Question 1

In trying to decide which of two classmates is smarter,you use the rule,"the faster people talk,the smarter they are," and you choose the classmate who talks faster.You have applied a _______ to decide who is smarter.

Accepted Answer

A)   self-fulfilling prophecy
B)   fundamental attribution
C)   decoding bias
D)   correspondence bias
E)   judgmental heuristic E

Question 2

In short,counterfactual thinking can be described as

Accepted Answer

A)   mentally reconstructing the past by imagining what could have been.
B)   one of the most rational responses to an undesirable outcome.
C)   putting a positive spin on things to enhance self-esteem.
D)   thinking about how things couldn't have turned out differently.
E)   avoiding thinking of things that may damage self-esteem. A

Question 3

You were supposed to make an important presentation at work,but you overslept and the bus was late,so you missed the meeting.If you are able to generate many ways in which to "undo" this terrible outcome you are likely to experience _______ emotional reaction.

Accepted Answer

A)   a mild
B)   a strong
C)   an incapacitating
D)   no
E)   an irrational B

Question 4

In a study by Hedden and colleagues (2008)examining brain activity,East Asian and European Americans underwent an fMRI while focusing on either a target or the context of a picture.In which circumstances did European Americans show greater attention?

Accepted Answer

A)   when asked to attend to the target
B)   when asked to attend to the context
C)   when asked to ignore the context
D)   when in a room with many other people
E)   when in a room alone

Question 5

When Jana was chiding herself for losing her favorite necklace and reciting a list of all the things she could have done to prevent the loss,her grandmother said,"Now,Jana.Don't cry over spilled milk." In essence,Jana's grandmother was advising her to

Accepted Answer

A)   avoid the hindsight bias.
B)   use base rates rather than the representativeness heuristic.
C)   avoid the self-fulfilling prophecy.
D)   stop engaging in counterfactual thinking.
E)   adjust her judgment farther away from the anchor.

Question 6

Korsakov's syndrome is a neurological disorder that makes sufferers unable to form new memories.The world is disorienting and incoherent to patients with this disorder,so they often confabulate or invent fictions to

Accepted Answer

A)   increase ambiguity.
B)   help them relate to others.
C)   reduce ambiguity and feel less unsettled and fearful about the world.
D)   lose their schemas.
E)   form new schemas.

Question 7

One of the authors of your text supervised an honours student from China who attended a curling championship in Winnipeg.The student was very amused to see people paying so much money to watch "a couple of guys mopping the floor." This story suggests that

Accepted Answer

A)   many schemas are common to different cultures.
B)   some cultures do not use schematic processing.
C)   priming affects everyone, regardless of culture.
D)   the use of schemas is a human universal, no matter what the culture.
E)   schemas are affected by one's native culture.

Question 8

In the study by Kunda,Sinclair,and Griffin (1997),participants were told that a person was either a salesperson or an actor and very extroverted.Participants generated descriptions of the person that

Accepted Answer

A)   varied according to the occupation of the person.
B)   did not differ according to the occupation.
C)   varied depending on the attractiveness of the person.
D)   were better remembered when consistent with the occupation of the person.
E)   were similar to the participant's own personality.

Question 9

Getting trapped in one's thoughts about unpleasant events and an inability to move on from them is a risk of

Accepted Answer

A)   the accessibility heuristic.
B)   counterfactual thinking.
C)   the availability heuristic.
D)   the self-fulfilling prophecy.
E)   the representativeness heuristic.

Question 10

Iain is from Australia,where people drive on the left-hand side of the road.When he moved to Canada,his accident rate was higher than any of his friends'.Why might this be?

Accepted Answer

A)   Driving schemas differ between Canada and Australia.
B)   There is less traffic in Australia.
C)   Iain had no schema for driving behaviours.
D)   They don't have Driver Education courses in Australia.
E)   There is no speed limit in Australia.

Question 11

Define each of the following mental shortcuts and explain why each may be inaccurate: (1)the availability heuristic,and (2)the representativeness heuristic.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Define each of the following mental shortcuts...

Question 12

During the last Canadian election,there was a televised debate among the candidates for Prime Minister.After the debate,supporters of each side thought that their candidate had performed the best in the debate.The supporters' judgments were probably affected by

Accepted Answer

A)   their schemas.
B)   the hostile media effect.
C)   a self-fulfilling prophecy.
D)   the fundamental attribution error.
E)   the representativeness heuristic.

Question 13

You and your friend have a big assignment due today in your English class.You ask how your friend's paper turned out,and he mentions that he hasn't yet gotten around to writing it.Shocked,you ask him what he's going to tell the professor.He replies,"Oh,it won't be a problem.All female professors are pushovers; she'll let me turn the paper in next week." You tell your friend that you don't think all female professors are pushovers,but he doesn't seem worried.His conviction that his reasoning is correct is called the

Accepted Answer

A)   overconfidence barrier.
B)   motivational effect.
C)   arrogance barrier.
D)   perseverance effect.
E)   testosterone effect.

Question 14

When thinking about the film Casablanca,many people erroneously remember the Humphrey Bogart line,"Play it again,Sam." In reality,Bogart never said that line.This example illustrates that memory is

Accepted Answer

A)   objective.
B)   affected by our schemas.
C)   random.
D)   regularly false.
E)   inconsistent with our schemas.

Question 15

So much research has been dedicated to automatic thinking because

Accepted Answer

A)   it often leads us to make mistakes with important decisions.
B)   it allows us to think deliberately about the social environment.
C)   automatic thinking takes over from controlled thinking when unusual events occur.
D)   it is pervasive and dominates much of people's mental life.
E)   it helps researchers understand counterfactual thinking.

Question 16

Recall that Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson (1968)informed grade school teachers that some of their students (called "bloomers")would show great academic improvement in the upcoming year.Also recall that students labeled "bloomers" actually showed greater increases on IQ tests,compared to students who were not labeled "bloomers." These differences occurred because teachers

Accepted Answer

A)   distracted "non-bloomers" by providing them too much personal attention.
B)   spent significantly more time interacting with "bloomers."
C)   decided to devote their attention to the students with the most promise.
D)   challenged "bloomers" more and gave them more and better feedback.
E)   ignored "non-bloomers."

Question 17

In a study by Hedden and colleagues (2008)examining brain activity,East Asian and European Americans underwent an fMRI while focusing on either a target or the context of a picture.When asked to focus on the context of a picture,European Americans' ________ regions of the brain were more active.

Accepted Answer

A)   occipital
B)   limbic
C)   frontal and parietal
D)   temporal
E)   lateral

Question 18

You stayed up all night cramming for an examination and didn't do as well as you had hoped."If only I had started studying sooner and gotten a good night's rest,I'd have done much better," you think to yourself.You have just engaged in

Accepted Answer

A)   counterfactual thinking.
B)   self-justification.
C)   wish fulfillment.
D)   the hindsight bias.
E)   unrealistic fantasy.

Question 19

When confronted with "H H H H T T T T T T" as a summary of the results of a series of 10 flips of a coin,most people will view that series as "less random" than a summary of results that looks like "H H T H T T H T H T," even though the odds of a "head" on the next toss is 50/50 in each case.Why? Their estimates have been biased by

Accepted Answer

A)   counterfactual thinking.
B)   the availability heuristic.
C)   the representativeness heuristic.
D)   downward counterfactual thinking.
E)   anchoring and insufficient adjustment.

Question 20

Among the features of an analytic thinking style is

Accepted Answer

A)   a focus on objects.
B)   a focus on context.
C)   concern with the relationship between objects.
D)   greater cortical activity when paying attention to objects.
E)   efficient information searching strategies.

Exam 3: Social Cognition