Which concept refers to an organized mental framework that helps a person interpret information about people, roles, groups, or situations?
Social Psychology Online Quiz Questions
Use this free practice quiz with 20 questions to review Social Psychology, test your knowledge, and prepare for your next test or exam.
True or false: Social behavior is usually best explained by an interaction between personal characteristics and situational forces.
- A
True
- B
False
What attribution bias is illustrated when someone explains another person's lateness as irresponsibility but overlooks traffic or a family emergency?
An attitude commonly includes affective, behavioral, and components.
A person who is motivated to understand an issue carefully compares evidence, evaluates the reasoning, and then changes their attitude. Which route to persuasion best describes this process?
- A
Peripheral route to persuasion: choosing a product because a famous person endorses it
- B
Peripheral route to persuasion: agreeing because the speaker is physically attractive
- C
Normative social influence: accepting a claim because most people in the room support it
- D
Central route to persuasion
Which three features are warning signs that a cohesive group may be experiencing groupthink? Select all that apply.
- A
Members keep doubts to themselves
- B
Members pressure one another not to dissent
- C
The group invites outside opinions before deciding
- D
Members assume that everyone agrees
- E
The group uses anonymous voting to reduce pressure
True or false: Deindividuation automatically produces harmful behavior whenever people feel anonymous in a group.
- A
True
- B
False
What is the surname of the theorist associated with the triangular theory of love, which includes intimacy, passion, and commitment?
When several people witness an emergency and each assumes that someone else will help, the resulting mechanism is called .
Which four conditions make intergroup contact especially likely to reduce prejudice? Select all that apply.
- A
The groups have relatively equal status
- B
The groups cooperate toward shared goals
- C
The groups compete for a scarce reward
- D
Members of the groups interact personally
- E
Institutions support the contact
A pianist performs a familiar piece more accurately before an audience but struggles while attempting a new, technically difficult piece. Which concept best explains this pattern?
- A
An audience always improves performance, regardless of the task
- B
Social facilitation
- C
An audience always impairs performance because it creates distraction
- D
An audience has no effect unless group members work together
Explain how stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination differ. Identify the primary type of response involved in each and explain why one can occur without the others.
A student is especially likely to form a friendship with a classmate who shares similar values, interests, and lifestyle. Which relationship-formation tendency best explains this pattern?
- A
Reciprocity
- B
Proximity
- C
Homophily
- D
Self-disclosure
A person strongly values environmental protection but frequently drives short distances alone. To feel less uncomfortable about this inconsistency, the person tells themselves that individual driving has almost no effect on the environment. Which concept best explains this response?
- A
The person is experiencing normative social influence from a group.
- B
The person is experiencing cognitive dissonance and may justify the behavior.
- C
The person is showing social loafing because the work is difficult.
- D
The person is making a situational attribution for another person’s behavior.
Several people notice that a cyclist has fallen and appears injured. Each witness looks around, assumes that another witness will call for help, and no one immediately acts. Which process best explains the delay?
- A
The audience increases arousal and improves performance on a well-learned task.
- B
The group discussion strengthens everyone’s initial attitude.
- C
Each witness assumes another person will take responsibility for helping.
- D
The person obeys an order from an authority figure.
A student arrives late to class. After learning that a major traffic accident blocked the usual route, a classmate explains the lateness by referring to the traffic rather than to the student’s character. What kind of attribution is this?
- A
A dispositional attribution because lateness reveals the student’s personality.
- B
A situational attribution because traffic is an external circumstance.
- C
The fundamental attribution error because the student considered the traffic.
- D
A self-serving bias because the student succeeded at a task.
Deindividuation automatically causes people to behave harmfully whenever they are part of a large, anonymous group.
- A
True
- B
False
A person consistently gives more favorable evaluations to members of their own club than to equally qualified members of another club. What social-psychology term describes this tendency?
A public-health campaign presents carefully evaluated evidence, explains the reasoning behind its recommendation, and addresses likely objections. The audience is motivated to examine the issue closely. Which route to persuasion is the campaign primarily using?
- A
Central route to persuasion
- B
Peripheral route to persuasion
- C
Normative social influence
- D
Self-serving bias
A person evaluates whether to maintain a friendship by considering its emotional support, recurring conflict, time demands, perceived fairness, and available alternatives. What social-psychology theory describes this approach?