SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY MOCK QUESTIONS
AND THEIR CORRECT ANSWERS
An experiment that gets the subject involved and
interested but that does not represent events that
occur in the real world is:
high in experimental realism and low in mundane realism
Debriefing a subject at the end of an experiment:
is a valuable way of undoing some of the discomfort and
deception that may have occurred during the experiment.
A study on dating relationships found that the number
of text messages sent between dating partners
increased with the number of miles they lived apart.
This finding is a:
positive correlation.
Participants in experiments may gain some unique
insight about themselves that they never knew before
as a result of their being in a social psychology study.
Aronson argues that it would be _________ for social
psychologists to justify their research because of
such insight.
arrogant and unethical
Which of the following words pairs corresponds most
likely t0 "cause-effect"?
independent variable and dependent variable.
If subjects know the true purpose of an experiment
while participating in it, the most serious risk is if
they:
,act in ways they believe will make them look good or
"normal".
Many subjects in a study done by Robyn Dawes,
Jeanne McTavish, and Harriet Shaklee experienced
considerable discomfort after their participation in a
study of how people respond to "social dilemmas."
This study was included in The Social Animal to
illustrate:
that no code of ethics can anticipate all problems, even
when an experiment is carefully planned and conducted.
In conducting an experiment, the researcher's goal is
to:
determine whether manipulations of the independent
variable cause systematic differences in the subjects'
behavior
Jane is a subject in Milgram's study of obedience. As
she delivers increasingly severe shocks to the
"learner", she feels a great deal of anxiety, engages in
nervous laughter, and breaks out into a sweat. Caught
in the grip of conflicting emotions, she would like to
stop but feels like she must continue to obey the
orders of the experimenter. She has never
encountered a situation like this before. Cased on the
description, what can we conclude about the Milgram
experiment?
It was high in experimental realism.
According to the text, ethical dilemmas faced by
experimental social psychologists stem from two
conflicting values to which most researchers
subscribe. These values are reflected in the belief
_____, versus the belied ______.
,that free scientific inquiry is important; that the dignity of
humans and their right to privacy should be represented.
According to Aronson, the most important condition
which must be met before any experiment can lead to
definite cause-and-effect conclusions is:
random assignment of subjects to groups.
The dependent variable in an experiment is used to
measure:
the effects of the independent variable.
In the context of an experiment, "random assignment"
means that:
each subject has an equal chance to be in any condition in
the study.
The reason experimenters randomly assign
participants to different conditions in an experiment is
to:
try to distribute unique characteristics of the participants
equally between conditions.
A study on increased attraction following arousing
events compared the degree of liking people between
people in a sky diving club after a jump versus
members of a chess club in New York's Central Park
after a match. This study would have _____ and _____.
high mundane realism: high experimental realism.
The factor systematically varied by the experimenter
is usually termed:
the independent variable
In Asch's study of conformity, which involved a
comparison of the lengths of different lines, subjects
were told that the experiment was about perceptual
judgement. Telling subjects this:
, was part of the experimenter's cover story.
Which of the following in not an ethical guideline
proposed by Aronson in conducting an experiment?
Deception, in general, can be justified in all experiments,
provided that they subjects are adequately debriefed at
the end.
Suppose you constructed an experiment to better
understand the effect of the content of a speech on
how persuaded people were by it. In this experiment,
the independent variable would be:
the content of the speech.
Generally, the relationship between control and
impact is such that:
as impact increases, control decreases.
Psychiatric interviews of subjects in Milgram's
obedience study (in which subjects believed they
were delivering intense electric shocks to another
person) conducted one year following the study,
revealed:
that many subjects believed their participation in the study
had been both instructive and enriching.
Suppose you volunteered to be a subject in a
psychology experiment in which you were locking into
a sound-proof booth and were told that your brain
waves were being measured. Furthermore, you truly
believed that your brain wave pattern was being used
to predict your basic personality traits. According to
Aronson, this experiment would have _____ mundane
realism and _____ experimental realism.
low; high
AND THEIR CORRECT ANSWERS
An experiment that gets the subject involved and
interested but that does not represent events that
occur in the real world is:
high in experimental realism and low in mundane realism
Debriefing a subject at the end of an experiment:
is a valuable way of undoing some of the discomfort and
deception that may have occurred during the experiment.
A study on dating relationships found that the number
of text messages sent between dating partners
increased with the number of miles they lived apart.
This finding is a:
positive correlation.
Participants in experiments may gain some unique
insight about themselves that they never knew before
as a result of their being in a social psychology study.
Aronson argues that it would be _________ for social
psychologists to justify their research because of
such insight.
arrogant and unethical
Which of the following words pairs corresponds most
likely t0 "cause-effect"?
independent variable and dependent variable.
If subjects know the true purpose of an experiment
while participating in it, the most serious risk is if
they:
,act in ways they believe will make them look good or
"normal".
Many subjects in a study done by Robyn Dawes,
Jeanne McTavish, and Harriet Shaklee experienced
considerable discomfort after their participation in a
study of how people respond to "social dilemmas."
This study was included in The Social Animal to
illustrate:
that no code of ethics can anticipate all problems, even
when an experiment is carefully planned and conducted.
In conducting an experiment, the researcher's goal is
to:
determine whether manipulations of the independent
variable cause systematic differences in the subjects'
behavior
Jane is a subject in Milgram's study of obedience. As
she delivers increasingly severe shocks to the
"learner", she feels a great deal of anxiety, engages in
nervous laughter, and breaks out into a sweat. Caught
in the grip of conflicting emotions, she would like to
stop but feels like she must continue to obey the
orders of the experimenter. She has never
encountered a situation like this before. Cased on the
description, what can we conclude about the Milgram
experiment?
It was high in experimental realism.
According to the text, ethical dilemmas faced by
experimental social psychologists stem from two
conflicting values to which most researchers
subscribe. These values are reflected in the belief
_____, versus the belied ______.
,that free scientific inquiry is important; that the dignity of
humans and their right to privacy should be represented.
According to Aronson, the most important condition
which must be met before any experiment can lead to
definite cause-and-effect conclusions is:
random assignment of subjects to groups.
The dependent variable in an experiment is used to
measure:
the effects of the independent variable.
In the context of an experiment, "random assignment"
means that:
each subject has an equal chance to be in any condition in
the study.
The reason experimenters randomly assign
participants to different conditions in an experiment is
to:
try to distribute unique characteristics of the participants
equally between conditions.
A study on increased attraction following arousing
events compared the degree of liking people between
people in a sky diving club after a jump versus
members of a chess club in New York's Central Park
after a match. This study would have _____ and _____.
high mundane realism: high experimental realism.
The factor systematically varied by the experimenter
is usually termed:
the independent variable
In Asch's study of conformity, which involved a
comparison of the lengths of different lines, subjects
were told that the experiment was about perceptual
judgement. Telling subjects this:
, was part of the experimenter's cover story.
Which of the following in not an ethical guideline
proposed by Aronson in conducting an experiment?
Deception, in general, can be justified in all experiments,
provided that they subjects are adequately debriefed at
the end.
Suppose you constructed an experiment to better
understand the effect of the content of a speech on
how persuaded people were by it. In this experiment,
the independent variable would be:
the content of the speech.
Generally, the relationship between control and
impact is such that:
as impact increases, control decreases.
Psychiatric interviews of subjects in Milgram's
obedience study (in which subjects believed they
were delivering intense electric shocks to another
person) conducted one year following the study,
revealed:
that many subjects believed their participation in the study
had been both instructive and enriching.
Suppose you volunteered to be a subject in a
psychology experiment in which you were locking into
a sound-proof booth and were told that your brain
waves were being measured. Furthermore, you truly
believed that your brain wave pattern was being used
to predict your basic personality traits. According to
Aronson, this experiment would have _____ mundane
realism and _____ experimental realism.
low; high
