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CHALLENGE ACTIVITIES |
| CHALLENGE QUESTIONS |
| After you have mastered the basic concepts from this chapter, you might want to try some of these challenge activities, designed to help you better understand and apply what you have learned to your daily life. |
IDENTIFICATION |
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1. Outline the important ideas under the main topics of attitudes, social influences, and groups. 2. Make a list of twenty glossary terms in this chapter and write a brief definition for each. |
APPLICATION |
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3. Test the primacy/recency effect in impression formation. Asch (1946) reported that subjects who heard a personality profile of someone who was described as "intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, and envious" rated the person as significantly more happy and sociable than other subjects who heard exactly the same personality traits read in the reverse order. This suggests that primacy effect, or first impression, is most important. Develop a list of traits (or use Asch's) that extends from positive to negative. Give several people the list from positive to negative and others from negative to positive. Then ask them to write a brief description of the person. Do you obtain a primacy effect or recency effect? 4. Design a short attitude scale on some topic of interest. Give it to a number of your friends. What did you learn? How difficult is it to write effective questions? Did your subjects correctly interpret them? Do you think a survey can predict behavior? 5. Design a test for conformity. Arrange for several friends to do something unique and observe the reaction of others in the group. For instance, you might ask them to place their books on the floor rather than on their desks. Or they might hum a tune, giggle, stick their tongues out, or look out the window. What percentage of bystanders conform? Explain your results. Make sure you follow ethical guidelines. 6. Design an experiment to test social facilitation. One example might be vowel cancellation. Print a series of letters (including consonants and vowels) on a sheet of paper. Make several copies. Ask half of your subjects to cancel (cross out) each of the vowels when seated in front of a group of people and the rest of the subjects to do it when alone. Time each subject until he or she cancels all of the vowels on the page. According to the social facilitation theory, the subjects in front of a group should complete the task in less time than those alone. |
EVALUATION |
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7. How important is cognitive dissonance in everyday life? 8. Which theory of aggression is most useful in helping to control violence? Why? 9. Why don't people help readily in emergency situations? Design a program to increase helping. 10. Which areas of social psychology are most valuable in understanding everyday behaviors? |
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