FREE Psychology Degree Social and Group Behavior Questions and Answers

Question 1

A team of highly skilled programmers is tasked with developing a new piece of software.
As the project progresses, one senior programmer, Alex, notices his colleagues are becoming less critical of the lead developer's ideas, even when they seem flawed.
Dissenting opinions are discouraged, and the team seems more focused on maintaining harmony than on realistically appraising alternatives.
This scenario is a classic example of:

Accepted Answer

Groupthink

Answer

Social Facilitation

Answer

Social Loafing

Answer

Group Polarization

Question 2

Which of the following best describes the fundamental attribution error?

Accepted Answer

The tendency to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for others' behavior while under-emphasizing situational factors.

Answer

The tendency to attribute one's own successes to internal factors and failures to external factors.

Answer

The tendency for an individual's beliefs to become more extreme after group discussion.

Answer

The tendency to attribute one's own actions to external causes while attributing others' actions to internal causes.

Question 3

During a class project, a professor notices that when students are assigned to larger groups, the total effort exerted by the group is often less than the sum of the individual efforts if each student had worked alone. This reduction in individual effort when working in a group is known as:

Accepted Answer

Social Loafing

Answer

The Bystander Effect

Answer

Conformity

Answer

Deindividuation

Question 4

A person who strongly believes in animal welfare and donates to animal rights charities recently purchased a new winter coat made with real fur. To reduce the mental discomfort from this inconsistency, they begin to rationalize their purchase by telling themselves, "The animals were raised ethically on a farm, so it's not the same as wild hunting." This attempt to resolve the conflict between their beliefs and actions is a prime example of:

Accepted Answer

Cognitive Dissonance

Answer

Self-Serving Bias

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The Just-World Hypothesis

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Normative Social Influence

Question 5

In Solomon Asch's classic conformity experiments, what was the primary reason participants often gave an obviously incorrect answer to a simple line-judging task?

Accepted Answer

They wanted to fit in with the unanimous majority and avoid social disapproval.

Answer

They were instructed to do so by an authority figure.

Answer

They genuinely became confused about which line was correct.

Answer

The presence of others enhanced their cognitive performance, leading to overthinking.

Question 6

An emergency occurs on a busy city street, and despite many people witnessing the event, no one immediately steps forward to help. This phenomenon, where the presence of others discourages an individual from intervening, is best explained by:

Accepted Answer

Diffusion of Responsibility

Answer

Group Polarization

Answer

Pluralistic Ignorance

Answer

Social Facilitation