Exam 5: Social Cognition

Describe the ironic consequences of thought suppression, and what strategies might work better to accomplish that same goal.

Richard is a piano major and enters two music competitions in the same month. He places first in one of the competitions, but doesn't place at all in the other. If Richard is like most people, he will probably ____.

The fact that men and women report having had very different numbers of sex partners can be almost completely explained by the fact that men have engaged in more homosexual sex.

As a child, the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy was once challenged by his older brother to remain standing in a corner until he could stop thinking of a white bear. That is, he was challenged to engage in ____.

The first instinct fallacy refers to the false belief that it is better not to change one's first answer even if one starts to think that a different answer is correct.

"Heuristic" is another word for ____.

When buying a new car, people tend to look at statistical information and case history information. Research shows that they tend to be more influenced by ____.

Research indicates that the topic people think about most is ____.

Madison's is taking a freshman seminar at her university. In that class, the teacher works with students to help them identify the criteria they use to make decisions, and points out how some of the criteria might not produce the desired outcomes. The teacher is probably trying to ____.

Hilda is on a low carbohydrate diet, which restricts her from eating foods such as white bread, potato chips, and pretzels. The more Hilda thinks about the fact that she cannot eat such foods, however, the more desperately she begins to crave them. Social psychologists refer to this kind of pattern as a(n) ____.

Isabelle is exhausted from staying up too late and doesn't perform very well at her swim meet as a result. Isabelle will probably describe her poor performance as ____.

Monique tends to spend more money than she should on shoes. However, she makes the mistake of thinking that most people spend lots of money on shoes. This makes her feel better about the fact that she herself overspends. It appears that Monique is engaging in the cognitive bias known as the ____________________ effect.

The Stroop test is a psychological test that highlights the ____.

A loss-framed appeal focuses on the ____.

Researchers have found that people tend to ____ as little as possible.

Which of the following kinds of thinking can help explain the first instinct fallacy?

If a moderately liberal person watches a lot of liberal news media television and listens to liberal news radio programs, her viewpoints will probably become more liberal.

The so-called "Sports Illustrated jinx"-the tendency for athletes to experience a dip in performance directly after appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated-can be best explained by ____.

Raquel buys stock in two different companies. She makes $2000 from one of these investments, but loses $3000 on the other one. If you ask Raquel about her stocks, she makes self-serving attributions, saying, "I was very clever to invest in that first company, but I just had bad luck losing so much money with the other one." In other words, ____.

When people make internal, stable attributions for others' successes or failures, these attributions tend to concern questions of ____.