Psy 302: Midterm

Multiple Choice
Essays
    Grade Info.
    Answers
Midterm Total

Mean:  23.74
Median:  24.00
S.D.: 2.91
Range: 13-28

(note: numbers go with the bars to their left.)

Mean: 16.39
Median:  16.00
S.D.: 2.65
Range: 10-21 (short answers: 6-12; longer essay: 4-10)

(note: numbers go with the bars to their left.)

Answers
1. Distinguish self esteem from self concept.
Self concept is one's thoughts about what one is good at- abilities, skills, etc.  Self-esteem is one's feelings of self-worth.  While self concept is the content of the self, self esteem is the evaluation of that content.

Note: For this question, you needed to do more than define each separately.
 

2. Define "artifact." Indicate how experimenter expectations about experimental outcomes might produce artifacts.
An artifact is a confound, an additional variable introduced into the experiment that affects the dependent variable, leading to false confirmation of the hypothesis.  Experimenter expectations can produce artifacts if the experimenter inadvertantly treats one treatment group differently from the other, separate from/in addition to the experimental manipulation.
 

3. List one criterion for perceptual "accuracy" and briefly mentions its limitations.
Three possibilites:

• Agreement with other third parties about the disposition of a target can imply accurate perceptions, but all may be subject to the same biases, e.g., the fundamental attribution error.
• Agreement with the target him- or herself can imply accurate perceptions, but the target may not be honest with him- or herself about his or her disposition/reasons for acting.
• Ability to predict future behaviors can imply accurate perceptions, but may not take into account norms and other situational constraints that can affect behavior.

4. What are the characteristics of a communication (that is designed to persuade via central processing) that will make it maximally persuasive?
Such a communication should present strong and compelling arguments and not rely on more superficial, salient cues to persuade individuals. Many people then mentioned a variety of things (sometimes these things were not so connected to central vs. peripheral processing, but pertained to what makes a communication maximally persuasive, more generally. ) You could mention how the message should try to match the way the attitude was formed, how faults/negatives in the argument should only be mentioned if the audience were not opposed to the view, just less extreme, how the audience will have the ability to really process the message, so it's content is important, and so on.
 

Longer Essay.  A questionnaire that investigates people's perceptions of violence is being administered.  The first four questions ask participants to rate the violence level in scenarios that are clearly "violent", though not
extremely so (e.g., a parent hitting his child, a concert-goer pushing someone out of her way as she rushes toward the stage).  For question #5, participants read a description of an ambigously violent incident and must rate how violent they think it is.  How and why might the scenarios read earlier in the questionnaire affect participants' ratings of the ambigously violent incident in question #5 (as opposed to if no previous scenarios were provided)?  Would you expect the ratings to be different if the previously-read incidents described extremely violent acts like mass murders, rapes, and riots? If so, how and why would the ratings change?
The moderately violent scenarios will prime the category/concept of violence.  The ambiguous scenario will be categorized according to what is accessible in the mind of the subject (provided the category is applicable)- in this case, violence is.  So, the scenario will be assimilated to the category, meaning that the subject will perceive the scenario as violent, more violent than if no prime had preceded it.  If the preceding scenarios were exteremely violent, however, there would be a contrast effect, instead.  While the category violence has been primed, the acts depicted are so extreme that the category will not seem applicable to this ambiguous scenario, which, by comparison, is not (so) violent.  The ambiguous scenario, therefore, will be perceived by the subject as much less violent and be rated as such.

Notes:
     You were not expected to have the proper language (assimilation/contrast/accessible/applicable) completely nailed down, and so appropriate credit was given even if you used more "layman's" terms to describe the processes involved.
     Some mentioned anchor & adjustment.  The anchor and adjustment heuristic comes into play when making judgments of the same target, not across targets.
 

Mean: 40.13
Median: 41.00
S.D.: 4.90
Range: 23-48

(note: numbers go with the column to their left.)