Chapter 9 Social Psychology

The main difference between compliance and obedience is that obedience occurs in response to

a more powerful person or group.

Normative social influence often has a greater impact on _______________________ than on_______________________.

public compliance; private acceptance

People who hold a minority view tend to change the majority opinion through

informational social influence

Chartrand and Bargh (1999) found that people mimic such behaviors as face rubbing and foot shaking, and that this mimicry is particularly likely to occur when

the person or people being mimicked are well liked and the person doing the mimicking has a high need to affiliate with others

Recall that Sherif (1936) showed participants a point of light in a completely darkened room and asked them to judge the light’s movement. The results from this study suggest that people

often change their own judgments in accordance with others’ judgments.

Janet has a minority opinion about dorm curfew and is afraid she will feel pressured to conform to the majority opinion at an upcoming dorm meeting. To resist conformity pressure, Janet should

bring an ally to the meeting.

Going into a group meeting at work, you are concerned that you will end up conforming to the rest of the group on decisions, even when you disagree. Which of the following factors could influence whether you conform?

having to share your opinion with group members recognizing that other group members have more status than you do feeling uncertain about the topic at hand

According to research on group polarization, people who make decisions in groups tend to make decisions that are more _______________ than people who make decisions on their own.

extreme

Which of the following statements captures the persuasive arguments account of why group polarization occurs? Discussing an issue in a group

exposes group members to even more arguments in favor of the position that the average group member was already inclined to take.

According to the social comparison interpretation of group polarization, when exposed to other group members’ attitudes, people’s attitudes tend to become more extreme in the _____________________________ because they want to _____________________________.

same direction the group is already leaning; distinguish themselves from others

A social norm that reflects how things are typically done is considered ____________________, whereas a social norm that reflects what behaviors are approved is considered ____________________.

descriptive; prescriptive

After successfully requesting that his neighbor loan him his jumper cables to start his car, Jeremy then persuades his neighbor to drive him the ten miles to where his car is stalled. This kind of "foot-in-the-door" technique usually works because people

perform certain actions because they are consistent with their self-images.

According to the negative state relief hypothesis,

granting someone’s request decreases negative mood states (i.e., makes them feel less bad).

In the original Milgram experiment (1965), the experimenter asked participants to shock someone else whenever that person made a mistake on a learning task. The results of this experiment revealed that:

Nearly all participants called the experimenter's attention to the learner's suffering, and many participants stated explicitly that they refused to continue.

What percent of the participants in Milgram’s original experiment delivered the maximum level of shock of 450 volts? Approximately

62%

Hideous crimes against humanity include the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, the “ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia, and the tribal massacres in Rwanda. According to the textbook, there are two different ways of explaining such crimes. One of these explanations, the normalist thesis, holds that

under certain circumstances, almost anyone has the capacity to harm others.

The foot-in-the-door studies and the Milgram studies are similar in that they both

asked people to comply with a small, relatively unobjectionable action at first.

Research on affective forecasting (from Chapter 6, on emotions and happiness) suggests that people tend to

overestimate the emotional impact of negative life events.

Danner and colleagues (2001) analyzed personal narratives written by a sample of nuns at the time when they entered the convent around age 20. The researchers then evaluated how the nuns were doing many years later. What was a key finding of this study?

Nuns who reported more happiness in their personal narratives at age 20 lived longer lives.

William and Theodore want to take their children on a backpacking trip. Research suggests that if they want to increase the probability that their children will look back on the trip and think it was great fun, William and Theodore should try to make sure that

the end of the trip is extremely fun.