Social Psychology Flashcards
7 cards from real BAPSY practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Social Psychology flashcards as text
The 'just-world hypothesis' leads people to believe that victims of misfortune:
Answer: Must have done something to deserve their fate
The just-world hypothesis is a cognitive bias where people assume the world is fair, leading them to blame victims rather than acknowledge random misfortune.
Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment is primarily cited as evidence for the power of:
Answer: Situational roles and institutional structures over individual behavior
The experiment showed that ordinary people assigned to prison roles rapidly adopted extreme behaviors consistent with those roles, demonstrating situational power.
In the context of attitude change, 'cognitive dissonance' occurs when a person experiences discomfort due to:
Answer: Holding two or more inconsistent cognitions simultaneously
Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory posits that inconsistency between attitudes or between attitudes and behavior creates psychological tension motivating change.
Which of the following best illustrates 'deindividuation' in a crowd?
Answer: Rioters wearing masks and engaging in destructive behavior they normally would not
Deindividuation occurs when anonymity within a group reduces self-awareness and normal restraints, increasing impulsive or antisocial behavior.
Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner) predicts that simply being categorized into a group will lead people to:
Answer: Favor their in-group over out-groups
Even minimal group categorization produces in-group favoritism because group membership contributes to positive social identity.
The 'contact hypothesis' proposes that prejudice between groups can be reduced through intergroup contact, but only when the contact involves:
Answer: Equal status and cooperative interdependence
Allport identified equal-status, cooperative, and institutionally supported contact as the key conditions for reducing prejudice through intergroup interaction.
Reactance theory (Brehm) predicts that when people feel their behavioral freedoms are threatened, they will:
Answer: Experience increased desire for the restricted behavior
Psychological reactance is the motivational state that arises when freedom is threatened, driving people toward the restricted behavior as a way to reassert autonomy.