All GRE Subject Test: Psychology Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #11 : Social Interactions
Consider the following scenario: Jake failed a math test last Friday. His schoolmates accuse him of being dumb and unintelligent, and Jake responds by stating that he had slept very poorly and not been able to study as much as he had wanted.
This scenario best reflects which social psychological construct?
Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory
Gain-loss principle
Diffusion of responsibility
Fundamental attribution error
Fundamental attribution error
The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to people to attribute a negative outcome to individual characteristics when it refers to someone else (Jake being dumb) and attribute a negative outcome to the context of the situation when it refers to themselves (Jake citing his lack of sleep and studying). Cognitive dissonance is the conflict that you feel when your attitudes are not in synch with your behaviors. The gain-loss principle suggests that an evaluation that changes over time has more of an impact than an evaluation that remains constant over time. Diffusion of responsibility occurs when an individual assumes less personal responsibility in a given situation when there are other people present.
Example Question #12 : Social Interactions
A worker receives evaluations from her supervisor every four months. According to Aronson's gain-loss principle, which of the following scenarios would result in the worker having the strongest attraction toward the supervisor at the end of the year?
Negative evaluation, negative evaluation, and positive evaluation
Positive evaluation, positive evaluation, and negative evaluation
Positive evaluation, positive evaluation, and positive evaluation
Positive evaluation, negative evaluation, and negative evaluation
Negative evaluation, negative evaluation, and positive evaluation
Example Question #13 : Social Interactions
Tony used to believe that studying for exams was a waste of time, but now that he is using Varsity Tutors and other online resources, he is beginning to think they have value. Tony is most likely experiencing...
Foot in the door phenomenon
Social judgement theory
Social Loafing
Role playing
Cognitive dissonance
Cognitive dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is the theory that your attitudes and actions will eventually align; if they are not congruent, either your attitudes or your actions will change. In this case, Tony's attitude is changing to align with his actions (using online testing resources).
Example Question #14 : Social Interactions
Which social psychologist is not correctly matched with his/her most famous finding?
Sheriff: social judgement
Milgram: obedience
Festinger: cognitive dissonance
Ashe: door in the face
Zimbardo: role playing
Ashe: door in the face
Solomon Ashe was most famous for his conformity study, the line test. The social psychologist most widely recognized for door in the face is Robert Cialdini.
Example Question #15 : Social Interactions
Which of the following social psychological phenomena occurs when individuals are less likely to intervene in a given social situation when more people are present?
Reciprocity norm
Bystander effect
Social exchange
Social loafing
Bystander effect
As stated by the bystander effect, individuals do not feel as responsible for helping others when other individuals are present. According to social psychological research, bystanders are most likely to intervene only when the following conditions are met: they share some similarities with the victim of the crime, are happy overall, feel guilty, and are not focused on their own affairs.
Example Question #16 : Social Interactions
Darla is trying to sell cookies for her girl scout troop. She goes to her neighbor house and asks her to purchase a box of cookies, to which the neighbor agrees. Darla then asks if she would consider purchasing two additional boxes of another type of cookie. Darla is trying to use which technique to get her neightbor to purchase cookies?
Obedience
Minority persuasion
Foot-in-the-door
Door-in-the-face
Foot-in-the-door
Darla first presents a small request and then presents a larger request. This is an example of a "foot-in-the-door" technique. Darla would be practicing "door-in-the-face" if she first presented a large request, then followed it with a smaller request. "Minority persuasion" involves a minority in a group persuading the majority members, and does not fit with this example. "Obedience" occurs when a subordinate complies with an authority figure's request, and is associated with the researcher Milgram.
Example Question #17 : Social Interactions
Consider the following scenario: An high school teacher encounters the principal of the school in the hallway on her way to class. The principle instructs the teacher to immediately leave the campus and purchase a pizza for him. The teacher resists saying that she needs to go teach her class and has a test to give, but the principal repeats and insists on his instructions to get a pizza. The teacher goes to get the pizza and misses the class.
Which of the following classic social psychology experiments was best illustrated by the example scenario?
Phillip Zimbardo's Prison Experiment
Soloman Asch's Conformity Study
Milgram's obedience study
Clark and Clark's Doll Preference Study
Milgram's obedience study
This scenario most resembles Milgram's Obedience Study involved subjects obeying direct instructions from an experimenter to administer shocks to another participant (confederate) even though there appeared to be strong negative consequences. For the teacher in this scenario, she was instructed by an authority figure to leave school and buy a pizza even though she would miss her class if she did. Soloman Asch's Conformity Study involved subjects conforming to an obviously wrong answer that all other group members had agreed upon. Clark and Clark's doll preference study involved a task for White and Black children to select the doll that they liked most. Zimbardo's prison experiment involved members of assigned groups assuming roles (i.e. prison guards, prisoners).
Example Question #18 : Social Interactions
Which of the following best illustrates the door in the face effect?
A salesperson tries to sell a car to a customer for $100,000. The customer resists and the salesperson drops the price to $40,000.
An antique salesperson tells a customer that if she does not buy a ring on that particular day, somebody else probably will.
A non-profit company calls you to ask for a $10 donation. You agree, and then the following month, the company calls again asking for a $20 donation.
An advertisement indicates that anyone who buys two shirts at $20 will be given a third shirt free.
A salesperson tries to sell a car to a customer for $100,000. The customer resists and the salesperson drops the price to $40,000.
The door in the face effect refers to a tendency in which people who refuse a large initial request will be more likely to agree to a later smaller request. By dropping the price from $100,000 to $40,000, the customer might believe he/she is getting a good deal even if the car should be priced lower. The non-profit call answer was an example of the foot in the door effect. The other two examples were sales techniques, but not examples of the door in the face effect because there is not a sequence of a large request followed by a smaller one.
Example Question #19 : Social Interactions
Which of the following best illustrates the foot in the door effect?
An advertisement indicates that anyone who buys two shirts at $20 will be given a third shirt free.
A salesperson tries to sell a car to a customer for $100,000. The customer resists and the salesperson drops the price to $40,000.
A non-profit company calls you to ask for a $10 donation. You agree, and then the following month, the company calls again asking for a $20 donation.
An antique salesperson tells a customer that if she does not buy a ring on that particular day, somebody else probably will.
A non-profit company calls you to ask for a $10 donation. You agree, and then the following month, the company calls again asking for a $20 donation.
The foot in the door effect refers to a tendency in which after agreeing to an initial small request, people will be more likely to agree to subsequent larger requests. By asking for a small initial donation of $10, the donor would be more likely to give $20 the following month than if the donor had been asked for $20 to begin with. The price drop on the car answer was an example of the door in the face effect. The other two examples were sales techniques, but not examples of the door in the face effect because there is not a sequence of a large request followed by a smaller one.
Example Question #20 : Social Interactions
Which of the following was the main finding of Milgram's classic study on obedience and conformity?
Subjects shocked peoaple and the majority continued shocking up to maximum voltage
Subjects yield to group pressure and chose incorrect line
Black and white children preferred white dolls
Individuals estimates of movement conformed to group's
Subjects shocked peoaple and the majority continued shocking up to maximum voltage
Stanley Milgram's Obedience Experiment involved an experimenter instructing participants to administer shocks to an confederate subject in an adjacent room when the subject answered "incorrectly". (No shocks were actually administered). The majority of participants continued to "administer shocks" at high levels when instructed to do so by the experimenter. Asch's classic conformity study involved subject's comparing lengths of lines and Sherif's classic conformity study examined the autokinetic effect. Clark and Clark performed a study on doll preference, but this was not a conformity/obedience study.