PSYC 201 Midterm Study Guide PDF

**PSYC 201 Midterm Study Guide** **Module 1: An Invitation to Social Psychology** ***While this chapter is not on the quiz, these questions provide a useful foundation for other material.*** 1. How is social psychology different from personality psychology? How do each of these relate to Kur...

**PSYC 201 Midterm Study Guide** **Module 1: An Invitation to Social Psychology** ***While this chapter is not on the quiz, these questions provide a useful foundation for other material.*** 1. How is social psychology different from personality psychology? How do each of these relate to Kurt Lewin's B=f(P,E) and the Fundamental Attribution Error? 2. What are the results of the Good Samaritan study? 3. What is a channel factor/ nudge? What are some examples? 4. What is a construal? How do construals impact our thoughts & behavior? 5. What is Gestalt psychology? How does it relate to construals and schemas? 6. What is the difference between automatic and controlled processing? 7. What is the difference between independent and interdependent cultures? **Module 1, Chapter 2: The Methods of Social Psychology** I would make sure you are especially comfortable with all types of validity, and reliability. Note: self-selection may also be called selection bias. 1. What are the differences between observational, archival, survey, & experimental research? 2. What is the difference between a correlational and an experimental study? 3. What is important about experiments? Why do we like using experiments in social psychology? 4. What are the main components of an experiment? 5. What is reliability and (measurement) validity? What is internal and external validity? 6. What are the common threats to internal validity? 7. What is a dependent variable? An independent variable? Can you identify each in an experiment? 8. What is random assignment? Why is random assignment important? How is it different from random sampling? 9. What does it mean that correlation does not imply causation? What are the important differences between correlation and causation? 10. What is the difference between basic and applied science? 11. What are some ethical concerns in social psychology? What is the IRB? What is informed consent? What is deception research? 1. What are self-schemas? What role do they play in organizing knowledge? Frameworks of knowledge for yourself that are developed through personal experiences -- they play a role to create self evaluations 2. What is the Contingencies of Self-Worth model? What does it say about how people handle negative events? The idea that self esteem is based on success/failure in activities that are important to oneself. It suggests that people handle negative events by putting down their self esteem 3. What is trait self-esteem? What is state self-esteem? Trait: stable sense of self over time State: sense of self that is dependant on the situation 4. What is the self-discrepancy theory? What feelings are triggered when you do not live up to your ideal self? Ought self? It is the discomfort experienced when there is a gap between the actual and ideal self -- it can trigger feelings of discomfort and decrease self esteem if you do not live up to your ideal and ought self a. Also note: ideal and ought self-definitions. Ideal self: **who you want to be** Ought self: **who you SHOULD be** 5. What is social comparison theory? When you compare yourself to external sources to create evaluations of yourself b. What is the difference between upward & downward comparisons? Upward: when you compare to someone better than you Downward: when you compare to someone worse than you. c. When are we more likely to engage in social comparisons? In Uncertaint, ambiguity, when we are close to people who are more similar to us, when you want to make yourself feel better about a failure (downward), and when you want to improve yourself (upward) 6. What is the better-than-average effect? When is it most likely to occur? The tendency for (mainly Westerners) to rate themselves better than average in ambiguous tasks. 7. What is self-verification theory? What are the important research findings on self-verification theory? When you want to have a consistent view of self, so you seek validation from external sources for that validation. 8. How do we maintain positive self-evaluation (think: self-evaluation maintenance model)? d. How do people use social comparisons to help maintain high self-esteem? e. What is basking in reflected glory? Under what conditions do we do it? 9. What is the sociometer hypothesis? What does it say about self-esteem? 10. What are some of the cultural differences in self-esteem (e.g. in individualist vs. collectivist cultures, men vs. women)? **Module 3, Chapter 4: Social Cognition** 1. What is pluralistic ignorance? What are some examples of pluralistic ignorance? 2. What are primacy, recency, and framing effects? 3. What is confirmation bias? a. How does confirmation bias impact the way we search for information? b. How does confirmation bias impact how we evaluate someone? 4. What is a self-fulfilling prophecy? 5. What is positive/negative framing? What is temporal framing? 6. What are schemas? c. How do schemas impact memory? d. How can schemas impact behavior? (Think about priming!) 7. What are heuristics? e. What is the availability heuristic? What is the role of *ease of retrieval*? f. What is the representativeness heuristic? How does base rate information play a role? **Module 4, Chapter 5: Social Attribution** 1. What is the covariation principle? a. What are consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency? (Can you identify each piece of info?) b. What leads you to form an internal (dispositional) attribution? c. What leads you to form an external (situational) attribution? 2. What is the augmentation principle? 3. What is the discounting principle? 4. What is counterfactual thinking? 5. What is the self-serving bias? How do we attribute our successes and failures differently? 6. What is the fundamental attribution error? What are the reasons why it happens? 7. What is Dan Gilbert's dual-process model? What is the first stage and correction/adjustment stage? 8. What is the actor-observer difference? What does it say about the fundamental attribution error? 9. What does research evidence suggest about cross-cultural differences in fundamental attribution error? **Module 5, Chapter 6: Emotion** 1. What purposes do emotions serve? 2. What are the six universal emotions? What does it mean that they are *universal*? 3. What are the cultural differences in the expression of emotions? Give examples. 4. Which emotion is connected to high-power individuals? 5. What are the 5 dimensions of moral foundations theory? How do they relate to political ideology? 6. What is affective forecasting? Are people good or bad at it? Why or why not? 7. What makes people happy? 8. How do the peak, end, and duration of an experience influence our memories of emotional events? 9. What is the concept of display rules? **\ Module 6, Chapter 7: Attitudes, Behavior, and Rationalization** 1. What is the role of introspection when it comes to predicting behavior from attitudes? 2. What is cognitive dissonance theory? 3. What is post-decision dissonance? 4. When should researchers utilize implicit measures? 5. What factors influence the amount of cognitive dissonance we experience? Or, said another way, under what conditions does attitude-behavior inconsistency cause dissonance? 6. What are the effects of small or large payments on dissonance after doing something against our attitudes? 7. What is self-perception theory? 8. When is cognitive dissonance theory in action? When is self-perception theory in action? 9. In the Aronson & Carlson experiment, when did children experience the most dissonance? **Module 7, Chapter 8: Persuasion** 1. What are the two routes to persuasion according to the Elaboration-Likelihood Model (ELM)? 2. What role do attention, motivation, and ability play in persuasion? 3. What is the sleeper effect? 4. What is the role of attractiveness, certainty, and credibility in persuasion? 5. Under what conditions is fear an effective method of persuasion? Under what conditions is it not effective? 6. How might the characteristics of the audience affect the persuasive message? Age? Mood? Need for cognition? 7. What is the self-validation hypothesis? 8. How can one protect their attitudes against persuasion attempts? 9. How effective is the media in persuading us? 10. What is attitude inoculation? **[Some Important Studies]** 1. Darley & Batson (1973): The "Good Samaritan" Study 2. Heine (2001): Canadian and Japanese responses to the creativity task 3. McGuire & Padawer-Singer (1978): Children's self-definition (Chapter 3) 4. Tesser & Smith (1980): Helping Friends Succeed (Chapter 3) 5. McNeil et al. (1982): Doctors Recommend Surgery (Chapter 4) 6. Schwarz et al. (1991): Availability Heuristic & Ease of Retrieval (Chapter 4) 7. Todorov et al. (2008): Understanding evaluation of faces on social dimensions (Chapter 4) 8. Cohen (1981): Effects of Schemas on Memory (The Librarian/Waitress Study) (Chapter 4) 9. Jones & Harris (1967): The "Pro-Castro/Anti-Castro" Study & Fundamental Attribution Error (Chapter 5) 10. Gilbert (1989): Cognitive Load & Fundamental Attribution Error (Woman's Dispositional Anxiety) (Chapter 5) 11. Tracy & Matsumoto (2008): Blind & Sighted Judo Athletes & Emotions (Chapter 6) 12. Knox & Inkster (1968): Horse Bettors & Cognitive Dissonance (Chapter 7) 13. Wilson et al. (1984): Relationship Introspection (Chapter 7) 14. Aronson & Carlsmith: The "Forbidden Toy" Study (Chapter 7) 15. Zanna & Cooper (1974): Self-perception vs. Cognitive dissonance theory (Chapter 7) 16. Petty et al. (1981): Testing the ELM (Chapter 8) 17. McGuire & Papageorgis (1961): Attitude inoculation (Chapter 8) **Guide to the Readings** **Note:** The exam may cover material from any or all of the readings. Pay special attention to the following: 1. van't Veer & Gineer-Sorolla (2016): Pre-registration in social psychology -- A discussion and suggested template 2. Markus, H. (1977). Self-schemata and processing information about the self 3. Medvec et al (1995): When Less is More: Counterfactual Thinking and Satisfaction Among Olympic Medalists 4. Ross & Sicoly (1979): Egocentric Biases in Availability and Attribution 5. Fischer et al. (2004): Gender and Culture Differences in Emotion 6. Harmon Jones & Harmon Jones (2007): Cognitive Dissonance Theory After 50 Years of Development