Take this Quiz: AP Psychology — social psychology, personality and mental health | Zestly

Question 1

In an invented case, an employee misses a deadline and explains that the brief kept changing. When a colleague misses a deadline the following week, the same employee concludes that the colleague is disorganised. Which pair of tendencies is at work?

Accepted Answer

Circumstance invoked for her own failure, character invoked for the colleague's

Answer

Character invoked in both cases, because failure is always read as a personal shortcoming

Answer

Character invoked for her own failure, circumstance invoked for the colleague's

Answer

Circumstance invoked in both cases, because she had detailed knowledge of neither

Question 2

In an invented case, a junior auditor is told by the senior partner to sign off a set of figures she believes are wrong. She raises an objection once, is told to sign, and signs. No other auditor is present and she has no idea what colleagues would do. Which phenomenon does this illustrate, and what rules out the other?

Accepted Answer

Obedience, because the pressure came from a direct instruction by someone above her in a hierarchy

Answer

Obedience, because she privately continued to believe the figures were wrong

Answer

Conformity, because she adjusted her behaviour to fit what was expected of her

Answer

Conformity, because professional norms exert pressure even when nobody is watching

Question 3

In an invented case, a project team meets under time pressure to approve a launch. Two members privately have reservations; neither raises them, each assuming the silence of the others means agreement. The chair, who proposed the launch, thanks the group for its unanimity. The decision passes without the risks being examined. Which group process is this?

Accepted Answer

Groupthink

Answer

Social loafing

Answer

Group polarisation

Answer

Deindividuation

Question 4

In an experiment first run in 1959 by Festinger and Carlsmith, students who had found a laboratory task dull were asked to tell the next participant it had been interesting. Some were offered a substantial payment to say so; others were offered a trivial sum, and agreed anyway. Afterwards, those paid the trivial sum rated the task as genuinely more enjoyable than the well-paid ones did. What best explains that result?

Answer

Social facilitation — the presence of another participant improved performance, and with it enjoyment

Answer

The bystander effect — responsibility was diffused, which made the task feel less burdensome

Answer

Self-serving bias — they credited themselves with having chosen an interesting task

Answer

Cognitive dissonance — with no adequate outside reason for what they said, the attitude moved to fit the behaviour

Question 5

In an invented case, a member of a chess club can describe at length how differently each of her own club-mates plays and behaves, but speaks of the rival club across town as though its members were interchangeable — "they all play the same way". She does not claim her own club is better. Which tendency does this describe?

Answer

Confirmation bias

Answer

Stereotype threat

Answer

Out-group homogeneity

Answer

In-group bias