Attribuition Theory
A high school student reads a news article about a family who lost their home due to a natural disaster. He thinks that the family should have chosen a different location to live or purchased better insurance, despite evidence that the disaster was unprecedented and insurance had denied coverage. The student realizes that these commenters' demonstrates:
The Just-World Phenomena
A high school student who typically wears casual clothes notices that when students participate in "Professional Dress Day" for class presentations, nearly everyone wears formal attire. EThe student decides to wear formal clothes too, primarily because they don't want to stand out or feel left out by dressing differently from their peers. The student's change in behavior best illustrates what type of social influence?
Normative Social Influence
A student noticed an interesting pattern in their AP test performance throughout the year. When they felt completely relaxed before an exam, they performed below their usual standard. When they felt moderately alert and energized, they achieved their highest scores. However, when they experienced intense anxiety before a test, their performance declined significantly. This pattern of test performance most clearly illustrates which Law?
The Yerkes-Dodson Law
A project manager reviews performance evaluations for their team members. One employee consistently arrives 15 minutes early to all meetings with detailed notes prepared, maintains organized digital files with clear naming conventions, and creates comprehensive to-do lists that they systematically complete ahead of deadlines. Which personality trait from the Five-Factor Model best explains this employee's behavioral patterns?
Openness to experience
A supervisor observes their employee arriving late to an important meeting. The supervisor concludes that the employee is an irresponsible person who doesn't take their job seriously. Later that week, the supervisor arrives late due to oversleeping, but they explain to others that their alarm clock malfunctioned. Which psychological concept best explains the supervisor's thinking pattern?
Actor-observer bias
A researcher studied groupthink in corporate decision-making by randomly selecting 50 companies from a comprehensive list of Fortune 500 companies. She analyzed board meeting transcripts from these companies to identify instances of groupthink in major business decisions. Which outcome is possible because researchers utilized the random selection process?
The findings can be generalized to represent decision-making patterns in large American corporations
A student has put off completing their AP Psychology project until the night before it's due. They must now choose between pulling an all-nighter to complete the project, which will leave them exhausted for their important basketball game tomorrow, or going to sleep and receiving a zero on the assignment, which will significantly lower their grade. This student's dilemma best illustrates what type of conflict?
Avoidance-avoidance conflict
A high school student is berated by their basketball coach during practice for missing several crucial shots. Upon returning home, when their younger sibling asks to borrow a pencil, the student erupts in anger, yelling about how no one respects their personal belongings. Which defense mechanism best explains the student's behavior?
Displacement
A college student promotes environmental conservation on social media. They later get a job offer with an oil company promoting fossil fuel development. They accept the job offer. To justify this decision, the student begins posting articles about how oil companies are investing in renewable energy Which psychological phenomenon best explains the student's change in attitudes?
Cognitive dissonance
A researcher conducted a study comparing the effectiveness of two different advertising approaches for a new product. One advertisement featured a popular celebrity endorsement, while the other presented detailed factual information about the product. Subjects who heard the factual arguments agreed with the message less at first, but their agreement remained steady after one month. Which conclusion about the peripheral route to persuasion is best supported by the data?
It produces strong initial agreement that decreases substantially over time.
A researcher conducts a study where participants are divided into two groups. The first group is asked to hold a pen horizontally between their teeth, forcing their facial muscles into a smile-like position, while rating comic strips. The second group holds the pen between their lips, creating a frown-like expression. When reviewing a personal event from their past week, participants in the first group consistently rated their memories as more pleasant compared to the second group, despite random assignment ensuring similar life experiences between groups. The researcher then asks participants to maintain these facial positions while receiving neutral feedback about their academic performance. Those holding the pen between their teeth reported feeling more optimistic about their academic future. Which psychological theory best accounts for these findings?
Facial-feedback hypothesis
A college student who previously prided himself on academic excellence receives a low grade on an important exam. He tells himself and his friends "Grades don't really matter anyway - what's really important is the practical experience you get from internships." Which defense mechanism best explains the student's change in attitude?
Rationalization
During a job interview, a hiring manager is immediately impressed by a candidate's confident speaking style and well-groomed appearance. Based on these positive traits, the manager assumes without evidence that the candidate must also be highly organized, intelligent, and hardworking. Which psychological concept best explains the manager's judgment process?
The Halo Effect
A volunteer coordinator at a local animal shelter first asks community members to follow their social media page for weekly updates. Later, these same individuals are asked to spend two hours per week photographing shelter animals for social media content. Most of these individuals agree. Which psychological principle best explains the effectiveness of the coordinator's recruitment strategy?
Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
In a study of emergency helping behavior, researchers staged incidents requiring assistance across different conditions. The graph shows the percentage of people who offered help based on the number of other bystanders present during the emergency. Which psychological concept best explains the pattern shown in the data (Hint: it's NOT the bystander effect!)?
Diffusion of responsibility reduces individual intervention as group size increases
Members of a local school board meet to discuss a controversial proposal to extend school hours. During their two-hour discussion, those who initially supported longer hours became increasingly passionate advocates, while those with minor reservations became strongly opposed. Which social psychology concept best explains this group dynamic?
Group polarization
A researcher wanted to study social loafing in group projects. She observed 60 college students working on semester-long group assignments in their psychology classes. Half of the students were in classes where individual contributions were clearly tracked and graded separately, while the other half were in classes where only group grades were given. Why did the researcher choose naturalistic observation over an experimental design?
The participants could not be randomly assigned to conditions as they were already enrolled in specific classes.
A college student skips breakfast before an early morning class. As the morning progresses, they find it increasingly difficult to focus on the lecture, frequently checking the time and fidgeting in their seat. After eating, they return to afternoon classes with renewed focus and their typical studying efficiency returns. Which theory best explains the relationship between the student's behaviors and their physiological state?
Drive-reduction theory