ASPPB Social Psychology 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Solomon Asch's conformity experiments demonstrated that participants conformed to incorrect group judgments approximately what percentage of the time across critical trials?
- 5–10%
- 15–20%
- 32–37% (Correct answer)
- 50–60%
Correct answer: 32–37%
Across Asch's critical trials, participants conformed to the incorrect majority about one-third of the time.
Question 2: Which factor was found by Milgram to MOST dramatically reduce obedience in his shock experiments?
- Moving the experiment from Yale to a run-down building
- Having the learner mention a heart condition
- Having two confederates rebel against the experimenter (Correct answer)
- Seeing another participant refuse to continue
Correct answer: Having two confederates rebel against the experimenter
When two confederates defied the experimenter, obedience dropped to about 10%, showing that social support for defiance powerfully undermines authority.
Question 3: The 'false consensus effect' refers to the tendency to:
- Underestimate how many people share one's attitudes
- Overestimate how many others share one's own beliefs and behaviors (Correct answer)
- Assume group consensus where none exists
- Falsely remember agreeing with majority opinions
Correct answer: Overestimate how many others share one's own beliefs and behaviors
The false consensus effect is the bias of assuming one's own views are more widely shared than they actually are.
Question 4: According to terror management theory (TMT), reminders of mortality lead people to:
- Reduce in-group favoritism to seek broader social support
- Embrace alternative worldviews to cope with anxiety
- Strengthen adherence to cultural worldviews and self-esteem (Correct answer)
- Exhibit more prosocial behavior toward strangers
Correct answer: Strengthen adherence to cultural worldviews and self-esteem
TMT proposes that awareness of death heightens investment in cultural beliefs and self-esteem as buffers against existential anxiety.
Question 5: A client consistently attributes colleagues' failures to laziness but attributes their own failures to situational factors. This asymmetry illustrates:
- The self-serving bias combined with actor-observer asymmetry (Correct answer)
- The fundamental attribution error only
- Projection and rationalization
- Defensive attribution
Correct answer: The self-serving bias combined with actor-observer asymmetry
The actor-observer asymmetry causes situational attributions for one's own behavior, while the self-serving bias protects self-esteem by attributing others' failures to internal causes.
Question 6: The 'door-in-the-face' compliance technique works primarily through:
- Commitment and consistency
- Reciprocal concessions (Correct answer)
- Scarcity and urgency
- Social proof
Correct answer: Reciprocal concessions
After refusing a large request, people feel obligated to comply with a smaller follow-up request because the requester appears to have made a concession.
Question 7: Research on stereotype threat shows that performance deficits occur most reliably when targets:
- Are unaware of the negative stereotype about their group
- Are in situations that make the stereotype personally relevant and salient (Correct answer)
- Have low domain identification and low self-esteem
- Are tested in groups rather than individually
Correct answer: Are in situations that make the stereotype personally relevant and salient
Stereotype threat impairs performance when individuals are aware that a negative stereotype about their group could confirm in a relevant testing situation.
ASPPB Social Psychology 3
Solomon Asch's conformity experiments demonstrated that participants conformed to incorrect group judgments approximately what percentage of the time across critical trials?