunizing activities.
B) accommodations.
C) assimilative activities.
D) all of these are correct

Question 61

When older adults were asked to learn a story so they could retell it later to a group of young children, their stories

A) were less detailed than younger adults.
B) were similar to that of younger adults.
C) contained a number of errors.
D) were more detailed than younger adults.

Question 62

Dixon and colleagues found that when older adults worked together to recall a story

A) they confused each other.
B) their performance was better than as individuals working alone.
C) they each remembered different aspects of the story.
D) they only remembered certain aspects of the story and completely forgot other aspects.

Question 63

Deciding that you did poorly on an exam because you did not study is called a(n)

A) effort attribution.
B) causal attribution.
C) causation effect.
D) situational attribution.

Question 64

One day you walk past your Adult Development and Aging professor and say "Hi," but your instructor does not respond. You decide that she is rude, but what you failed to notice is that she was in deep conversation with the chair of her department and other faculty and did not hear you. This is an example of a

A) correspondence bias.
B) causal attribution.
C) implicit bias.
D) explicit bias.

Question 65

According to Brandtstädter, a person who ignores evidence of declines or blames it on something else is said to be engaging in

A) immunizing mechanisms.
B) secondary control.
C) assimilative activities.
D) accommodative activities.

Question 66

Which theory argues that when confronted with age-related stereotypes, older adults are likely to incorporate these into their self-perceptions?

A) perceived competence theory
B) stereotype threat theory
C) labeling theory
D) resilience theory

Question 67

_________________________has been shown to reduce correspondence bias in emerging adults.

A) Mindfulness training
B) Studying logic
C) Increased experience with individualistic culture
D) Decreasing exposure to collectivist cultures

Question 68

When you draw upon your prior experiences at restaurants to guide your behavior at a new restaurant, you are using your

A) knowledge base.
B) social context base.
C) social knowledge.
D) implicit memory.

Question 69

An evoked fear of being judged in accordance with a negative stereotype about a group to which you belong is known as

A) a lack of stereotype control.
B) a stereotype threat.
C) an implicit threat.
D) an imagined threat.

Question 70

The likelihood that information in memory will be used to guide social judgments is related to

A) how easily the information can be accessed.
B) one's social context base.
C) how quickly the information is processed.
D) one's implicit memory.

Question 71

The way we form and revise first impressions about others is known as

A) impression formation.
B) impression work.
C) impression internalization.
D) impressionization.

Question 72

An individual's perceptions of their own age and aging is called their

A) prospective stereotype of aging.
B) aging theory.
C) self-perception of aging.
D) resilience to aging perspective.

Question 73

Even though older and younger adults may believe it is wrong to live together before marriage, older adults may be more rigid or adamant in this belief. This is evidence of age differences in

A) stereotyping.
B) sexual norms.
C) social beliefs.
D) levels of religiosity.

Question 74

In a classic study where younger and older adults were asked to memorize a list of words while simultaneously maintaining their balance as they walked through an obstacle course, older adults displayed

A) a preference for their physical safety even if it meant they would perform badly on a cognitive test.
B) a preference for maximizing the performance on cognitive tests even if it meant they would perform badly on the obstacle course.
C) no preference for maintaining either their physical safety or cognitive test performance.
D) the same preferences for cognitive test performance and physical safety as younger adults.

Question 75

"I didn't do well on that exam because the teacher is unfair" is an example of a

A) situational attribution.
B) causal attribution.
C) causation.
D) dispositional attribution.

Question 76

Bargh and colleagues have found that subliminal messages about older persons made young adults walk down a hall slower. This is evidence for

A) implicit social beliefs.
B) implicit stereotyping.
C) implicit attributions.
D) explicit stereotyping.

Question 77

Before you are told the details about a car accident your friend was in, you are told that the other person involved in the accident was an older man who is hard of hearing. Whether this information will influence your interpretation of the events is related to your

A) social context effect.
B) implicit priming.
C) implicit theories.
D) impression formation.

Question 78

"John is such a good person" is an example of a

A) situational attribution.
B) environmental attribution.
C) causation.
D) dispositional attribution.

Question 79

The SAVI model is based on the normative aging process in which psychological vulnerabilities that occur with increasing age makes regulating high levels of

A) cognitive processing slower.
B) emotional arousal harder.
C) emotional arousal easier.
D) cognitive processing faster.

Question 80

Positive views on aging are related to

A) having more new friends later in life.
B) economic well-being.
C) feeling strong stereotype threat.
D) lower health indicators.