Social Psychology and Personality

How this unit is tested

What you have to know

13 practice questions

1. Jamal sees a coworker snap at a client and immediately thinks, 'She's just a rude person.' He never considers that she may have just received bad personal news. What bias is Jamal displaying?
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   Answer. Fundamental attribution error

   Jamal explains another person's behavior by pointing to an internal, dispositional trait ('rude person') while ignoring possible situational causes (bad news). This overweighting of disposition when judging others is the textbook definition of the fundamental attribution error.
2. After winning a debate, a student says, 'I'm just a naturally persuasive speaker.' After losing the next debate, she says, 'The judges were clearly biased.' What is this pattern called?
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   Answer. Self-serving bias

   She attributes her success to an internal, stable trait (skill) but her failure to an external, situational factor (biased judges). This asymmetry that protects self-esteem is the self-serving bias, distinct from the fundamental attribution error, which concerns judging others rather than oneself.
3. A woman believes environmental conservation is important, yet she drives a large truck daily for convenience. To resolve the resulting discomfort, she starts telling herself the truck is necessary for her job and rarely used for anything else. Which concept explains her shifting justification?
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   Answer. Cognitive dissonance

   The gap between her stated belief and her actual behavior creates psychological discomfort. Rather than change the behavior, she reduces the dissonance by adjusting her thinking (justifying the truck as necessary), which is the hallmark resolution strategy predicted by Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory.
4. In Asch's classic line-judgment experiments, participants often gave an answer they knew was wrong simply because previous group members had given that same wrong answer. This result is the clearest demonstration of which phenomenon?
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   Answer. Conformity

   Asch's participants changed their public response to match the group's incorrect judgment even without being directly asked to, illustrating conformity: adjusting behavior to match group norms under implicit social pressure rather than a direct command.
5. In Milgram's obedience studies, which factor was shown to significantly decrease the percentage of participants who continued delivering shocks to the maximum level?
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   Answer. Increasing the physical proximity between the participant and the victim (or decreasing the authority figure's presence)

   Milgram found obedience dropped sharply when the 'learner' was in the same room as the participant, or when the experimenter (the authority figure) left the room or gave instructions by phone rather than in person. Physical and social distance from the authority figure, and closeness to the victim, both reduced obedience rates.
6. A cyclist who trains alone rides noticeably faster when competing against others on the track, but a member of a large tug-of-war team pulls with less effort than when competing one-on-one. Name the two phenomena illustrated by the cyclist and the tug-of-war team member, respectively.
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   Answer. Social facilitation (cyclist) and social loafing (tug-of-war team member)

   The cyclist performs a well-practiced task and the presence of others increases arousal, boosting performance — social facilitation. The tug-of-war member's individual effort cannot be tracked in a large group, so accountability drops and effort decreases — social loafing. Both depend on whether individual contribution is identifiable and whether the task is simple/well-learned.
7. A man collapses on a crowded sidewalk, but each passerby assumes someone else will call for help, and no one does. This outcome is best explained by which concept?
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   Answer. Bystander effect (diffusion of responsibility)

   When many people witness an emergency, each individual feels less personal responsibility to act because they assume others will intervene, a phenomenon known as diffusion of responsibility, which drives the broader bystander effect.
8. After a frustrating meeting with his boss, a man comes home and yells at his children instead of confronting his boss directly. Which Freudian defense mechanism is he using?
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   Answer. Displacement

   Displacement occurs when unacceptable impulses (anger toward a boss, which is risky to express directly) are redirected toward a safer, less threatening target (his children). This protects the ego from the anxiety of direct confrontation while still discharging the emotional impulse.
9. A therapist using Carl Rogers's client-centered approach continues to express warmth and acceptance toward a client even after the client admits to a serious personal failure. What humanistic concept is the therapist demonstrating?
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   Answer. Unconditional positive regard

   Rogers argued that psychological growth requires an environment of acceptance and support regardless of what a person says or does. By maintaining warmth despite the client's admission, the therapist is providing unconditional positive regard, which Rogers believed fosters a healthier self-concept.
10. On a personality inventory, Elena scores high on being organized, disciplined, and goal-directed, and low on impulsivity. Which of the Big Five traits does this describe?
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    Answer. Conscientiousness

    Conscientiousness in the Big Five (OCEAN) model reflects self-discipline, organization, and dependable, goal-directed behavior. High scorers plan ahead and follow through, in contrast to low scorers who tend to be more impulsive and disorganized.
11. According to the Yerkes-Dodson law, a student taking a moderately difficult final exam will perform best under what condition?
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    Answer. A moderate level of arousal

    The Yerkes-Dodson law predicts an inverted-U relationship between arousal and performance: too little arousal leads to low motivation and poor focus, while too much arousal causes anxiety that impairs performance, so a moderate level of arousal optimizes performance, especially on complex tasks like an exam.
12. A child who loves drawing for fun is offered a cash prize for every drawing she completes. After a few weeks, the reward program ends, and she draws far less often than before, even though nothing else has changed. What effect explains this drop in her drawing behavior?
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    Answer. Overjustification effect

    Introducing an extrinsic reward for a behavior that was previously intrinsically motivated can shift the person's perceived reason for doing it from enjoyment to reward. Once the reward disappears, the original intrinsic motivation has been undermined, producing a decline in the behavior — the overjustification effect.
13. Right after hearing a sudden loud bang, a man notices his heart pounding and his hands trembling, and only afterward realizes he feels afraid. Which theory of emotion does this sequence best illustrate?
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    Answer. James-Lange theory

    James-Lange proposes that physiological arousal occurs first, and the brain then interprets that bodily state as a specific emotion. Because the man's bodily reaction (racing heart, trembling) preceded his conscious feeling of fear, this matches the James-Lange sequence rather than Cannon-Bard's simultaneous model or Schachter-Singer's emphasis on cognitive labeling.

What people get wrong

1. Confusing the fundamental attribution error with actor-observer bias: FAE is specifically about over-crediting disposition when judging others' behavior, while actor-observer bias is the broader pattern of attributing your own behavior to situation but others' identical behavior to disposition. Ask whose behavior is being explained before naming the bias.
2. Treating conformity, compliance, and obedience as interchangeable: conformity is adjusting behavior to match a group norm without being asked, compliance is agreeing to a direct request from someone of equal status, and obedience is following a command from a perceived authority figure. Check whether there was a request, who made it, and what power they held.
3. Reversing the order of events in emotion theories: James-Lange claims the body reacts before the emotion is felt, Cannon-Bard claims both happen at once, and Schachter-Singer adds that a cognitive label determines which emotion is felt from a given arousal. Re-read the scenario for the sequence of body sensation versus feeling versus interpretation before choosing a theory.
4. Grading Big Five traits as inherently good or bad (assuming high extraversion is always better than low): each trait is a neutral continuum describing tendencies, not a value judgment, and both ends have adaptive and maladaptive contexts. Describe a person's position on the dimension rather than ranking it.
5. Confusing groupthink with group polarization: groupthink is a decision-making group suppressing dissent to preserve harmony, often producing poor decisions, while group polarization is a group's existing attitude becoming more extreme after discussion. Ask whether the outcome is a suppressed disagreement (groupthink) or an amplified shared opinion (polarization).