Blog

Imagine that your coworker wants you to take over some of his more difficult duties at work. Although you have told him clearly that you do not want these duties, he keeps trying to persuade you to accept them and presents multiple poor-quality arguments.   (a) Using the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion discussed in the textbook, describe one way that you can protect yourself against your coworker’s persuasion attempts. (b) State which route to persuasion strategy you used, and why it is likely to be protective. 

Extra Credit Question: Which of the following is not a strategy that people use to manage their self-image?

Imagine that you have a positive attitude about shoes with cats on them. Which of the following represents an example of operant conditioning that might account for your attitude toward shoes with cats on them, according to the textbook?

Your friend asks you to go see a movie with them on a Friday night. Although you had planned to study, you decide to join them. As described in the textbook, which category of social influence does this represent?

Based on Festinger and Carlsmith’s (1959) study we discussed in class, which of the following scenarios is most likely to produce cognitive dissonance?

Please discuss: 1) the relationship/ distinction between goals and motives, and 2) give a novel, specific example of a goal-motive pair that illustrates this relationship (e.g., an example not used in lecture, not an example from a novel).

In class, we discussed a study by Gilovich and colleagues (2000) illustrating the Spotlight Effect, in which some students were randomly assigned to wear an out-of-date band T-shirt in public. What did this study find?

Which of the following is NOT one of the fundamental goals that motivate social behavior, as listed in your textbook?

Your friend, Pennywise, likes to try to resist social influence. For example, any time that someone tries to convince Pennywise to be more sociable and friendly, he reacts by doing the opposite, withdrawing from all social situations to hibernate for 27 years. According to the text and lecture, which of the following theories best explains Pennywise’s resistance to social influence?

An experimenter randomly assigns participants to watch one of two videos: a video of a superhero who is celebrated for beating up his enemies; or a video of a villain who is punished for beating up his enemies. The experimenter predicts that participants who watched the superhero will be more willing to aggress against other participants in a game, by blasting them with uncomfortably loud noise bursts, than those who watched the villain. This hypothesis best reflects which major theoretical perspective?