ASPPB Social Psychology 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: According to Festinger's social comparison theory, people are most likely to compare themselves to others who are:
- Vastly superior in ability
- Similar to themselves (Correct answer)
- Completely dissimilar
- Famous public figures
Correct answer: Similar to themselves
Social comparison theory holds that people evaluate their opinions and abilities by comparing themselves to similar others.
Question 2: The 'bystander effect' is BEST explained by which two social psychological processes?
- Conformity and obedience
- Diffusion of responsibility and pluralistic ignorance (Correct answer)
- Social loafing and deindividuation
- Groupthink and polarization
Correct answer: Diffusion of responsibility and pluralistic ignorance
The bystander effect occurs because onlookers assume others will help (diffusion of responsibility) and look to others to define the situation as an emergency (pluralistic ignorance).
Question 3: Which persuasion route in the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) is used when a person has low motivation to process a message?
- Central route
- Peripheral route (Correct answer)
- Systematic route
- Heuristic-analytic route
Correct answer: Peripheral route
The peripheral route involves persuasion through cues like source attractiveness or expertise rather than careful argument evaluation.
Question 4: A researcher finds that participants who received a small reward for a boring task reported liking it more than those given a large reward. This best illustrates:
- Operant conditioning
- Cognitive dissonance (Correct answer)
- Self-perception theory confirmation
- The overjustification effect
Correct answer: Cognitive dissonance
Insufficient justification (small reward) creates dissonance, leading people to change their attitude to justify their behavior.
Question 5: In Tajfel's Social Identity Theory, 'in-group favoritism' occurs primarily because people:
- Have had more positive experiences with in-group members
- Seek to enhance self-esteem through positive group identity (Correct answer)
- Are conditioned to favor familiar stimuli
- Perceive in-group members as more competent
Correct answer: Seek to enhance self-esteem through positive group identity
Social identity theory posits that group membership contributes to self-esteem, motivating people to view their in-group positively.
Question 6: The phenomenon where individuals in a group exert less effort than when working alone is called:
- Social facilitation
- Deindividuation
- Social loafing (Correct answer)
- Groupthink
Correct answer: Social loafing
Social loafing refers to the tendency for individuals to reduce effort on collective tasks because individual contributions are less identifiable.
Question 7: Which of the following BEST describes the 'sleeper effect' in persuasion research?
- People are more persuaded when sleepy and less critical
- Persuasion from a low-credibility source increases over time as the source is forgotten (Correct answer)
- High-credibility sources lose persuasive power over time
- Subliminal messages produce delayed attitude change
Correct answer: Persuasion from a low-credibility source increases over time as the source is forgotten
The sleeper effect occurs when the discounting cue (low credibility) dissociates from the message over time, allowing the message to become more persuasive.
ASPPB Social Psychology 2
According to Festinger's social comparison theory, people are most likely to compare themselves to others who are: