SparkNotes: Social Psychology: Sample Quiz Questions

1. When is a person less likely to conform?

(A) When the group is unanimous

(B) When the person feels incompetent

(C) When the group cannot see how the person behaves

(D) When the person admires the group

2. People are likely to invest less effort in a task when they are working with others. What is this phenomenon called?

(A) Social facilitation

(B) Social loafing

(C) Deindividuation

(D) The bystander effect

3. What is group polarization?

(A) The tendency for a dominant point of view in a group to be strengthened to a more extreme position after a group discussion

(B) The strength of the liking and commitment group members have toward each other and to a group

(C) The tendency of a close-knit group to emphasize consensus at the expense of critical thinking and rational decision making

(D) A situation in which one harms oneself and others by acting in one’s self-interest

4. Research shows that romantic attraction is determined primarily by which characteristic?

(A) Partners’ personality

(B) Partners’ commitment

(C) Partners’ intimacy

(D) Partners’ physical attractiveness

5. Attraction is influenced by which of the following?

(A) Whether people live or work in the same neighborhood

(B) How similar people are to each other

(C) Whether liking is reciprocated

(D) All of the above

6. When are people more likely to be persuaded by a message?

(A) If they are forewarned about the message

(B) If they like the person sending the message

(C) If they think the person sending the message has a vested interest in the point of view expressed in the message

(D) All of the above

7. Suppose Suzie persuades her roommate to make her a cup of tea, then gets her roommate to cook for a week. What is this strategy called?

(A) The lowball technique

(B) Social facilitation

(C) The foot-in-the-door technique

(D) Social loafing

8. If people work hard to reach a goal, they are likely to justify their hard work by valuing the goal highly. What is this tendency called?

(A) Justification of effort

(B) Cognitive dissonance

(C) Risky shift

(D) Diffusion of responsibility

9. Justin sees his psychology professor arguing angrily with a worker at the local post office. From this, he assumes that his professor is a hostile person. What does his assumption illustrate?

(A) The just world hypothesis

(B) The fundamental attribution error

(C) The matching hypothesis

(D) The bystander effect

10. Which of the following statements is true?

(A) Baby-faced people tend to be relatively passive

(B) Physically attractive people tend to have more pleasing personalities

(C) Physically attractive people tend to have better career prospects

(D) People tend to judge physically attractive people as being lazy