Exam 1: What Is Social Psychology

Matthew interviews for an important job but the company ultimately decides to select someone else for the position. Matthew thinks to himself, "I knew the interview went poorly and I wasn't going to get the job." Matthew's belief that he knew the outcome all along is an example of what phenomenon?

World War II is an event identified as having changed the structure and direction of social psychology.

Social comparison theory and cognitive dissonance theory were developed by which of the following social psychologists?

You are a very fast swimmer but you always perform better during competitions than during practice. This phenomenon is called:

Kurt Lewin attempted to convince people to switch from eating white bread to eating wheat bread. When participants were asked to make a public commitment, he found that:

Explain the relevance of differential construal to the false consensus effect. Be sure to define the false consensus effect in your answer.

Norman Triplett conducted a study measuring the performance of children playing a simple game either alone or in the presence of another child. Triplett's results indicated that:

________________ is a process by which individuals with certain characteristics are more frequently represented in subsequent generations as a result of being better adapted to their environments.

The availability heuristic refers to:

How can biases such as the hindsight bias or the confirmation bias negatively affect a social psychologist's work? What can social psychologists do to avoid these types of biases?

____________is an emerging field that integrates the study of physiological mechanisms with social psychological perspectives.

Edwin Ross and William McDougall are important figures in the history of social psychology. What important contribution did they make to the development of social psychology?

Social perception is the process through which other people affect an individual's thoughts or actions.

Basic and Applied Social Psychology, Social Psychology Quarterly, and Social Cognition are examples of _____________.

Christy's assumption that she knew all along that the United States was going to be attacked by terrorists on September 11ᵗʰ is an example of hindsight bias.

Define the availability heuristic. Explain how this concept relates to the question of whether or not social psychology is just common sense.