Social Psychology Exam Practice Quiz

Conformity involves adjusting one's behavior to match the norms of a group.

The bystander effect posits that individuals are less likely to intervene in emergencies when others are present, assuming someone else will take action.

Cognitive dissonance is the psychological discomfort resulting from holding contradictory beliefs or attitudes, leading individuals to seek consistency.

The central route to persuasion involves influencing attitudes through the substance and rationality of the message.

Social facilitation is the phenomenon where individuals tend to enhance their performance on simple tasks when in the presence of others.

Social exchange theory posits that individuals seek to maximize rewards and minimize costs in their social relationships.

Prejudice involves holding biased beliefs, while discrimination entails taking discriminatory actions based on those beliefs.

Implicit prejudice is unconscious bias, whereas explicit prejudice is consciously held biased beliefs.

The contact hypothesis suggests that positive interactions between different groups can reduce prejudice and improve intergroup relations.

The mere exposure effect is the tendency to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar.

Attribution theory posits that individuals attribute behavior to either internal characteristics or external circumstances.

The self-serving bias involves attributing personal success to internal factors and blaming external factors for failures.

Compliance is the act of responding to a request, while obedience involves following orders from an authority figure.

Albert Bandura's social learning theory states that individuals learn through observing, imitating, and being reinforced for certain behaviors.

The self-concept encompasses an individual's beliefs and knowledge about oneself, forming the basis of self-perception.

Group polarization refers to the tendency for group discussions to intensify the initial opinions or attitudes of group members.

Milgram's shock experiment demonstrated the tendency of individuals to obey authority figures, even when it involves harming others.

The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to attribute others' behavior to internal characteristics, neglecting situational factors.

The Robbers Cave experiment investigated group dynamics and intergroup relations, highlighting the impact of competition on group behavior.

Social identity theory suggests that people favor their ingroup due to the social categorization of oneself into a specific group.

Realistic conflict theory proposes that prejudice arises from competition for scarce resources among different groups.

Stereotype threat is the fear of confirming negative stereotypes about one's group, leading to decreased performance.

The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) suggests that the effectiveness of persuasive messages depends on the quality of arguments presented.

The theory of planned behavior asserts that behavior is influenced by attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control.