Excelsior - Social Psychology Quiz Exam Practice

Question Description

Instructions to Learners

The quiz consists of short essay questions. Each question must be answered in 50-150 words.

1. What are some key differences between common sense and psychology?

2. Imagine you are driving and that a driver in another car cuts you off. You have to slam on the brakes quickly to avoid an accident. If you were using the fundamental attribution error, how would you be likely to explain the driver’s behavior? How would you be likely to explain your own behavior?

3. Dr. Smith conducts an experiment to test the effects of attractiveness on helping behavior. Her hypothesis is that people will help attractive people more than unattractive people. Dr. Smith decides to have either the unattractive person or the attractive person stand outside of a building with many boxes in their arms. The person will struggle to open the door to the building. From 8:00 a.m. to noon, Dr. Smith has the unattractive person needing help, and from noon to 4:00 p.m., Dr. Smith has the attractive person needing help. Dr. Smith will sit on a nearby bench recording how many people help the person to open the door. Identify the dependent variable and independent variable. Does the experiment have good experimental realism? Does the experiment have good psychological realism? Is this a correlational study (please explain why or why not)? Would you make any suggestions to improve the study?

4. What is automatic processing and what are the two major types of automatic processing that people use? What is controlled processing? When do people use these different types of processing?

5. Summarize a theory that can explain when our behaviors will affect our attitudes.