PSY 240 COMPREHENSIVE EXAM 2026/2027 QUESTIONS
AND SOLUTIONS RATED A+
✔✔Naïve realism - ✔✔The conviction that we perceive things "as they really are,"
underestimating how much we are interpreting or "spinning" what we see
✔✔Two Central Motives for Construals - ✔✔Motives for construals
• The need to feel good about ourselves
• The need to be accurate
These may tug us in opposite directions - Leon Festinger
✔✔Self-esteem - ✔✔People's evaluations of their own self-worth
• The extent to which they view themselves as good, competent, and decent
• Most people have a strong need to maintain reasonably high self-esteem
• People will often distort the world in order to feel good about themselves instead of
representing the world accurately
✔✔Paradoxical effects - ✔✔People maintain a positive picture of themselves by
justifying their past behavior
✔✔Social cognition - ✔✔• How people think about themselves and the social world
• How people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make
judgments and decisions
****we try to be as accurate as possible, but we typically act on info that's on the basis
of incompletely and inaccurately
interpreted information
✔✔The Role of Culture - ✔✔WEIRD: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich,
Democratic
• Understanding behavior both across cultures and within cultures is a focus for
contemporary social psychologists 17
✔✔Hindsight Bias - ✔✔tendency for a person to exaggerate, after knowing that
something occurred, how much they could have predicted it before it occurred
✔✔When formulating hypotheses and theories... - ✔✔• Previous theories and research
• Personal observation backed by
,theory
✔✔The Observational Method - ✔✔• A researcher observes people and systematically
records measurements or impressions of their behavior.
• Answers the question, "What is the nature of the phenomenon?"
• Festinger and colleagues "went inside" for their study of a UFO cult (ethnography)
✔✔Ethnography - ✔✔Researchers attempt to understand a group or culture by
observing it from the inside, without imposing any preconceived notions
✔✔Archival analysis - ✔✔Researchers examine accumulated documents (archives) of a
culture
✔✔Limits of the Observational Method - ✔✔• Certain behaviors difficult to observe
May occur only rarely
May occur only in private
• Limited to describing events
Does not allow prediction or explanation
✔✔The Correlational Method - ✔✔• Two or more variables are systematically
measured.
• The relationship between them—how much one can be predicted from the other—is
assessed.
• Answers the question, "From knowing X, can we predict Y?"
****"Correlation Doesn't Equal Causation!"
✔✔The Correlation Coefficient - ✔✔A statistic that assesses how well you can predict
one variable from another
Ranges from -1 to +1
If +1, perfectly correlated in a positive direction
If 0, not correlated
If -1, perfectly correlated in a negative direction
, ✔✔Positive Correlation - ✔✔Increases in the value of one variable are associated with
increases in the value of the other variable.
Example - positive correlation between height and weight
✔✔Negative Correlation - ✔✔Increases in the value of one variable are associated with
decreases in the value of the other.
Example - negative correlation between vaccination rate and disease rate (More
vaccinations, less disease)
✔✔Surveys - ✔✔• Ask a representative sample of people about attitudes or behaviors
• Use a random selection to recruit
***Nonrepresentative Sample = Misleading Results
Advantages:
• Can investigate variables that are difficult to observe
• Can sample representative segments of the population
Disadvantages:
• Sampling errors
• People less likely to answer calls from pollsters
• Inaccuracy of responses
• When asking people to predict or explain their behaviors
✔✔The Experimental Method - ✔✔• Researchers randomly assign participants to
different conditions.
• Conditions are identical except for the independent variable.
• Answers the question, "Is variable X a cause of variable Y?"
✔✔Independent Variable - ✔✔The variable a researcher changes or variesto see if it
has an effect on some othervariable
✔✔Dependent Variable - ✔✔The variable a researcher measures to see if it is
influenced by the independent variable
AND SOLUTIONS RATED A+
✔✔Naïve realism - ✔✔The conviction that we perceive things "as they really are,"
underestimating how much we are interpreting or "spinning" what we see
✔✔Two Central Motives for Construals - ✔✔Motives for construals
• The need to feel good about ourselves
• The need to be accurate
These may tug us in opposite directions - Leon Festinger
✔✔Self-esteem - ✔✔People's evaluations of their own self-worth
• The extent to which they view themselves as good, competent, and decent
• Most people have a strong need to maintain reasonably high self-esteem
• People will often distort the world in order to feel good about themselves instead of
representing the world accurately
✔✔Paradoxical effects - ✔✔People maintain a positive picture of themselves by
justifying their past behavior
✔✔Social cognition - ✔✔• How people think about themselves and the social world
• How people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make
judgments and decisions
****we try to be as accurate as possible, but we typically act on info that's on the basis
of incompletely and inaccurately
interpreted information
✔✔The Role of Culture - ✔✔WEIRD: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich,
Democratic
• Understanding behavior both across cultures and within cultures is a focus for
contemporary social psychologists 17
✔✔Hindsight Bias - ✔✔tendency for a person to exaggerate, after knowing that
something occurred, how much they could have predicted it before it occurred
✔✔When formulating hypotheses and theories... - ✔✔• Previous theories and research
• Personal observation backed by
,theory
✔✔The Observational Method - ✔✔• A researcher observes people and systematically
records measurements or impressions of their behavior.
• Answers the question, "What is the nature of the phenomenon?"
• Festinger and colleagues "went inside" for their study of a UFO cult (ethnography)
✔✔Ethnography - ✔✔Researchers attempt to understand a group or culture by
observing it from the inside, without imposing any preconceived notions
✔✔Archival analysis - ✔✔Researchers examine accumulated documents (archives) of a
culture
✔✔Limits of the Observational Method - ✔✔• Certain behaviors difficult to observe
May occur only rarely
May occur only in private
• Limited to describing events
Does not allow prediction or explanation
✔✔The Correlational Method - ✔✔• Two or more variables are systematically
measured.
• The relationship between them—how much one can be predicted from the other—is
assessed.
• Answers the question, "From knowing X, can we predict Y?"
****"Correlation Doesn't Equal Causation!"
✔✔The Correlation Coefficient - ✔✔A statistic that assesses how well you can predict
one variable from another
Ranges from -1 to +1
If +1, perfectly correlated in a positive direction
If 0, not correlated
If -1, perfectly correlated in a negative direction
, ✔✔Positive Correlation - ✔✔Increases in the value of one variable are associated with
increases in the value of the other variable.
Example - positive correlation between height and weight
✔✔Negative Correlation - ✔✔Increases in the value of one variable are associated with
decreases in the value of the other.
Example - negative correlation between vaccination rate and disease rate (More
vaccinations, less disease)
✔✔Surveys - ✔✔• Ask a representative sample of people about attitudes or behaviors
• Use a random selection to recruit
***Nonrepresentative Sample = Misleading Results
Advantages:
• Can investigate variables that are difficult to observe
• Can sample representative segments of the population
Disadvantages:
• Sampling errors
• People less likely to answer calls from pollsters
• Inaccuracy of responses
• When asking people to predict or explain their behaviors
✔✔The Experimental Method - ✔✔• Researchers randomly assign participants to
different conditions.
• Conditions are identical except for the independent variable.
• Answers the question, "Is variable X a cause of variable Y?"
✔✔Independent Variable - ✔✔The variable a researcher changes or variesto see if it
has an effect on some othervariable
✔✔Dependent Variable - ✔✔The variable a researcher measures to see if it is
influenced by the independent variable
