Exam 1: The Mission and the Method

Roger holds a number of negative stereotypes about women. Specifically, he thinks that most women are manipulative, vain, and lazy. In trying to understand Roger's beliefs, which of the following questions would a social psychologist be MOST likely to ask?

Although sociologists and social psychologists are both interested in group behavior, sociologists tend to focus on ____, whereas social psychologists tend to focus on ____.

Cognitive psychology has borrowed much from social psychology, especially the methods for measuring cognitive processes.

How are social psychologists generally similar to behaviorists?

Which topic has been of the MOST interest to social psychologists during the last 30 years?

Most contemporary research in social psychology is based on college student samples.

Behaviorism seeks to explain behavior by looking at the deep unconscious forces inside a person.

In a well-known social psychological study, research participants were asked to make easy perceptual judgments ("Is Line A longer than Line B?"). The catch was that they were asked to do this while sitting around a table with people who continually gave incorrect responses-people who appeared to be other regular research participants. In reality, however, the other people at the table were actors who were working for the experimenter and posing as participants. The question in this research was whether or not the real research participant would conform to the group's opinion (even though the group's opinion was obviously wrong)or whether the real participant would stick to the right answer. In psychological jargon, the "actors" in this study would be referred to as ____.

The school of thought known as ____________________ seeks to explain human behavior in terms of learning principles such as reward and punishment

Which of the following fields is MOST concerned with understanding different human cultures?

A document that participants receive before a study begins which contains enough information about the study procedures, including any potential harm they (or others)might experience, so participants can decide if they want to participate is called a(n)_____.

Anthropologists would posit that social psychologists cannot understand human behavior fully unless they understand the ____.

Dr. Puni does not want the participants in his study to be aware of his hypothesis. What will he strive to reduce in his study?

In an experiment, if differences between groups of participants do appear after the independent variable is manipulated, these differences should be attributed to the independent variable

Which of the following topics is a personality psychologist MOST likely to study?