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Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Social Psychology

Video Exercises

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Vote for You!

Researchers have shown that voters can be swayed toward choosing a candidate by making the candidate look more like the voter. These visual manipulations were unnoticed, but were enough to swing the 2004 presidential election in the following video.

Interviewee: Jeremy Bailenson, Stanford University

Copyright © ScienCentral, Inc. Morph images courtesy Nick Yee, Stanford University.

1.
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Politics is all about persuasion. Candidates want to persuade us to vote for them. Your textbook describes two routes to persuasion from the elaboration likelihood model. When people are disposed to vote for someone because the person looks like them, which of these two routes is most likely to be involved?
2.
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Our decisions can be influenced by how much we like someone and how attractive we perceive him or her to be. Why might the morph pictures make the candidates appear more likeable or attractive?
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Monkeys Show Their Generous Side

The idea that "it’s better to give than receive" may not be limited to just humans. Now researchers have found a group of monkeys that seem to get pleasure from giving.

Interviewee: Frans de Waal, Yerkes National Primate Research Center

Copyright © ScienCentral, Inc. with additional footage courtesy Oregon Health and Science University.

3.
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Use Robert Trivers’s theory to explain why a monkey might be more likely to help a relative or acquaintance than a stranger, as explained in the video.
4.
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Is it possible that monkeys have stereotypes about other monkeys? Based on “Stereotypes Can Lead to Prejudices,” how might monkeys differently view their relatives and acquaintances, on the one hand, and strangers, on the other hand?
5.
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If monkeys actually do view other monkeys using the categories from question 2, what phenomenon might explain the different ways the monkeys treated the strangers and acquaintances?
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Voting Influence

Researchers have discovered that where you vote can influence how you vote. They found that images that surround you, what consumer researchers call “cues,” could influence your decisions.

Interviewee: Jonah Berger, Wharton School

Copyright © ScienCentral, Inc., with additional footage courtesy ABC News.

Voting is supposed to take place in neutral locations where the voter is not influenced by anything but his or her beliefs and preferences. However, this research suggests that it may be very difficult to find any location that is genuinely neutral.

6.
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There are two research studies reported in this video. How do the research methods differ in the two studies? Is either one a genuine experiment?
7.
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Using Dr. Berger’s interpretation of how these images influence people’s behavior, which of the two routes to persuasion (see your answer to question 2) would fit the pictures’ influence?
8.
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According to Dr. Berger’s interpretation of the effects of the pictures, which people are most likely to be influenced by the school-related pictures?
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Enjoying Aggression

Is aggressive behavior something that sometimes happens just because we like it? As this ScienCentral news report explains, research done on mice suggests we enjoy it the same way we enjoy other addicting activities.

Interviewee: Craig Kennedy, Vanderbilt University

Copyright © ScienCentral, Inc.

The reasons for aggression can be complicated. Why are some people more aggressive than others, and what effect does aggression have on them? This video, along with the textbook, gives us an interesting perspective on the neuroscience of aggression.

9.
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Which neurotransmitter does your textbook discuss in relation to aggression?
10.
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Based on your reading of the textbook, would you expect high levels of the neurotransmitter you answered in question 1 to lead to more or less aggression?
11.
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Which neurotransmitter does the video emphasize in relation to aggression?
12.
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Based on the video, would you expect that high levels of the neurotransmitter you answered in question 3 to be associated with more or less aggression? Does the video suggest that this neurotransmitter is the cause of aggression?
13.
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If you wanted to reduce or minimize aggression in some individuals, and you had pills that could regulate both of these neurotransmitters, what levels (high or low) of the two neurotransmitters would you produce?
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Mood and Money

Feeling sad and bad about ourselves is not only unpleasant — it can also be hard on our wallets. Psychology researchers have found that these emotions can cost you three times more for the same item than being in a better mood, as this ScienCentral News video reports.

Interviewee: Cynthia Cryder, Carnegie Mellon University

Copyright © ScienCentral, Inc.

Chapter 12 is about motivation and emotion. This video puts those two psychological phenomena together in an interesting way.

14.
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Let’s start by being sure we know what psychologists mean when they use the term “motivation.” What is the textbook’s definition?
15.
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Some motivating factors come from inside. For instance, when you are hungry, that hunger feeling energizes you to find food. Hunger is an “internal drive” in the terminology of the book. But other times, the factors that motivate behavior come from the outside. What is the term for external factors that motivate behavior?
16.
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In this video, what specific external motivating factor was used to get people to participate in the study? Be specific.
17.
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Spending money is an example of a motivated behavior. (At least we hope you don’t just spend money randomly!) After the participants completed the first part of the study, they were presented with a new external factor. What was this?
18.
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The researchers were interested in the effects of mood on motivated behavior. They randomly assigned participants a sad mood condition or a neutral mood condition. How did they manipulate mood of the participants?
19.
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If spending money is motivated behavior, what was the effect of mood on motivated behavior in this study?
20.
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The study was a bit more complex than the video could explain. The researchers interpreted their findings as suggesting that, when we are sad, we tend to feel bad about ourselves—we “devalue” ourselves. They believe that this devaluing of our selves leads us to try to enhance how we feel about ourselves—to feel better about ourselves—by overvaluing material objects.

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