University of California, Berkeley

Department of Psychology

 Psychology 1

Summer 2014

 Midterm Examination 2

 

Scoring Key and Item Analysis In the scoring key that follows, correct answers are marked with a double asterisk (**). Two items were rescored. Item #22 was a eprfectly good item, but it drew in information presented in Lecture 25, and I inadvertently omitted any material from that lecture on the Narrative Review.  The statistical analysis of this exam revealed just one (1) bad item, as defined in the Exam Information page: #49.  It was the only item with a relatively low pass percent and a low item-to-total correlation.  This item was rescored correct for all responses. Before rescoring, the mean score on the exam was 32.27 (65%), SD = 8.09.  This is within the usual range for my exams, which is 65-70% correct (again, see the Exam Information page).  The reliability of the exam was .88, which is excellent by psychometric standards. After rescoring the mean score rose to 32.62, SD = 7.90.  Most students saw their scores increase by 1 point.  The figure at the left shows the distribution of scores. In this feedback, I provide the percentage of the class that got each item correct and the item-to-total correlation (rpb) for each item, as well as commentary on why the right answer is right, and the others wrong.

Choose the best answer to each of the following 50 questions.  Questions are drawn from the text and lectures in roughly equal proportions, with the understanding that there is considerable overlap between the two sources.  Usually, only one question is drawn from each major section of each chapter of the required readings; again, sometimes this question also draws on material discussed in class.  Read the entire exam through before answering any questions: sometimes one question will help you answer another one.   

 

Most questions can be correctly answered in one of two ways: (1) by fact-retrieval, meaning that you remember the answer from your reading of the text or listening to the lecture; or (2) inference, meaning that you can infer the answer from some general principle discussed in the text or lecture.  If you cannot determine the correct answer by either of these methods, try to eliminate at least one option as clearly wrong: this maximizes the likelihood that you will get the correct answer by chance.  Also, go with your intuitions: if you have actually done the assigned readings and attended the lectures, your "informed guesses" will likely be right more often than they are wrong.   

 

A provisional answer key will be posted to the course website tomorrow, after the window for the exam has closed. The exam will be provisionally scored to identify and eliminate bad items. The exam will then be rescored with bad items keyed correct for all responses.  Grades on the rescored exam will be posted to the course website.  A final, revised, answer key, and analyses of the exam items, will be posted on the course website after grades are posted.   

1.  In the usual type of suspect lineup that the police use, a risk is that the witness picks the “best available” suspect, who may not be guilty. That risk arises because the suspect lineup uses which type of memory test?

A.     cued recall

B.     recognition **

C.     savings

D.     Implicit

78% of the class got this item correct; item-to-total r_pb = .29.  In the method of free recall, the subject is simply asked to recall the items that were studied -- perhaps all the words together, or one list at a time. No further information is given, and no constraints are imposed on the manner of recall. In the method of serial recall, the subject must recall the items in the order in which they were originally presented. In the method of cued recall, the subject is offered specific prompts or hints concerning the list items -- for example, the first letter or first syllable of a word; the name of the category to which it belongs; or some closely associated word. These cues are intended to help remind the subject of list items. In the method of recognition, the subject is asked to examine a list consisting of items that actually appeared on the list (targets or "old" items), and others that did not appear (lures, foils, or "new" items). The subject is asked to distinguish between targets and lures, and, often, to rate his or her confidence in this judgment. Notice that all these tests are really variants on cued recall. There's always some cue, even though it may be pretty vague. In serial recall, each item on the list serves as a cue for remembering the one that follows. In recognition, the "cue" is the item itself.  Chapter 7

2.  After something goes terribly wrong in the economy or foreign policy, many people blame the government for not preventing the problem, even though no one foresaw it. This tendency is an example of what?

A. confabulation

B. repression

C. hindsight bias **

D. encoding specificity

95% correct, r_pb = .24.  Hindsight bias is the tendency to mold our recollection of the past to fit how events later turned out. Something happen and we then say, “I knew that was going to happen.” Chapter 5 discussed the fact that children have trouble taking someone else’s point of view, or understanding that someone else might not know everything they know. Hindsight bias is similar: In both cases someone assumes that “other people would know what I know”.   Chapter 7

 

3.  People with prefrontal cortex damage answer questions partly with wild guesses. These guesses, which are mostly out-of-date information, are called __________.

A. mnemonics.

B. consolidations.

C. confabulations. **

D. implicit memories.

86%, .46.  Patients with prefrontal cortex damage answer many questions with confabulations, which are attempts to fill in the gaps in their memory. Most often they answer a question about what’s happening today by describing something from their past. For example, an aged hospitalized woman might insist that she had to home to feed her baby. Confabulations are exactly attempts to hide an inability to answer a question. That is, people who never knew the answer freely admit not knowing. The prefrontal cortex is necessary for working with memory, the strategies we use to reconstruct memories that we cannot immediately recall. People with prefrontal cortex damage have trouble making reasonable inferences.  Chapter 7

 

4.  The capacity of short-term memory can be increased by:

A. employing the pegword method.

B. chunking. .**

C. engaging in dichotic listening.

D. relying on iconic memory.

91%, .32.  Primary memory has a limited capacity: it can contain only about 7 (plus or minus 2) items (though the effective capacity of this store can be increased by "chunking" items together -- the capacity of memory is approximately 7 "chunks", rather than 7 items). Information can be maintained in primary memory indefinitely by means of rehearsal. If it is not rehearsed, the information either decays over time, or (more likely) is displaced by new information. But the capacity of primary memory can be increased by chunking -- by grouping items together in some meaningful way. The "Alphabet Song" from Hair ("The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical") capitalizes on chunking. If you group the information into chunks, and the chunks into "chunks of chunks", you can actually hold quite a bit of information in short-term memory. For example, when area codes were added to telephone numbers, they were assigned according to geographical area, so that people wouldn't have to remember all 3 digits of the area code, thus straining the capacity of short-term memory.  Lecture 17

 

5. The depth-of-processing effect illustrates the importance of

A. maintenance rehearsal.

B. elaborative rehearsal. .**

C. organizational activity

D. inter-item processing.

72%, .41.  The elaboration principle suggests that Memory for an event is a function of the extent to which that event is analyzed and related to pre-existing knowledge at the time of encoding. Elaborative rehearsal, which links new items to pre-existing knowledge stored in memory, and which lays down a lasting trace in long-term memory. This "added value" is critical to creating a long-lasting memory trace.  Lecture 18

 

6.  Forgetting from long-term memory is chiefly a function of:

A. trace decay.

B. the displacement of old traces by new traces.

C. failure to consolidate new traces.

D. inter-item interference. .**

60%, 53.  Most theories of time-dependent forgetting from secondary memory emphasize interference, which is often studied using variants on the paired-associate learning paradigm.  in the standard paired-associate learning experiment, the subject is asked to learn a list of items, designated the A-B list. In studies of interference, the subject is then asked to learn a second list of paired associates. Some of these items are entirely new, and are designated C-D items. Others are composed of an old stimulus term paired with a new response term, and are designated A-D items. After the A-D items of the second list are memorized, the subject may have difficulty remembering the A-B items from the first list. Apparently, memory for the A-D items from the second list interferes with memory for the A-B items from the first list. This phenomenon is known as retroactive inhibition, or RI, because the inhibition of one memory by another acts backward in time. Note, however, that RI could be caused by factors other than interference. Traces of the A-D list could disrupt consolidation of the A-B list, or they displace A-B items from storage.  Lecture 19

 

7.  In the post-event misinformation effect:

A. new information distorts memory for past events. .**

B. semantic associations create an illusory memory

C. memory is best for information that is consistent with pre-existing schemata

D. priming creates implicit memories for past events.

73%, .33.  This phenomenon post-event misinformation effect is misinformation acquired after an event incorporated into the person's memory for the event itself. For example, Elizabeth Loftus of the University of Washington has developed a laboratory model of eyewitness memory in which subject’s views a series of slides, or a short film, depicting an accident or a crime, and later are asked questions about what they saw. The subjects, then, take the role of bystanders or eyewitnesses to the event. In one experiment, the subjects viewed a series of slides depicting an auto-pedestrian accident. In one version of the slideshow, the subjects saw a red Datsun stopped at a "yield" sign. In the other version, they saw the red Datsun stopped at a "stop" sign. Then the car turns the corner and hits a pedestrian in a crosswalk. Later, during the "interrogation", half the subjects in each group responded to a question that assumed the existence of a yield sign, while the other half responded to a similar question that assumed the existence of a stop sign. Did another car pass the red Datsun when it stopped at the yield sign?  Did another car pass the red Datsun when it stopped at the stop sign? For those who saw the yield sign, the first question is appropriate, but the second question is misleading, because it inappropriately suggests that there was a stop sign instead. In legal jargon, such questions are called leading questions, because they assume facts in evidence (a famous example is the question, "When did you stop beating your wife?", which assumes from the outset that such beatings actually occurred).  Lecture 20

 

8. The primacy effect in memory reflects retrieval from:

A. the sensory registers.

B. short-term memory.

C. working memory

D. long-term memory. .**

56%, .25.  If it receives enough rehearsal, information may be transferred to secondary (or long-term) memory, the permanent repository of stored knowledge. The capacity of secondary memory is essentially unlimited. Information is not lost from this structure, either through decay or displacement. The enhanced memorability of items appearing early in the list is called the primacy effect. The enhanced memorability of items appearing late in the list is called the recency effect. The primacy and recency effects are affected by different sorts of variables. Increasing the interval between adjacent items, and thus increasing the amount of rehearsal each item can receive, increases primacy but has no effect on recency. Engaging the subject in a distracting task immediately after presentation of the list, and then increasing the length of the retention interval, reduces recency but has no effect on primacy. Therefore, it may be concluded that the primacy effect reflects retrieval from secondary memory, while the recency effect reflects retrieval from primary memory.  Lecture 17.

 

9.  In drug-state-dependent learning, one exception to the principle of encoding specificity is:

A. memories encoded under the influence of psychoactive drugs are always more accessible than those encoded in the normal state.

B. psychoactive drugs impair encoding processes. **

C. drugs make all memories less accessible.

D. drugs improve availability, but not accessibility.

53%, .36.  Encoding specificity explains one of the most fascinating phenomena of memory: state-dependency, or the fact that memory is best when subjects' physiological states at the time of retrieval match their physiological states at the time of encoding. State-dependency was first observed in animals, but it can also be observed in humans in verbal-learning experiments employing a "Noah's Ark", or "two-by-two", design. In the first phase, a word list is studied while one group of subjects is under the influence of some psychoactive drug, such as a barbiturate sedative. Then each of these groups is divided in half, and each of these subgroups is tested either under the influence of the same drug or not. All psychoactive drugs alter the physiology of the nervous system -- and, in fact, with certain exceptions, they impair cognitive functions such as encoding and retrieval. For that reason, memory is best if there are no drugs involved at all. Overall, however, memory is best when encoding and retrieval take place in the same physiological state. This is the phenomenon of "state-dependent" memory.  Lecture 19

 

10.  What type of attention difficulty is most common for people with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder)?

A. inability to pay attention to anything for very long

B. inability to shift attention quickly and appropriately **

C. failure to show bottom-up control of attention

D. failure to attend to other people

28%, .36.  A lot of people went for A, which maybe makes intuitive sense, but when we use lab tests of attention to assess people with ADHD, it turns out that their problems are a lot more specific than that.  People vary with their ability to maintain attention, as in anything else. Attention deficit disorder (ADD) is characterized by easy distraction, impulsiveness, moodiness, and failure to follow through on plans. ADHD is the same except with excessive activity and “fidgetiness.” The symptoms vary considerably in type and intensity. Some people have problems mostly with attention, some mainly with impulsivity, and some with both.   Chapter 8

11.  According to the concept of prototypes, how do we decide whether an item belongs to a particular category?

A. We count how many defining characteristics of the category it has.

B. We consult a memorized list of which items belong to the category.

C. We compare the item to the most typical members of the category. **

D. We compare the features of the item to a precise definition of the category.

76%, .35.  According to the classical view, all members of a category are equally good representatives of that category. For this and other reasons, the classical view of concepts as proper sets has been replaced with a revisionist probabilistic view of concepts as fuzzy sets. According to the fuzzy set view, features are only imperfectly correlated with category membership, and concepts themselves are represented by prototypes (real or imagined) which possess many features that are characteristic of category members. The probabilistic view permits some instances (e.g., robin) of a category (bird) to be "better" than others (e.g., emu), even though all possess the same set of defining features. Moreover, it permits the boundaries between categories to be somewhat blurred (is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?). Regardless of whether concepts are represented by prototypes or exemplars, categorization is a special case of similarity judgment: the perceiver assigns an object to a category by matching its features to those of his or her category representation, prototype or exemplar. There is no absolute threshold for similarity, however: categorization, like signal detection, is always a matter of judgment.   Chapter 8

12.  Someone who overlooks base-rate information is likely to make which kind of error?

A. accepting too large a risk of losing a large amount

B. accepting the first hypothesis considered and rejecting all others

C. being excessively cautious about making any decision at all

D. identifying a common event as if it were some rare event **

52%, .43.  If you see something that looks like a rare bird, you should check carefully to make sure it isn’t a similar, more common species. In general, to decide whether something belongs in one category or another, you should consider the base-rate information – that is, how common the two categories are. When people apply the representativeness heuristic (the assumption that an item that resembles members of a category is probably also in that category), they frequently overlook base-rate information. For example, Linda was a philosophy major. She is 31, bright, outspoken and concerned about issues of discrimination and social justice. What would you estimate is the probability that Linda is a bank teller? What would you estimate is the probability that Linda is a feminist bank teller? The interesting result is that many people estimate a higher probability that Linda is a feminist bank teller than that she is a bank teller.  Chapter 8

13.  Suppose an expert chess player and an average player view a chessboard briefly and then try to reproduce the location of the pieces from memory. What result is likely?

A. Both will remember equally well.

B. The expert will remember better, regardless of how the pieces are arranged.

C. The expert will remember better only if the pieces are arranged as in a normal game. **

D. The expert remembers better at first, but the average player remembers better later.  

65%, .26.  What exactly do experts do that sets them apart from others? Primarily, they can look at a pattern and recognize its important features quickly. In a typical experiment, chess experts and novices briefly examined pieces on a chessboard and tried to recall the positions. When pieces were arranged as might occur in a normal game, expert players recalled 91% of the positions correctly, whereas novices recalled only 41%. When the pieces were arranged randomly, however, experts and novices did about the same at recalling the positions.  Chapter 8

 

14.. Which of the following is true of a child's language development?

A. To develop language, a child needs immediate reinforcement for correct statements.

B. As early as age 2 1/2 to 3 years, children's language errors imply that they are using grammatical rules. **

C. The stages of language development and the mean ages of reaching them vary greatly from one society to another.

D. Up to at least age 4, most of a child's phrases and sentences are copied directly from what they have heard other people say.

64%, .32.  Language is organized hierarchically, into a number of different levels of analysis. At each level of the hierarchy, combinations of lower-level elements are governed by rules. Grammatical rules govern how words can be strung together. Just a finite number of phonetic elements (phonemes) can be combined into a larger but finite number of morphemes and words, which in turn can be combined by a finite set of grammatical rules into an infinite number of propositions. These grammatical rules, known as syntax, make possible the creativity of human language. By age 2 ½ to 3 years, most children generate sentences but with some idiosyncrasies. Many young children have their own rules for negative sentences. When young children speak, they apply grammatical rules, although of course they cannot state those rules.   Chapter 9

15.  What is meant by fluid intelligence?

A. the ability to reason, use knowledge, and gain more information **

B. intelligence that is present in the same amount at all times

C. intelligence that increases and decreases from time to time

D. acquired skills and knowledge and the application of that knowledge to familiar problems

85%, .35.  Cattell drew a distinction between fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence. The analogy is to water: Fluid water fits into any shape of container, but an ice crystal has a fixed shape. Fluid intelligence is the power of reasoning and using information. It includes the ability to perceive relationships, solve unfamiliar problems, and gain new knowledge. Crystallized intelligence consists of acquired skills and knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge in specific situations. Fluid intelligence enables you to learn new skills in a new job, whereas crystallized intelligence includes the job skills you have already acquired. The ability to learn new words is an example of fluid intelligence, and the words already learned are part of your crystallized intelligence.  Chapter 9

16.  To what extent do twins resemble each other in IQ scores?

A. Both monozygotic and dizygotic twins resemble each other only if they are reared in the same family.

B. Monozygotic twins resemble each other about as strongly as dizygotic twins do.

C. Monozygotic twins resemble each other more strongly than dizygotic twins do, but only in childhood.

D. Monozygotic twins resemble each other strongly throughout life, more than dizygotic twins do. **

76%, .51.  Dizygotic twins (0.6) resemble each other more closely than single-birth siblings (0.47) do. This finding suggests an influence from being born at the same time and therefore sharing more of the environment. The correlation between unrelated children adopted into the same family, indicating an influence from shared environment (0.31). However, this correlation is lower than the correlation between biological brothers or sisters. The IQs of young adopted children correlate moderately with those of their adoptive parents. As the children grow older, their IQ scores gradually correlate more with those of their biological parents and less with those of their adoptive parents. These results imply a genetic influence from the biological parents. Chapter 9

 

17.  If psychologists administer a new IQ test to 1,000 randomly chosen students just once, they are probably trying to __________. If they administer the test twice to each student and compare the results, they are probably trying to __________.

A. determine the reliability of the test...determine the content validity of the test

B. standardize the test...determine the reliability of the test **

C. determine the content validity of the test...standardize the test

D. determine the content validity of the test...determine the construct validity of the test

78%, .46.  To evaluate test, we need to rely on objective evidence. The evaluation begins with standardization, the process of evaluating the questions, establishing rules for administering a test, and interpreting the scores. The reliability of a test is defined as the repeatability of its scores. If a test is reliable, it produces nearly the same results every time. To determine the reliability of a test, psychologists calculate a correlation coefficient. Psychologists may test the same people twice with the same test or with equivalent versions of the test and compare the two sets of scores. Chapter 9

 

18. An experiment found that subjects found that an equilateral triangle was a “better” example of a triangle, compared to an oblique triangle.  This illustrates the problem of:

A. disjunctive categories.

B. unclear category membership

C. imperfect nesting

D. typicality effects. **

67%, .46.  The chicken-sparrow example reveals the last, and perhaps the biggest, problem with the classical view of categories as proper sets: some entities are better instances of their categories than others. This is the problem of typicality. A sparrow is a better instance of the category bird -- it is a more "birdy" bird -- than is a chicken (or a goose, or an ostrich, or a penguin). Within a culture, there is a high degree of agreement about typicality. The problem is that all the instances in question share the features which define the category bird, and thus must be equivalent from the classical view. But they are clearly not equivalent; variations in typicality among members of a category can be very large.  Lecture 21

 

19. Subjects are asked to judge whether each of a list of names is “famous”.  Some names are famous, others are not. Later, they’re asked to make “fame judgments” of a second list of names, which contains some names from the earlier list and some new ones. On this second test, they mistakenly classify some non-famous names from the old list as “famous”.  This error illustrates the operation of the _____ heuristic.

A. representativeness

B. availability **

C. simulation

D. anchoring and adjustment

42%, .22.  The availability heuristic is employed in judgments of frequency and probability. The availability heuristic is a procedure that bases judgments of frequency and probability on the ease with which instances can be brought to mind. Once again, this is not a bad strategy: more frequent events ought to come more. But it ignores factors other than frequency that can affect fluency -- like the priming effects discussed in the lectures on memory.  This question is actually based on a famous experiment known as Becoming Famous Overnight". The role of priming in availability, leading to an incorrect judgment of frequency, is illustrated by a variation on the Fame Problem devised by Larry Jacoby and his colleagues. In Jacoby's experiment, subjects were presented with a list of 100 items consisting of 20 non-famous names presented once, and another 20 non-famous names presented four times each. After a 24-hour retention interval, the subjects made "fame judgments" on a list of 100 names including 40 non-famous names from the list studied the previous day, 20 new non-famous names, and 60 new famous names. The subjects judged most of the new famous names to be famous, and most of the new non-famous names to be non-famous. For the old non-famous names, however, they were more likely to judge those that had been presented once as famous, compared to those that had been presented four times. Apparently, prior presentation of the non-famous names induced a priming-based feeling of familiarity. The subjects had fairly good explicit memory for the names presented four times, so this feeling of familiarity was correctly attributed to the previous study session. However, their explicit memory was poor for the names presented only once, so their feeling of familiarity was falsely attributed to fame. So, by virtue of priming, the feeling of familiarity, and the availability heuristic, 20 non-famous people became famous overnight.  Lecture 22

 

 

20. Framing effects violate which assumption of normative rationality?

A. People base their decisions on subjective utilities.

B. People give equal weight to very high and very low probabilities.

C. People base their choices on abstract representations of problems. **

D. People give equal weight to calculations of gains and losses.

49%, .22.  According to normative rationality, the decision is supposed to be made by the algebra, not by the words.  Preference reversals and sunk-cost effects occur because people do not simply calculate values or utilities. Instead, they focus their attention on certain aspects of a choice rather than others, and this attentional focus can be shifted by how the problem is framed. Framing also affects other aspects of judgment and decision making -- for example, the way a problem is framed may provide the initial value used in the anchoring and adjustment heuristic, or it may shape the choices made in hypothesis -testing. A great deal of attention has focused on the role of framing in judgments concerning risky prospects. The Disease Problem and the problem of Sunk Costs illustrate framing effects in judgment and decision making. That is, judgment is not invariant over different descriptions of a problem. Rather, judgment depends on how the problem is framed -- i.e., whether there is a focus on gains or losses. Framing effects violate normative rationality, which holds that rational choice is determined by an abstract description of the problem at hand. The expected value, or expected utility, of a choice is a matter of algebra. Choices should not depend on the wording of a problem -- whether lives would be saved or lost, whether it is $25 or $150 that is already down the drain.  Lecture 23

 

21. Raven’s “Progressive Matrices” test is a good example of a _____ intelligence test.

A. culture-bound

B. crystallized

C. fluid  **

D. triarchic

70%, .36.  Cattell believed that traditional intelligence tests assessed g -- after all, things like arithmetic ability and vocabulary are a product of education and experience. Accordingly, he called for the development of "culture fair" tests which would assess intelligence in a manner that was not contaminated by education and other cultural differences. One such test is Raven's Progressive Matrices, in which the subject is shown a series of objects, and then must complete a new series according to the same pattern. Here, intelligence is explicitly defined as the ability to perceive relationships, the assessment is essentially nonverbal, and the stimulus materials are completely culture-free. These matrices, which progress gradually from easy to difficult items, attempt to measure abstract reasoning (fluid intelligence) without any use of language or reference to factual information. Lecture 24.  (I inadvertently left off reference to Lecture 24 in the Narrative Review, but this same point was also covered by Kalat.)

 

22. The sentence “visiting relatives can be boring” illustrates the importance of _____ in language understanding.

A. phonological rules

B. transformational grammar.

C. the difference between denotative and connotative meaning.

D. pragmatics  **

37%, .38. A perfectly good item, but as a student pointed out, I inadvertently left Lecture 25, which discussed the importance of pragmatics, off the Narrative Review.  So, I rescored this item correct for all responses.  Sometimes even syntax and semantics together not enough to decode the meaning of an utterance, because many sentences inherently ambiguous. Utterances such as “visiting relatives can be boring” can't be disambiguated by analysis of phonology, syntax, and semantics alone. Rather, we must consider the pragmatics of language as well: the context in which utterance takes place. This context can be linguistic, the other sentences that surround the ambiguous one, and clarify its meaning. It can also be nonlinguistic, composed of the speaker's body movements, and other aspects of the physical context in which the utterance is spoken and heard.  Lecture 25

 

23. According to the _____ view of conceptual structure, categorization is not based on similarity.

A. classical, or proper-set

B. prototype, or fuzzy-set

C. exemplar

D. theory, or knowledge-based  **

49%, .37.  According to the classical view, all members of a category are equally good representatives of that category. For this and other reasons, the classical view of concepts as proper sets has been replaced with a revisionist probabilistic view of concepts as fuzzy sets. According to the fuzzy set view, features are only imperfectly correlated with category membership, and concepts themselves are represented by prototypes (real or imagined) which possess many features that are characteristic of category members. The probabilistic view permits some instances (e.g., robin) of a category (bird) to be "better" than others (e.g., emu), even though all possess the same set of defining features. Moreover, it permits the boundaries between categories to be somewhat blurred (is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?). According to the theory-based view of categorization, concepts are not represented by lists of features or instances, and categorization does not proceed by feature matching. Rather, concepts are represented by theories which make certain features and instances relevant, and which explains how features and instances are related to each other; and categorization proceeds by applying the theory to the case at hand. It remains to be seen, however, whether the theory-based view of concepts and categorization will supplant, or merely supplement, the similarity-based view.  Lecture 21

 

24. Emotions like frustration and regret reflect the operation of the _____ heuristic.

A. representativeness

B. availability

C. simulation **

D. anchoring and adjustment

75%, .45.  The simulation heuristic is related to availability. Like availability, it is used to make estimates of probability; but it can also be used to make judgments of causality. In the simulation heuristic, judgments are based on the ease with which plausible scenarios can be constructed. But, of course, there is no guarantee that the imagined scenario would have occurred. Simulation is related to availability because both are based on fluency -- on the ease with which things come to mind. While availability is related to the ease of retrieval from memory, simulation is related to ease of imagination. The simulation heuristic is an important determinant of certain emotional states known as the counterfactual emotions: Frustration, Regret, Grief and Indignation. Each of these emotional states depends on a comparison between some actual outcome and "what might have been". The easier it is to imagine a plausible alternative scenario, the stronger the emotional reaction to "what might have been".  Lecture 22.

 

25. A newly discovered tribe, living deep in the Amazon jungle, has no words corresponding to blue or green.  When asked to name blue and green colors, they don’t know what to say.  When asked to match blue and green colors to samples:

A. they perform at chance levels.

B. they cannot understand the instructions.

C. they match blues with blues, and greens with greens, as well as English speakers. **

D. they match blues with reds, and greens with yellows, in contradiction to opponent-process theory.

77%, .40.  Cross-cultural research by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay had revealed a consistent pattern of color terms across the diversity of languages.  If a language had only two color terms, they corresponded to black and white – or, perhaps, light and dark, or warm and cool.  If it had three color terms, the third term was red.  If it had a fourth term, that was either green or yellow; if it had a fifth term, it was the other one, yellow or green.  Then blue was added, then brown, and so on.  Eleanor Rosch and David Olivier worked with the Dani, a tribe in New Guinea whose language has only two color terms – mili for "dark" and "cold" colors and mola for "light" and "warm" colors.  When asked to name color patches, the Dani obviously performed differently from English-speaking college students.  But when asked match color patches from memory, the Dani performed the same way the English speakers did, yielding highly similar "color spaces".  In other words, the Dani perceived and remembered colors the same way that English speakers did.  Lecture 25.

 

26. Can we identify someone’s emotion (such as anger or fear) physiologically? If so, how?

A. No, we cannot identify someone’s emotion by current physiological methods. **

B. Yes, each emotion excites a distinct area of the brain.

C. Yes, each emotion produces a unique pattern of autonomic arousal.

D. Yes, each emotion releases a different neurotransmitter.

31%, .37.  Researchers that study emotions should proceed with caution when interpreting physiological data. They can’t assume the presence of physiological response or response pattern implies the presence of psychological phenomenon. Usually, we can at most say that the data are consistent with certain expectations. But, we will need converging evidence to make any claims about whether a physiological response signals specific emotions. Further, physiology is not a one to one mapping. There are all sorts of complexities, such as different measures (heart rate versus galvanic skin response) tell different stories.  Chapter 12

27.  Which of the following appears to be the strongest determinant of people's happiness?

A. Wealth: People with average wealth are happier than those with high or low levels.

B. Climate: People who live in a warm, sunny place are happier than those who live in cold, rainy areas.

C. Age: Happiness reaches its peak in the late 20s and then declines steadily.

D. Temperament: Happy people tend to remain happy throughout life. **

81%, .36.  One of the strongest influences on happiness is people’s temperament or personality. In one study, most pairs of identical twins reported almost the same level of happiness, even if they differed in their wealth, education, and job prestige. Most people fluctuate around a particular level of happiness for most of their lives.  Chapter 12

 

28.  According to Selye's concept of stress, __________ would count as an example of something that produces stress, but __________ would not.

A. getting married...lifelong poverty **

B. getting divorced...getting married

C. a wanted pregnancy...an unwanted pregnancy

D. an unwanted pregnancy...a wanted pregnancy

55%, .43.  According to Selye, stress is the nonspecific response of the body to any demand made upon it. All demands on the body evoke responses that prepare for fighting some kind of threat. Selye’s concept of stress included any experience that changes a person’s life. Getting married and being promoted are presumably pleasant experiences, but they also require changes in your life, so in Selye’s sense, they produce stress. However, Selye’s definition does not include the effects of poverty, racism, a lifelong disability, or anything else that is unchanging. Thus, by Selye’s definition, getting married produces stress because it requires a change in one’s life. However, lifelong poverty would not be stressful because it is not a change.  Chapter 12

 

29.  One problem with the James-Lange theory of emotion is that:

A. quadriplegic patients cannot feel emotion. 

B. there are no clear differential patterns of autonomic response associated with each emotion. **

C.  autonomic responses occur too quickly to generate emotional responses.

D. various emotional states can be differentiated by patterns of facial musculature.

76%, .28.  According to James-Lange theory, your interpretation of a stimulus evokes autonomic changes and sometimes muscle actions. Your perception of those changes is the feeling aspect of your emotion. He said simply that the situation (e.g., the sigh of a bear) gives rise to an action (e.g., running away), and your perception of the action is the emotion. That is, you don’t run away because you are afraid; you feel afraid because you perceive yourself running away. The theory is somewhat counterintuitive, because it reverses the usual direction of causation. Our emotions don't cause our bodily reaction to events; rather, our bodily reactions cause our emotions. Stated this way, the James-Lange theory appears to violate the Doctrine of Mentalism. On the other hand, perhaps appearances are deceiving. Except in the case of purely reflexive responses, there must be some initial perception and interpretation of the situation before we can respond to it. Perhaps, then our initial emotional state, resulting from our perception of the situation, influences our initial bodily response, and then feedback from our bodily response influences the intensity of our total emotional experience. Cannon's critique was widely considered to be devastating to the James-Lange position. Cannon noted, first, that paraplegics can still experience emotion, even though their spinal cord has been severed from their brains -- thereby effectively preventing them from getting feedback from their skeletal musculature and viscera. And, as a matter of empirical fact, different emotions, such as fear and anger, do not seem to be associated with different patterns of bodily reaction. Along the same lines, our perception of our visceral responses to stimulation is very diffuse and nonspecific. Moreover, autonomic responses, at least, recruit more slowly than do emotional responses -- thus making it difficult for autonomic responses to cause emotional states. Finally, experimental manipulation of autonomic responses -- speeding up or slowing down the heart rate, for example - -didn't seem to alter subjects' emotions.  Lecture 26

 

 

30.  In “Papez’ circuit”,

A. emotional feeling states are generated by the cingulate cortex in the forebrain. **

B. emotional feeling states are generated by the thalamus

C. bodily responses are generated by the hippocampus.

D. bodily responses are generated by the thalamus.

52%, .43.  The Cannon-Bard theory was subsequently revised by James Papez, a neuroanatomist who traced the connections between the hypothalamus and other structures in the subcortical "limbic lobe" of the brain. According to Papez, emotion involves not just the hypothalamus but rather an entire circuit of structures, including the hypothalamus, the anterior portion of the thalamus, the anterior portion of the cingulate gyrus, and the hippocampus. This set of structures is now known as Papez' circuit. According to Papez' theory, emotion is not generated solely by the hypothalamus, but rather by the coordinated activity of a number of subcortical structures, each performing its own special function: The thalamus, acting as s sensory relay station, processes information from the emotional stimulus. The hypothalamus generates the bodily response to the emotional stimulus -- much as in the Cannon-Bard theory. The cingulate cortex generates the subjective feeling state.  Lecture 26

31.  After you resist a temptation to smoke a cigarette, you become ___ likely to resist the next temptation to smoke a cigarette and ____ likely to resist a different type of temptation.

A. more... more

B. more... less **

C. less... more

D. less... less

58%, .23.  If you want to resist temptations, does it help to practice resisting temptations? The answer is, as usual, “it depends”. Resisting a temptation helps you resist the same type of temptation. For example, if you are trying to quit smoking, and you resist the temptation to smoke right now, you improve your ability to resist the smoking temptation again later. However, resisting temptation takes effort, making it more difficult to resist a different type of temptation. Also, people who have resisted one temptation often feel entitled to treat themselves in some other way. Chapter 11

 

32.  What is one reason why people can consume much fructose without satisfying their hunger?

A. Fructose tastes less sweet than other sugars.

B. Fructose has almost no calories.

C. Fructose does not trigger much insulin release. **

D. Fructose causes an increase in stomach contractions.

93%, .19.  When the stomach is empty, it stimulates hunger by releasing the hormone ghrelin. The other main factor inducing hunger is a drop in how much glucose enters the cells. Glucose, the most abundant sugar in the blood, is an important source of energy for the body and almost the only source the brain uses. If you eat too much, your body converts the excess into fats and other stored fuels. If you eat too little, you convert stored fuels back into blood glucose. The flow of glucose from the blood into cells depends on insulin, a hormone released by the pancreas. The hormone insulin increases the flow of glucose and several other nutrients into body cells. At the be beginning of a meal, before the nutrients begin to enter the blood, the brain sends messages to the pancreas to secrete insulin. Chapter 11

 

33.  Men who are married, or who are in any type of committed relationship to one woman, tend on average to have lower testosterone levels than men still seeking partners. The research supports which interpretation of this result?

A. Entering into a committed relationship lowers a man’s testosterone levels.

B. Men with lower testosterone are more likely to enter committed relationships. **

C. Men in committed relationships have sex more often, and sex lowers testosterone.

D. The results were due to testing testosterone during different seasons of the year.

50%, .32.  Among men, levels of the hormone testosterone relate only weakly to levels of frequency of sexual activity, but one interesting pattern has been reported: Single men have higher testosterone levels than men in a committed relationship, such as marriage, except for men who are in a committed relationship but still seeking additional sex partners. How shall we interpret these results? One possibility is that when a man becomes completely faithful to a partner, his testosterone level drops. However, a longitudinal study supported a different interpretation: Men whose testosterone levels start lower are more likely to enter into a committed, monogamous relationship, whereas those with higher levels continue seeking multiple partners. Chapter 11

 

 

34.  Why is homeostasis insufficient to explain biological motives such as hunger and thirst?

A. People tend to eat when other people around them are eating. **

B. Eating and drinking is not closely associated with the time of day.

C. Emotional factors have little influence on eating and drinking.

D. Drives cannot be acquired through emotional conditioning.

89%, .31.  Most people eat a more varied diet with strong social influences that often compete with or override their physiology. For example, when you eat with friends, on average you linger two or three times as long as you would if eating alone and you eat almost twice as much. You eat a few more bites after you thought you were done, and then a few more, probably without realizing the other people’s influence. Someone wants dessert, so you have one, too. Exceptions occur, of course, if you are dining with someone who might scold you for overeating. Lecture 27

35. Under what conditions can rewards enhance intrinsic motivation?

A. When a person’s self-esteem needs have already been met.

B. When rewards are contingent on participating in some activity. 

C. When rewards provide information about performance. **

D. When rewards increase evaluation apprehension.

53%, .47.  Actually, though, other research shows that rewards need not have deleterious effects on intrinsic motivation, and may even have positive effects. Recall that, even in the original Lepper study, an unexpected reward enhanced intrinsic motivation. A large body of subsequent research, much of it done by Judith Harackiewicz and her colleagues, has provided a much more detailed analysis of intrinsic motivation and the effects of reward. In an experiment, some subjects got evaluative feedback but no reward offer; and, again, they showed diminished intrinsic motivation compared to the standard control group. Again, this illustrates the deleterious effects of evaluation apprehension and performance anxiety. But in this study the third group of subjects received information about normative performance -- they were told what the 80th percentile was -- but they got neither promise of reward nor any hint of external evaluation (they did receive the reward, though, as a surprise). In this condition, they maintained or enhanced intrinsic motivation. So, if you can do it without seeming controlling, and without generating anxiety over performance evaluation, information about performance enhances intrinsic motivation, and giving a reward doesn't compromise it. The upshot of this study is that rewards have at least two functions: they control performance, and they provide information about performance. Rewards that are perceived as controlling do undermine intrinsic motivation; but rewards that manage to provide information, without being perceived as controlling, do not undermine IM, and may even enhance it. Lecture 27

 

36.  In Freud's theory, the id is the part of personality that

A. resembles conscience.

B. makes rational decisions.

C. includes biological drives. **

D. mediates between the conscious and the unconscious.

87%, .41.  Personality, Freud claimed, consists of three aspects: id, ego, and superego. The id consists of sexual and other biological drives that demand immediate gratification. The ego is the rational, decision-making aspect of the personality. The superego contains the memory of rules and prohibitions we learned from our parents and others, such as “nice little boys and little girls don’t do that”. If the id produces sexual desires that the superego considers repugnant, the result is guilty feelings. Chapter 14

 

37.  Many personality theorists talk about the "big five" personality traits. Suppose someone proposed that people have a sixth "big" personality trait. To demonstrate such a trait, researchers would have to demonstrate that it

A. is equally common in members of all ethnic groups.

B. is equally present in people of all ages.

C. is not highly correlated with any of the original big five. **

D. is a combination of two or more of the original big five.

75%, .35.  Some psychologists suggest that we should divide extraversion into two traits – which they call ambition and sociability – changing the Big Five into the Big six. To do this, they should determine whether measures of ambition correlate strongly with measures of sociability. If so, then ambition and sociability can be considered two aspects of a single trait, extraversion. If not, then they are indeed separate personality traits. Chapter 14

 

38.  According to the limited research available so far, how accurate is criminal profiling?

A. Criminal profiling is an exact science that almost never makes a mistake.

B. In most cases it is accurate enough to lead police to the criminal.

C. It is better than random guessing, but it is often useless or misleading.

D. It is no more accurate than random guessing. **

11%, .33.  A difficult item, but still a good one -- and something to remember the next time a "profiler" apperas on TV.  James Brussel was hired by the NYPD to help them find the “mad bomber” who had planted more than 30 bombs over 16 years. All the characteristics that he gave the police were wrong. They found the bomber because a clerk from Con Ed patiently went through years of letters the company had received until she found a threatening letter that resembled messages the mad bomber had planted. We should not conclude that criminal profiling is impossible, but as of now, police should beware of putting more confidence in a profile than it merits. At best, a profile is a statement of probabilities, never of certainties. Chapter 14

 

39.  In a prisoner's dilemma, two prisoners have agreed with each other that they will not confess. Now each of them is offered a deal: "If you confess, we will punish your friend harshly but let you off easy." The probability that they will both cooperate with each other (instead of confessing) is increased if they

A. are in constant communication with each other. **

B. have promised each other not to confess.

C. both have a high self-monitoring personality.

D. realize that they both go to prison if both confess.

71%, .35.  To investigate cooperation and competition, many researchers have used the prisoner’s dilemma, a situation where people choose between a cooperative act and a competitive act that benefits themselves but hurt others. The situation trapped both people into uncooperative behavior. The two of you are most likely to cooperate if you stay in constant communication. If you overhear each other, you know that, if one confesses, the other will retaliate. This kind of situation occurs in real life among nations as well as individuals. Chapter 13

 

40.  Which of the following is an effective way to reduce prejudice between groups?

A. organizing a series of competitions between the groups

B. using projective assessments.

C. getting the groups to work together toward a common goal **

D. teaching people that “we treat all people the same”

94%, .41.  After people form a prejudice, what can overcome it? A particularly effective technique is to get groups to work toward a common goal. Long ago, psychologists demonstrated the power of this technique using two arbitrarily chose groups. At a summer camp at Robbers’ Cave, Oklahoma, 11 and 12 years old boys were divided into two groups in separate cabins. The groups competed for prizes in sports, treasure hunts and other activities. With each competition, the antagonism between the two groups grew more intense. The boys made threatening posters, shouted insults and engaged in food fights. Up to a point, the experimenters tolerated the hostility. Then they tried to reverse it. First, they asked the two groups to work together to find and repair a leak in the water pipe that supplied the camp. Then they had the two groups pool their treasuries to rent a movie that both groups wanted to see. Later, they had the boys pull together to get a truck out of a rut. Gradually, hostility turned into friendship – except for a few holdouts who nursed their hatred to the bitter end! The point is that competition breeds hostility, and cooperation leads to friendship. Chapter 13

 

41.  What could an experimenter do in order to induce cognitive dissonance?

A.  Ask people to watch themselves on videotape before trying to explain what they did.

B.  Use a small reward to persuade people to do something opposed to their attitudes. **

C.  Ask people who are all leaning in the same direction on some issue to discuss the issue for an hour and then express their attitudes on it.

D.  Make it appear that one person is in distress while several people, unacquainted with one another, are in a position to help.

77%, .45.  Cognitive dissonance is a state of unpleasant tension that people experience when they hold contradictory attitudes or when their behavior contradicts their stated attitudes, especially if the inconsistency distresses them. In a study, people who were given $20 to tell a lie enjoyed the experiment less and would be less willing to participate again than people who were paid $1. According to the theory, if you accept $20 to tell a lie, you experience little conflict. You are lying, but you are doing it for $20. However, if you tell a lie for $1, do you want to think you can be bribed so cheaply? You reduce your tension by changing your attitude, deciding that the experiment really was interesting after all.   Chapter 13

 

42.  What is the best predictor of a long-term satisfying marriage?

A. willingness to vent anger fully as soon as you feel it

B. similarity of the couple in terms of introversion or extraversion

C. the amount of money they spent on their wedding ceremony

D. frequent displays of affection **

39%, .32.  The best predictor of long-term satisfaction is much display of genuine affection between the newlyweds. That is, positive expressions are important. If your partner cheers you up when things are going badly, that’s good, but often a better sign of affection is if your partner feels genuine pleasure at your successes.   Chapter 13

 

43.  Which of the people described below would be least likely to conform to the opinions of the majority?

A. someone who is outnumbered 25 to 1

B. someone who is outnumbered 10 to 1

c .someone who is outnumbered 3 to 1

D. someone who is outnumbered 6 to 2 **

70%, .49.  In one group experiment, all the "subjects" (including the confederates) announced their judgments publicly, and on critical trials the situation was arranged so that the one "real" subject went last. On some trials, the confederates were instructed to agree on the correct response. On other trials, they were instructed to agree on the incorrect response. When subjects were alone, or run with only one or two confederates, their judgments were largely unaffected by the group. But once the group consisted of three or more individuals (Asch ran groups as large as 15), subjects began to conform to the (erroneous) judgments of the group, in about 1/3 of the trials. In a variant on Asch's experiments, Nemeth and her colleagues (working at UCB) assembled groups consisting of six real subjects, plus 1-4 confederates. Thus, in Nemeth's experiments, the confederates comprised a minority, rather than a majority, of the group. Even though they were in the minority, the subjects still showed a tendency to conform -- so long as the confederates constituted a "critical mass" of 3 or 4. Especially when the situation is ambiguous, we look to others for cues as to what to think, feel, want, and do.  Chapter 13

 

44. According to the Doctrine of Interactionism:

A. behavior depends on the joint effects of cognitive, emotional, and motivational variables.

B. people create the situations to which they respond. **

C. behavior varies as a function of internal dispositions.

D. situations are “noise” which can be discounted in the prediction of behavior.

61%, .44.  The idea that we make our own environment is the heart of the Doctrine of Interactionism. People are affected by their environments in a variety of ways. But, according to the doctrine of interactionism, people also affect the environments in which their behavior takes place. David Buss (1987) has identified three ways in which people affect their own environments: Evocation: The mere presence of a person in an environment alters that environment, independent of his or her traits, attitudes, or behaviors. Selection: People deliberately choose to enter one environment as opposed to another, perhaps out of a desire to match their environments with their individual personalities. Manipulation: People engage in overt behavioral activities that alter the objective environment -- that is, the environment as it is publicly experienced by everyone in it. In addition to these three modes, a fourth means of affecting one's environment can also be identified (Cantor & Kihlstrom, 1987):  Transformation: People engage in covert mental activities that alter their mental representations of their subjective environment -- that is, the environment as they privately experience it.  Lecture 28.

45.  If two tests are equally good at predicting behavior, the one with the greater utility:

A. has higher inter-rater reliability.

B. has been standardized on a more representative sample of the population.

C. is less expensive to administer, score, and interpret. **

D. has higher construct validity.

58%, .51.  Personality tests, like all measuring instruments must have certain psychometric properties. In addition, one psychometric property is highly desirable, even if it is not strictly necessary: Utility, or Efficiency-- or some sense that the test provides an economic advantage over alternative measures of the same trait, expressed as the cost/benefits ratio (where cost refers to the expense of constructing, administering, and scoring the test, and benefits refers to the validity of the test in question); the most efficient tests have high reliability and validity but low cost of administration.  Lecture 29.



46. The stability of personality:

A. is greatest over relatively short intervals of time. **

B. is greatest over relatively long intervals of time.

C. is greatest across relatively similar situations.

D. is greatest across relatively dissimilar situations.

30%, .32.  Within each level of the hierarchy, the Doctrine of Traits assumes that behaviors and traits are relatively stable across both long and short intervals of time. People who were extraverts at age 10 should still be relatively extraverted at age 50. The assumption of stability lies behind the psychometric property of test-retest reliability. There is less evidence in favor of stability: although personality questionnaire scores and adjective trait ratings show significant degrees of test-retest reliability over even very long periods of time, there is at least as much variability as there is stability. Stability is greatest over relatively short intervals of time.   Lecture 29.

 

47.  Political attitudes:

A. are fairly good predictors of actual voting behavior. **

B. are remarkably poor predictors of actual voting behavior.

C. are more predictive of voting behavior for people who score high in conscientiousness.

D. are more predictive of voting behavior for people who are relatively liberal.

57%, .47.  Perhaps the strongest evidence for predictability concerns the relation between political attitudes and voting behavior. Jost (2006) analyzed survey data from the American National Election Studies (ANES)covering all US presidential elections from 1972 (McGovern vs. Nixon) to 2004 (Bush vs. Kerry). In the survey, more than 7,500 respondents rated themselves on a 7-point scale of political liberalism-conservatism (where 1 = extremely liberal and 7 = extremely conservative), and then reported how they had voted in the most recent election. In each election, Jost found that voting behavior was almost perfectly correlated with political ideology, with liberals voting much more often for Democrats, and conservatives voting much more often for Republicans. In the 2004 election, for example, the correlation between political liberalism-conservatism and voting for John Kerry vs. George W. Bush was a whopping r = .97!  Lecture 30.

 

48. The presence of other people:

A. deters helping behavior.

B. facilitates helping behavior.

C. depends on how many people are present.

D. depends on what the other people are doing. **

34%, .27.  According to Lewin's formula, environmental factors are also relevant to behavior. These include all the features of the situation that exist "outside" the person. As a social psychologist, of course, Lewin was mostly interested in the social situation: the presence of other people, and what they say and do. Another large literature concern social presence effects on behavior -- the effects of the presence of other people on the behavior of the individual. In social facilitation, the presence of others improves the individual's performance. Social facilitation was first discovered by Triplett (1898), in the very first social-psychological experiment ever published -- although a more recent re-analysis showed that Triplett's effect was not actually statistically significant. In social inhibition, first discovered by Zajonc (1965), the presence of others reduces the individual's performance. In a famous experiment, Zajonc showed that even cockroaches run more slowly in the presence of other cockroaches. OK, so social facilitation and social inhibition contradict each other. Which is the true effect of the presence of others? Of course, it depends on the task: Social facilitation tends to occur when the task in question is simple, is performed automatically, or is performed by an expert. Social inhibition tends to occur when the task in question is difficult or complicated, is performed by controlled processes, or by novices.  Lecture 31.  This item could have been written better, perhaps, but in the statistical analyis it didn't rise to the level of a bad item.  Options A and B should have set the context, that this question was about the effect of other people on helping behavior.

 

49.  A recent study has found that laboratory rats learn to run a maze faster when they are tested by female than for male experimenters.  This most likely illustrates _____ in the “person-by-situation” interaction.

A. evocation

B. selection

C. behavioral manipulation **

D. cognitive transformation.

29%, .04.  A bad item.  A lot of students went for A, I guess because gender was the example I used for evocation in the lecture.  But if you think about it, the rats would have had to recognize the gender of the experimenters, and that seems unlikely.  In this case, in fact, the female experimenters treated the rats more gently than the male experimenters did.  But you wouldn't have known that from the question -- which is what made it a bad question.  Anyway, in the self-fulfilling prophecy, the definition of the situation may be false, but it is the definition that leads to behavior that makes the initially false conception come true. The self-fulfilling prophecy is illustrated by Rosenthal and Jacobson's study of "Pygmalion in the Classroom" (1968), an experiment involving children (grades 1-6) enrolled in a number of public elementary schools. Early in the fall, in addition to a standard IQ test, the children were administered what was presented to the teachers and (administrators) as a nonverbal IQ test that would identify "intellectual late-bloomers" -- that is, children who might not be doing well now, but who could be expected to catch up and even exceed the achievement of their age-peers. In fact, the test had nothing to do with IQ, or the prediction of late-blooming. It was a fake. Nevertheless, the children's teachers were given false feedback about the children's test scores, identifying a random 20% of pupils in each class as "late-bloomers". Later, in the spring of that same academic year, the children were retested with the standard IQ test. On average, children in all classes and grade levels showed increases -- school really does make you smarter!. But those children who had been falsely identified as intellectual late-bloomers showed greater gains than the other children. The important point of the study is that the children weren't really "late-bloomers" -- but their teachers believed that they were, and treated them accordingly. Thus, the effect of the cognitive transformation (identifying some students as late-bloomers) was mediated by behavioral manipulations (treating students identified as late bloomers differently than the other students).  Lecture 32.

 

50. The effect of distance on interpersonal attraction:

A. varies as a function of physical attractiveness.

B. has more to do with availability than with physical proximity. **

C. is reduced in romantic as opposed to platonic relationships.

D. illustrates the diffusion of responsibility.

65%, .46.  Personal characteristics matter, to some degree, but situational characteristics -- that is, features of the situation in which we encounter the target person -- are also powerful determinants of attraction, and can lead us to like a person even if he or she is not particularly attractive, competent, or similar to ourselves. One of these environmental factors is sheer proximity -- we tend to like people who are physically near us. What is really important, it turns out, is not so much sheer physical proximity, but rather functional distance -- how much effort is required to make and maintain contact, and the availability of the other person as a friend. A neighbor with whom you share a yard is more likely to be a friend that one whose yard is separated from yours by a fence. If your dormitory room is near the bathroom, the elevator, or a stairwell, you are likely to have more friends -- just because of the number of people passing by your door, and the frequency with which they do it. Thus, the effects of proximity are partly mediated by familiarity -- we like those who are familiar to us more than we like strangers. Lecture 32.