Deck 11: Social Influence and Social Psychology: From Mesmer to Milgram and Beyond

Question 1

Which early investigator of mesmerism/hypnotism first shifted the emphasis of explanation from the powers of the hypnotist to the susceptibilities of the subject?

A) José Custódio de Faria
B) Franz Anton Mesmer
C) Marquis de Puységur
D) Gustave Le Bon

Answer 1

José Custódio de Faria

Question 2

The ancient Greeks believed hysteria was caused by

A) malingering.
B) an excess of overheated humors in the brain.
C) the displacement of the uterus to inappropriate body parts.
D) after-effects of traumatic experiences.

Answer 2

the displacement of the uterus to inappropriate body parts.

Question 3

James Braid helped lend scientific respectability to mesmeric phenomena by suggesting which new name for them?

A) artificial somnambulism
B) neuro-hypnology
C) the perfect crisis
D) hypno-magnetism

Answer 3

neuro-hypnology

Question 4

When Mesmer testified before the commission investigating Gassner's exorcisms,he convinced them of what?

A) Gassner's cures were real but had naturalistic rather than demonological causes.
B) Gassner's cures were mainly the result of suggestion.
C) Any patients "cured" by Gassner had really been faking their symptoms.
D) Gassner's cures were the genuine result of exorcism.

Question 5

Which of the following did Puységur INCORRECTLY believe to be an easily produced effect in a good hypnotic subject?

A) abilities enhanced beyond what is possible in the normal state
B) amnesia for the events of the trance
C) paralyses which can move about the body upon suggestion by the hypnotist
D) greatly heightened general suggestibility

Question 6

Which one of the following figures was a student of Franz Mesmer who went on to make independent discoveries about the mesmeric state?

A) Johann Joseph Gassner
B) Benjamin Franklin
C) Marquis de Puységur
D) Hippolyte Bernheim

Question 7

Bernheim,on finding that lower-class patients were especially responsive to his hypnotic suggestions,argued that hypnotizability must be closely related to what?

A) low intelligence
B) a general trait of suggestibility
C) susceptibility to hysteria
D) the fees patients had to pay

Question 8

When people in a crowd begin behaving the same way they see their neighbors behaving,they illustrate

A) hypersuggestibility.
B) the social contagion effect.
C) a craze.
D) the autosuggestive effect.

Question 9

Charcot's most important scientific contribution was probably his

A) victory over the Nancy School in the debate about the nature of hypnosis.
B) demonstration that hysteria was caused by neurological degeneracy.
C) demonstration of the relationships between hysteria and crowd behavior.
D) bringing scientific respectability to the study of such previously unfashionable subjects as hysteria and hypnotism.

Question 10

What happened when a few physicians in England,such as Elliotson and Ward,raised the possibility of using mesmerism as a surgical anaesthetic in the 1840s?

A) They were roundly ignored by their colleagues.
B) They were ridiculed or actively persecuted by the established medical community.
C) They established their point successfully for a short time, until hypnotism was superseded by chemical anaesthetics.
D) Their early experiments were failures, so they abandoned the idea.

Question 11

Which of the following was true of patients who responded most strongly to Mesmer's magnetic inductions? They

A) passed quietly into a sleeplike trance.
B) demonstrated heightened physical powers and clairvoyance.
C) continued to behave in apparently normal ways.
D) often experienced violent and painful "crisis states."

Question 12

The model Charcot followed in specifying major and minor types of the illnesses that he studied was first suggested by

A) grand mal and petit mal epilepsy.
B) major and minor hysteria.
C) poliomyelitis.
D) hypnotism.

Question 13

The Royal Commission appointed to investigate Franz Mesmer concluded what?

A) Mesmer was an exorcist.
B) Mesmer's theory of animal magnetism was worthless, so his cures must have been imaginary.
C) There was no such thing as animal magnetism, but Mesmer's cures were genuine.
D) Mesmer's work should be continued by more competent scientists.

Question 14

Which of the following is true of Mesmer's medical dissertation,which he wrote years before his first documented magnetic cures?

A) It spelled out the essential details of his theory of animal magnetism.
B) It emphasized the importance of the contagion effect in groups of people.
C) It asserted that the planets and stars directly influence people through the effect of "animal gravitation."
D) It concerned the anatomy of the brain.

Question 15

Which of the following was one of the pioneers in the use of mesmerism as a surgical anesthetic?

A) Jean Charcot
B) The Marquis de Puységur
C) Gustave Le Bon
D) James Esdaile

Question 16

__________ believed that only hysterics were hypnotizable,while __________ argued that normal people could be hypnotized as well.

A) Charcot; Le Bon
B) The Nancy School; Le Bon
C) The Nancy School; Charcot
D) Charcot; the Nancy School

Question 17

When "Good Father Liébeault" used hypnosis on his patients,he

A) had an elaborate setting, with background music and flamboyantly dressed assistants, to enhance the effect of suggestibility.
B) did so only for demonstration purposes, because he believed no permanent cures could be effected by hypnosis.
C) proceeded very simply, first suggesting they would go to sleep and then that their symptoms would disappear.
D) took advantage of the opportunity to explore their suppressed emotional life.

Question 18

Who was the original founder of the Nancy School of hypnotism?

A) Ambroise Liébeault
B) Hippolyte Bernheim
C) Joseph Delboeuf
D) Jean Charcot

Question 19

Which of the following did Mesmer NOT believe to be true about animal magnetism or hypnotism?

A) The secret of hypnosis lies in the power of the hypnotist or magnetist.
B) Illness is caused by misaligned magnetic fields in the body.
C) Some people are natural healers because of their magnetic personalities.
D) Supernatural forces are involved in the induction of the magnetic state.

Question 20

Which of the following is the best current assessment of Puységur's belief that hypnotized subjects can do things that would be impossible for them normally?

A) It is now known to be true.
B) It is now known to be false.
C) It is now known that hypnotized subjects may do things they would normally think are impossible, since hypnosis may make them more relaxed and confident.
D) It is now known to be true for normal subjects, but not always for mentally disturbed people.

Question 21

Floyd Allport made all of the following contributions to the establishment of social psychology EXCEPT that he

A) completed the first Ph.D. dissertation on an experimental social psychology topic.
B) co-edited The Journal of Abnormal Psychology and added Social Psychology to its title and subject matter.
C) created the first social psychology laboratory at Harvard University.
D) wrote the first textbook devoted to experimental social psychology.

Question 22

Which two figures were most responsible for bringing the previously unrespectable subject of mesmerism/hypnotism into the scientific mainstream?

A) Franz Mesmer and Marquis de Puységur
B) James Braid and Jean Charcot
C) Alfred Binet and Gustave Le Bon
D) Floyd Allport and Solomon Asch

Question 23

The experiments of __________ were partly inspired by concerns arising from events arising in Nazi Germany during World War II.

A) Solomon Asch and Stanley Milgram
B) Leon Festinger and Elizabeth Loftus
C) Floyd Allport and Morton Prince
D) John Dashiell and Wolfgang Köhler

Question 24

What was Franz Mesmer's baquet?

A) an arrangement of fragrant flowers to help set the atmosphere of his consulting room
B) a tub filled with iron filings, around which his clients gathered in groups
C) another name for his glass harmonica
D) his term for the group of followers who came to study with him

Question 25

Le Bon recommended that crowd leaders make use of which of the following practices or attitudes to maximize their effectiveness?

A) sincerity, fervor, affirmation
B) repetition, enthusiasm, effective timing of appeals
C) affirmation, repetition, pre-placing of followers in the crowd
D) reason, sincerity, effective timing of appeals

Question 26

Binet and Henri's experiments showed that children's reported recall of recently observed stimuli was

A) remarkably accurate even in young children.
B) influenced by "leading questions" but not by neutral ones.
C) strongly unreliable under all conditions.
D) most accurate when they were simply given paper and a pencil and asked to write down what they remembered.

Question 27

Floyd Allport was invited in 1921 by __________ to become co-editor of the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

A) Hugo Münsterberg
B) William James
C) Morton Prince
D) Norman Triplett

Question 28

Which person became an important critic of the Salpêtrière School,following a visit on which he observed blatant examples of patients being manipulated by suggestion?

A) Ambroise Liébeault
B) James Braid
C) Victor Henri
D) Joseph Delboeuf

Question 29

Solomon Asch's experiments showed that his subjects' greatest tendency to conform in giving incorrect responses occurred when they were outnumbered by

A) a unanimous majority of three.
B) a unanimous majority of seven.
C) a majority of fourteen but with one other dissenter.
D) any unanimous majority as long as it was greater than four.

Question 30

In the aftermath of the furor aroused by his obedience research,Stanley Milgram conducted studies of which of the following?

A) the "small world" phenomenon
B) what happens "when prophecy fails"
C) the "prisoner's dilemma"
D) the "lost in the mall" memory study

Question 31

Festinger and his colleagues discovered that the most effective way to change people's attitudes about something was to

A) pay them well to publicly express a contrary attitude.
B) get them to publicly express a contrary attitude for a small reward.
C) put them in groups where many different opinions are expressed.
D) have them read material promoting a contrary attitude.

Question 32

The notion that groups or crowds could constitute superorganisms or group minds going beyond the combined reactions of their individual members was referred to by __________ as the __________.

A) Gustave Le Bon; group fallacy
B) Floyd Allport; group fallacy
C) Gustave Le Bon; group cohesion effect
D) Floyd Allport; group cohesion effect

Question 33

Who conducted the earliest laboratory studies investigating suggestibility and social influence?

A) Gustav Le Bon
B) Alfred Binet
C) Solomon Asch
D) Hippolyte Bernheim

Question 34

Who,after learning a painful personal lesson about the effects of unintended suggestion in experiments,came to refer to such suggestions as "the cholera of psychology"?

A) Charles Féré
B) Jean Charcot
C) Alfred Binet
D) Hippolyte Bernheim

Question 35

Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of crowds,compared to individuals,according to Le Bon?

A) increased timidity
B) heightened suggestibility
C) intellectual inferiority
D) an increased likelihood of performing heroic actions

Question 36

In his landmark obedience research,Stanley Milgram found that

A) certain personality types were far more obedient than others.
B) in his laboratory situation subjects were far more obedient than anyone had predicted.
C) men were more obedient than women in administering the shocks.
D) women were more obedient than men in administering the shocks.

Question 37

Which two figures conducted laboratory experiments in social psychology before social psychology was established as a field and are therefore considered "anticipators" rather than "founders" of the field?

A) Alfred Binet and Norman Triplett
B) Ambroise Liébeault and Hippolyte Bernheim
C) James Braid and Jean Charcot
D) Floyd Allport and Solomon Asch

Question 38

__________ was a Gestalt-trained psychologist who conducted pioneering research on the effects of authoritarian versus democratic leadership styles.

A) Alfred Binet
B) Kurt Lewin
C) Max Wertheimer
D) Kurt Koffka

Question 39

An individual who simultaneously holds two or more incompatible beliefs or ideas,producing an uncomfortable state that the individual is motivated to relieve,is experiencing

A) cognitive dissonance.
B) social facilitation.
C) the small world phenomenon.
D) artificial somnambulism.

Question 40

"Mesmerism" was a term once used to describe situations that now go commonly under the name __________.

A) suggestibility
B) social influence processes
C) perfect crises
D) hypnotism

Question 41

The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted by whom?

A) Philip Zimbardo
B) Stanley Milgram
C) Leon Festinger
D) Elizabeth Loftus

Question 42

Match the definition with the term.
suggestibility

A)a condition in which patients experience physiological symptoms without obvious organic causes
B)a form of artificial somnambulism in which one goes into a deep trance state
C)a general trait defined as "the aptitude to transform an idea into an act"
D)a tub filled with water and iron filings,featuring metal rods inserted into it with protruding handles onto which patients grasped

Question 43

Match the definition with the term.
false memory

A)fictitious recollections of events that can be created through suggestion
B)the experience of holding two or more incompatible or contradictory beliefs,which produces such an uncomfortable state that one becomes motivated to re-lieve it
C)the finding that most people can be interconnected through a small chain of mu-tual acquaintances
D)the idea that crowds can constitute superordinate entities or group minds,which are more than the combined reactions of their individual members

Question 44

Match the definition with the term.
hysteria

A)a condition in which patients experience physiological symptoms without obvious organic causes
B)a form of artificial somnambulism in which one goes into a deep trance state
C)a general trait defined as "the aptitude to transform an idea into an act"
D)a tub filled with water and iron filings,featuring metal rods inserted into it with protruding handles onto which patients grasped

Question 45

Match the definition with the term.
social contagion

A)the pressure individuals feel to align their opinions and behaviors with those of other group members
B)the spread of ideas,attitudes,or behavior patterns in a group through imitation and conformity
C)increases in the strength or intensity of behaviors performed within a social or group setting

Question 46

Match the definition with the term.
baquet

A)a condition in which patients experience physiological symptoms without obvious organic causes
B)a form of artificial somnambulism in which one goes into a deep trance state
C)a general trait defined as "the aptitude to transform an idea into an act"
D)a tub filled with water and iron filings,featuring metal rods inserted into it with protruding handles onto which patients grasped

Question 47

Match the definition with the term.
small world phenomenon

A)fictitious recollections of events that can be created through suggestion
B)the experience of holding two or more incompatible or contradictory beliefs,which produces such an uncomfortable state that one becomes motivated to re-lieve it
C)the finding that most people can be interconnected through a small chain of mu-tual acquaintances
D)the idea that crowds can constitute superordinate entities or group minds,which are more than the combined reactions of their individual members

Question 48

Match the definition with the term.
social conformity

A)the pressure individuals feel to align their opinions and behaviors with those of other group members
B)the spread of ideas,attitudes,or behavior patterns in a group through imitation and conformity
C)increases in the strength or intensity of behaviors performed within a social or group setting

Question 49

Match the definition with the term.
cognitive dissonance

A)fictitious recollections of events that can be created through suggestion
B)the experience of holding two or more incompatible or contradictory beliefs,which produces such an uncomfortable state that one becomes motivated to re-lieve it
C)the finding that most people can be interconnected through a small chain of mu-tual acquaintances
D)the idea that crowds can constitute superordinate entities or group minds,which are more than the combined reactions of their individual members

Question 50

Subjects in Solomon Asch's conformity experiments were asked to make judgments about what?

A) the relative loudness of presented musical tones
B) things they remembered from a short movie they had just seen
C) the different colors of printed words they had just seen
D) the lengths of lines that had been presented to them as stimuli

Question 51

Match the definition with the term.
hypnotism

A)the completion of a suggested act after awakening from a trance state.
B)the forgetting of events from a trance state upon awakening from it.
C)the process of inducing a mental state of concentration and relaxation,resulting in a state of high suggestibility in a subject.

Question 52

Match the definition with the term.
social facilitation

A)the pressure individuals feel to align their opinions and behaviors with those of other group members
B)the spread of ideas,attitudes,or behavior patterns in a group through imitation and conformity
C)increases in the strength or intensity of behaviors performed within a social or group setting

Question 53

Match the definition with the term.
group fallacy

A)fictitious recollections of events that can be created through suggestion
B)the experience of holding two or more incompatible or contradictory beliefs,which produces such an uncomfortable state that one becomes motivated to re-lieve it
C)the finding that most people can be interconnected through a small chain of mu-tual acquaintances
D)the idea that crowds can constitute superordinate entities or group minds,which are more than the combined reactions of their individual members

Question 54

Concerns raised by experiments such as Milgram's and Zimbardo's have resulted in requirements that most social psychologists must now do which of the following?

A) have doctors or counsellors on call during every experimental procedure
B) provide immediate and detailed feedback to subjects at the conclusion of their participation in experiments
C) avoid experimental situations dealing with controversial issues altogether
D) obtain informed consent from all subjects before they participate in experiments

Question 55

The "lost in the mall" technique has been used to demonstrated that

A) subjects' memory could be improved by training them to observe more carefully.
B) false memories could be produced through suggestive manipulations.
C) subjects' can be made to lose their bearings through subtle suggestions.
D) subjects can most correctly remember emotion-laden experiences.

Question 56

Match the definition with the term.
animal magnetism

A)a peaceful,sleeplike trance state that could be induced in magnetic therapy,dur-ing which subjects showed increased suggestibility
B)a hypothetical condition in which a subject enters a deep trance following a se-quence of stages similar to an epileptic seizure
C)a hypothetical force or energy field in the human body that can become misa-ligned,leading to symptoms of illness

Question 57

Which of the following is the title of an important book that introduced the concept of cognitive dissonance?

A) The Handbook of Social Psychology
B) Deception in Psychology
C) When Prophecy Fails
D) Obedience to Authority

Question 58

Match the definition with the term.
posthypnotic amnesia

A)the completion of a suggested act after awakening from a trance state.
B)the forgetting of events from a trance state upon awakening from it.
C)the process of inducing a mental state of concentration and relaxation,resulting in a state of high suggestibility in a subject.

Question 59

Match the definition with the term.
lucid sleep

A)a condition in which patients experience physiological symptoms without obvious organic causes
B)a form of artificial somnambulism in which one goes into a deep trance state
C)a general trait defined as "the aptitude to transform an idea into an act"
D)a tub filled with water and iron filings,featuring metal rods inserted into it with protruding handles onto which patients grasped

Question 60

Match the definition with the term.
posthypnotic suggestion

A)the completion of a suggested act after awakening from a trance state.
B)the forgetting of events from a trance state upon awakening from it.
C)the process of inducing a mental state of concentration and relaxation,resulting in a state of high suggestibility in a subject.

Question 61

Match the study with the researcher(s).
Leon Festinger

A)a study of group dynamics among members of a doomsday cult
B)an investigation of conformity where subjects were asked to judge the length of lines within a group of confederates
C)the Stanford Prison Experiment
D)the use of the "lost in the mall" technique to induce false memories

Question 62

Match the idea with the individual.
Marquis de Puységur

A)described a new state as a "perfect crisis" (later called artificial somnambulism)
B)employed mesmerism as a form of anesthesia for surgical patients
C)proposed "neurohypnology" as a term for the study of mesmeric phenomena

Question 63

Match the idea with the individual.
Hippolyte Bernheim

A)argued that hypnotic susceptibility and hysteria were essentially the same thing
B)argued that susceptibility to hypnosis is simply one aspect of suggestibility more generally
C)described crowd behavior as similar to hypnotic effects

Question 64

Match the idea with the individual.
Gustave Le Bon

A)argued that hypnotic susceptibility and hysteria were essentially the same thing
B)argued that susceptibility to hypnosis is simply one aspect of suggestibility more generally
C)described crowd behavior as similar to hypnotic effects

Question 65

Match the publication with the author.
Leon Festinger

A)On Suggestion and Its Therapeutic Applications
B)Social Psychology
C)The Crowd
D)When Prophecy Fails

Question 66

Match the publication with the author.
Gustave Le Bon

A)On Suggestion and Its Therapeutic Applications
B)Social Psychology
C)The Crowd
D)When Prophecy Fails

Question 67

Match the publication with the author.
Hippolyte Bernheim

A)On Suggestion and Its Therapeutic Applications
B)Social Psychology
C)The Crowd
D)When Prophecy Fails

Question 68

Match the publication with the author.
Floyd Allport

A)On Suggestion and Its Therapeutic Applications
B)Social Psychology
C)The Crowd
D)When Prophecy Fails

Question 69

Match the study with the researcher.
Stanley Milgram

A)a study of suggestion in which children were asked to recall a number of items seen on a poster; children were most accurate when simply asked to provide de-scriptions,rather than asked direct questions,about what they had seen
B)asked children to wind fishing reels alone and in pairs and found some children wound the reels faster or slower in the presence of others,demonstrating social enhancement and inhibition of performance
C)asked individuals to pass along the name and address of a target person in Boston to those they thought likely to know the target,which produced an average of just six intermediaries,a result known as the small world phenomenon

Question 70

Match the definition with the term.
artificial somnambulism

A)a peaceful,sleeplike trance state that could be induced in magnetic therapy,dur-ing which subjects showed increased suggestibility
B)a hypothetical condition in which a subject enters a deep trance following a se-quence of stages similar to an epileptic seizure
C)a hypothetical force or energy field in the human body that can become misa-ligned,leading to symptoms of illness

Question 71

Match the study with the researcher(s).
Philip Zimbardo

A)a study of group dynamics among members of a doomsday cult
B)an investigation of conformity where subjects were asked to judge the length of lines within a group of confederates
C)the Stanford Prison Experiment
D)the use of the "lost in the mall" technique to induce false memories

Question 72

Match the study with the researcher.
Norman Triplett

A)a study of suggestion in which children were asked to recall a number of items seen on a poster; children were most accurate when simply asked to provide de-scriptions,rather than asked direct questions,about what they had seen
B)asked children to wind fishing reels alone and in pairs and found some children wound the reels faster or slower in the presence of others,demonstrating social enhancement and inhibition of performance
C)asked individuals to pass along the name and address of a target person in Boston to those they thought likely to know the target,which produced an average of just six intermediaries,a result known as the small world phenomenon

Question 73

Match the idea with the individual.
Jean-Martin Charcot

A)argued that hypnotic susceptibility and hysteria were essentially the same thing
B)argued that susceptibility to hypnosis is simply one aspect of suggestibility more generally
C)described crowd behavior as similar to hypnotic effects

Question 74

Match the idea with the individual.
James Braid

A)described a new state as a "perfect crisis" (later called artificial somnambulism)
B)employed mesmerism as a form of anesthesia for surgical patients
C)proposed "neurohypnology" as a term for the study of mesmeric phenomena

Question 75

What was the Nancy-Salpêtrière controversy?

Question 76

Match the study with the researcher.
Alfred Binet

A)a study of suggestion in which children were asked to recall a number of items seen on a poster; children were most accurate when simply asked to provide de-scriptions,rather than asked direct questions,about what they had seen
B)asked children to wind fishing reels alone and in pairs and found some children wound the reels faster or slower in the presence of others,demonstrating social enhancement and inhibition of performance
C)asked individuals to pass along the name and address of a target person in Boston to those they thought likely to know the target,which produced an average of just six intermediaries,a result known as the small world phenomenon

Question 77

Match the study with the researcher(s).
Solomon Asch

A)a study of group dynamics among members of a doomsday cult
B)an investigation of conformity where subjects were asked to judge the length of lines within a group of confederates
C)the Stanford Prison Experiment
D)the use of the "lost in the mall" technique to induce false memories

Question 78

Match the study with the researcher(s).
Elizabeth Loftus

A)a study of group dynamics among members of a doomsday cult
B)an investigation of conformity where subjects were asked to judge the length of lines within a group of confederates
C)the Stanford Prison Experiment
D)the use of the "lost in the mall" technique to induce false memories

Question 79

Match the definition with the term.
grand hypnotisme

A)a peaceful,sleeplike trance state that could be induced in magnetic therapy,dur-ing which subjects showed increased suggestibility
B)a hypothetical condition in which a subject enters a deep trance following a se-quence of stages similar to an epileptic seizure
C)a hypothetical force or energy field in the human body that can become misa-ligned,leading to symptoms of illness

Question 80

Match the idea with the individual.
James Esdaile

A)described a new state as a "perfect crisis" (later called artificial somnambulism)
B)employed mesmerism as a form of anesthesia for surgical patients
C)proposed "neurohypnology" as a term for the study of mesmeric phenomena