Mid-Term Examination

In my social psychology class, there was a recent examination given to the class. It was the mid-term examination. For the mid-term examination, the class was instructed to read chapter’s 1-6 in the text book. The class was also instructed to study for the exam by reviewing the lecture notes. In this paper I will focus on a few questions I answered incorrectly on my mid-term examination.

The exam contained 48 multiple choice questions and two true/false questions. Out of this 50 questions total, I answered 18 incorrectly. One of the questions I will focus on is located on the second page. The question reads, “Nicole has just met some new people in her dorm. During a discussion on campus issues, she modifies her opinions so that they match those of her new friends. The most likely reason Nicole did this is that…” (Hucks). For the question I answered D, which stated the reason Nicole changed her opinion was to create similarity as a successful ingratiation strategy. Well, of course this answer is wrong. The correct answer to this question is choice C. C states the Nicole alter her opinion because she is a low self-monitor. Self-monitoring is the tendency to be chronically concerned with one’s public image and to adjust one’s actions to fit the needs of the current situation (Kenrick, Neuberg, & Cialdini 107). Low self-monitors are much more likely to rely on their own standards in deciding how to respond to a new situation (Kenrick, Neuberg, & Cialdini 170). As the question stated, Nicole changed her opinion to the views of the new people she meet which makes her a low self-monitor.

Question 15 located on the third page was also answered incorrectly. The question reads, “The Disabled American Veterans nearly doubled their donation rate in response to a mailed solicitation when they include personalized address labels. The success can be attributed to the (A) commitment/consistency, (B) social validation, (C) scarcity, or (D) reciprocation principle” (Hucks). For this question I answered B, which is the social validation principle. Social validation is an interpersonal way to locate and validate the correct choice (Kenrick, Neuberg, & Cialdini 190). The correct answer is D, reciprocation principle, which is people are more willing to comply with request from those who have provided such things first. The reason the donations nearly doubled is because people feel an obligation to reciprocate (Cialdini 183).

“People with high (A) need for structure, (B) desire for control, (C) need for cognition, or (D) intelligence are more likely to use cognitive simplification strategies” (Huck) was another question that I answered incorrectly. This question is located on the third page also. For this question my answer was B, which is a desire for control. The correct answer for the question is the need for structure. People with the need for structure are motivated to organize their mental and physical worlds in simple ways. People high in need of structure are also more likely to engage in all sorts of cognitive shortcuts (Kenrick, Neuberg, & Cialdini 81).

Question 30, located on the fifth page states, “According to (A) the representativeness heuristic, (B) the covariation model, (C) correspondence bias, or (D) correspondent inference theory people determine whether a behavior corresponds to an actor’s internal disposition by asking whether the consequences were foreseeable, the behavior was intended, freely chosen, and occurred despite countervailing forces.” For this question I honestly did not know the answer. I chose the answer B, which is the covariation theory.