Go to: Answers to Section 5-4 Quiz Questions

1. According to the American Medical Association (1985), hypnosis has which of the following effects on memory retrieval?

A. Hypnosis increases the number of implicit memories that can be retrieved.
B. Hypnosis increases the number of working memories that can be retrieved.
C. Hypnosis increases the number of inaccurate details included in a retrieved memory.
D. Hypnosis increases the number of accurate details included in a retrieved memory.

2. Let's say that you are walking around your neighborhood late at night and, looking up, you see a light travel very rapidly from the northern to the southern sky. With respect to this event, which of the following would represent an attribution?

A. You judge that the light is about 20 miles up.
B. You conclude that the light is an extraterrestrial spaceship.
C. You estimate that the light is traveling at about 2000 mph.
D. You perceive that the light is reddish in color.

3. Teri shows a depressive attributional style. This means that

A. Teri says very negative things about her life and always complains about her problems.
B. Teri makes internal, stable, and global attributions when something negative happens.
C. Teri says very negative things about others and always blames them for her problems.
D. Teri makes external, stable, and specific attributions when something negative happens.

4. Which of the following would represent an internal attribution?

A. I hit the other car because the sun got in my eyes.
B. I hit the other car because the stoplight wasn't working.
C. I hit the other car because I am a bad driver.
D. I hit the other car because the street was not well lighted.

5. Social psychology focuses on behaviors that have _____, whereas personality psychology focuses on behaviors that have _____.

A. high consensus; low consensus
B. low consensus; high consensus
C. high consistency; low consistency
D. low consistency; high consistency

6. I believe that the students attending my classes love them from the first day, and that they are so excited by the topics discussed that they never want to miss a class. If a student is absent, my first thought is that something terrible must have happened to him or her. If the student is absent two days in a row, I start calling local hospitals. When students leave during class, I assume that they need to calm down from all the intellectual excitement they feel. If, at the end of the semester, only half the original class still is showing up, I figure that the other half withdrew because they wanted to have more time to research topics in psychology that I had discussed in earlier classes. My inferences and conclusions in this example are strongly influenced by

A. the self-serving bias.
B. the fundamental attribution bias.
C. specific attributions.
D. wishful thinking.

7. Which of the following would be an example of the fundamental attributional bias?

A. The student looked nervous when she gave her oral report. She must have an "anxious personality."
B. The baseball player hit a home run. He smiled and waved when the crowd roared.
C. The writer was in the bookstore signing copies of his latest book. He received many compliments.
D. The employee was just fired. He didn't say anything when he left the building with his belongings.

8. Freud's evidence for his theories often included his patients' memories from the first several years of their lives — the period of infantile amnesia. It is likely that many of these memories

A. were constructed over time through suggestions from Freud.
B. were recovered once Freud broke through their defensive barriers.
C. were mixtures of (mostly) fact and (partly) fiction.
D. all the above

9. Cognitive psychotherapy focuses on altering clients'

A. unconscious conflicts involving needs and wants.
B. unconscious conflicts involving schemas and attributions.
C. negative motivations affecting behavior.
D. negative interpretations of situations.

10. Which of the following would be a stable attribution?

A. I received a bad grade on the algebra test because I was tired when I took it.
B. I received a bad grade on the algebra test because the guy next to me kept tapping his pencil.
C. I received a bad grade on the algebra test because I didn't study very hard for it.
D. I received a bad grade on the algebra test because I am not good at math.

11. Which of the following would represent an attribution?

A. She got 48 out of 50 questions correct on the last test.
B. She got an A on the test because she is very intelligent.
C. He is acting very aggressively towards his neighbor.
D. He is yelling and screaming at his neighbor.

12. Whenever she experiences a negative life event, Tanya typically blames herself rather than others; but when she experiences a positive life event, she often gives others the credit instead of herself. Tanya is exhibiting

A. a depressive attributional style.
B. the self-serving bias.
C. an internalizing attributional style.
D. the self-effacing bias.

13. Which of the following would represent an external attribution?

A. I hit the other car because I am a bad driver.
B. I hit the other car because I was very tired.
C. I hit the other car because the sun got in my eyes.
D. I hit the other car because I was drunk.

14. In making an attribution, we FIRST tend to decide if an event (action) was caused by ___ factors.

A. stable or unstable
B. cognitive or emotional
C. general or specific
D. internal or external

15. Most experimental research has shown that people given an hypnotic induction are

A. in a trance-like state of consciousness.
B. in a normal, waking state of consciousness.
C. unable to control their behaviors, but are able to control their thoughts and emotions.
D. unable to control their thoughts and emotions, but are able to control their behaviors.

16. The fundamental attribution bias refers to the tendency of

A. observers to favor external attributions when explaining the behavior of others.
B. observers to favor internal attributions when explaining the behavior of others.
C. actors to favor external attributions when explaining the behavior of others.
D. actors to favor internal attributions when explaining the behavior of others.

17. [From Class Discussion] The concept of the PSYCHODYNAMIC unconscious emphasizes the importance of

A. controlled processes.
B. schemas.
C. motives.
D. person perception.

18. Which of the following represents the MOST general (global) attribution?

A. I received a bad grade on the algebra test because I am not good at math.
B. I received a bad grade on the algebra test because the person behind me kept coughing.
C. I received a bad grade on the algebra test because I didn't study very hard for it.
D. I received a bad grade on the algebra test because I am stupid.

19. I decided to teach my classes by putting everything I want to talk about on Powerpoint slides (with music) because all the other teachers are using Powerpoint to teach their classes. My decision probably was determined mostly by

A. the bandwagon effect.
B. the just-world effect.
C. a motivational bias.
D. an attributional bias.

20. Gladys had an argument with her best friend, Opal. She and Opal had never disagreed before, and Gladys was very surprised by Opal's anger: in 60 years of being her friend, Gladys had never seen Opal angry. She decided that Opal must have been having a bad day because she had just found out that morning that her son was divorcing his wife of 35 years. Gladys made an _____ attribution for Opal's angry behavior.

A. internal, stable, and general
B. internal, unstable, and specific
C. external, stable, and specific
D. external, unstable, and general

21. You are likely to attribute your own failing grade on a test to __________; a stranger is more likely to attribute your failing grade on a test to __________.

A. an unfair test; your stupidity
B. your poor study habits; an unfair test
C. a bad teacher; an unfair test
D. your stupidity; a bad teacher

22. Jerry was given a "Virgin Mary" to drink at a party — a drink that he had never even heard of before. He really liked its taste and, so, had several more. With each drink, he became more and more intoxicated: he talked loudly, slurred his speech, and stumbled around the room. Finally, his friend, Larry, told him that a Virgin Mary contains no alcohol. Jerry protested and told Larry that he must be wrong because he felt drunk. Which of the following approaches would provide the best explanation for Jerry's experience and behaviors?

A. the sociocognitive approach
B. the situational approach
C. the cognitive approach
D. the psychodynamic approach

23. In the previous question, which of the following concepts would NOT be important for explaining Jerry's experience and behaviors?

A. schema
B. suggestion
C. motive
D. expectation

24. Which of the following would be an example of the fundamental attribution bias?

A. He must be a very friendly person: he said hello to me in the hallway.
B. He must not have noticed the other car: he turned right in front of it.
C. No one stopped to help the drivers of the two cars that hit each other.
D. The student stopped by her instructor's office to ask a question.

25. A student in the first row put her head down and fell asleep almost as soon as I started class. I figured that she hadn't slept much the night before and was really tired. I made an _____ attribution for the student's behavior.

A. external, stable, and specific
B. external, unstable, and general
C. internal, stable, and specific
D. internal, unstable, and general

Go to: Answers to Section 5-4 Quiz Questions