Exam I Study Guide

Social Psychology Sec 01 and 03: Spring 2004

The examination will consist of approximately 40-45 multiple choice questions. You are responsible for all material presented in class and Chapters 1, 2, from .The material covered is approximately ½ from lecture and ½ from the book. You may notice that there really is not a whole lot of direct overlap between the two for chapter 1. You will need to carefully read each book chapter and familiarize your self with the major concepts (often indicated by italicized words, bulleted/numbered lists, and highlighted text boxes). Use the questions below to help focus your studying. Note that though you could provide single word answers to many of the questions, doing so will not sufficiently prepare you for this examination.

Ch. 1

1. Define social psychology?

2. What are the historical origins of social psychology?

3. Why is Hitler the most important figure in the development of social psychology? We specifically discussed 3 major ways that Hitler helped to form the field. Know them.

4. With respect to the Person x Situation Matrix, how can we distinguish between Social Psyc, Personality Psyc, and Sociology?

5. What are the 5 major factors studied by Social Pyschology?

6. What are the Main research methods in used in Social Psyc. Know the defining features of each. What are the major types of validity that researchers are concerned with? How are these validities influenced by the methods used?

7. What ethical concerns often arise in Social Psyc research?

8. What are the core values of science?

Ch. 2

9. What types of information are communicated through facial expressions, eye contact, body language, and touching? What can a handshake tell us about a person (be able to critically evaluate this study)? What are the indicators of deception?

10. What are attributions? What are the major aspects of Kelly’s Model and Jones & Davis’s Model of attributional decision making?

11. What kind of picture does the Kelly and Jones & Davis models paint, with respect to human decision making. What evidence exists to challenge this view?

12. What are the augmenting and discounting principles?

13. What is regulatory focus theory? How is it related to the different types of Logical Errors (i.e., false positive and false negatives) that people can make? What types of logical errors were demonstrated by the Southpark Video shown in class?

14. What are the 3 major attributional biases? What factors increase the likelihood that people will succumb to these biased processes? What social psychological processes have been offered to explain the occurrence of these biases and evidence (studies) exists to support theses explanations?

– Note: know all the studies, what they did (the different conditions), and what the results were. You do not need to know numbers/scores for groups, but do know what groups were higher/lower on the DV of interest (this goes for all the studies we covered, as well as major studies covered in the book).

15. What cultural differences have been found, with respect to the attributional biases.

16. What connections have been made between attribution processes, depression, and prejudice?

17. What is impression formation? What did Asch’s early research show?

18. What has research on Cognitive Algebra and Motivational processes in Impression formation demontate

19. What tactics of impression management have been identified and which ones are most successful?

[Home]