Social - GRE Subject Test: Psychology

When individuals make decisions based on how easy it is to imagine similar instances, they're using what is known as the availability heuristic. Shark attacks are far more likely to be covered by news sources than asthma-related deaths; thus, stories of shark-related deaths are more available in one's memory.

According to cognitive dissonance theory, Cindy will feel conflicted over her desire to join the sorority and need to complete difficult challenges. After she is a part of the sorority, she will attempt to manage this conflict by liking the sorority more; therefore, justifying her actions.

The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to attribute other people's behaviors to internal or dispositional factors. A person who passes a car accident and commits the fundamental attribution error would attribute blame for the accident to the person. The fundamental attribution error does not say anything about how we make attributions about our own behavior; however, the actor-observer bias says that we tend to make dispositional attributions for the behavior of others and situational attributions for our own behaviors.

The bystander effect is related to diffusion of responsibility, and states that bystanders are less likely to help a victim if other bystanders are present. For example, if a person is having a medical emergency, he will be less likely to be helped if he is in a large crowd. The bystander effect says he would be most likely to be helped if only one or two other people are present, since the bystanders are more likely to feel responsible for helping.

Aronson's gain-loss principle states that an evaluation that changes will have more of an impact than an evaluation that remains constant. Therefore, the worker would like the manager most if their evaluation had become more positive (e.g. shown a gain) over time compared to the manager who has consistently given the worker a positive evaluation or the manager who had shown a loss (e.g. received a negative evaluation after a positive evaluation).

Cognitive dissonance is the conflict that you feel when your attitudes are not in synch with your behaviors. In order to resolve the dissonance, the theory suggests that individuals either change their attitudes (in this case, deciding that Susan was okay) OR change their behavior (would have occurred if Nancy had stopped wearing the outfit). The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to attribute someone else's negative outcome to their individual character or personality while attributing our own negative outcomes to our circumstances. 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.

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.

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).

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.

John Bowlby and colleagues have studied attachment styles and their correlates by examining the health of adult relationships. The choices provided are terms that Bowlby coined to capture the four major categories of attachment styles. As the name implies, secure attachment denotes the healthiest style and the surest predictor of happy and trusting relationships.

Sternberg proposed a tri-pointed model of romantic love that he entitled, "Triangular Theory of Love." While communication is always at the core of a healthy relationship, it is not one of the three primary factors in his model whereas the remaining three responses listed in this question are. For Sternberg, intimacy, passion, and commitment coalesce into what he calls consummate love.

The 2010 movie 'She's Out of My League' captured this social psychological concept with comedic accuracy. The matching hypothesis describes the well-documented social tendency of pairing with a romantic partner who society would deem roughly equivalent in terms of physical attraction. Even if that's not what we value most highly, looks seem to set a range for whom we consider.

The disclosure reciprocity effect describes the process by which the act of two people sharing their feelings and/or secrets can facilitate emotional closeness between the two and increase attraction.

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a mood disorder associated with episodes of depression in the fall and winter months. It appears to be related to a lack of sunshine, causing increased melatonin production by the pineal gland. Seasonal affective disorder can be helped by phototherapy with bright white fluorescent lights.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) occurs when a person who has gone through a significant trauma shows stress symptoms that impair the person's ability to function. The trauma can be combat, torture or abuse, a life-threatening accident, a natural disater, or loss of a loved one.

Generalized anxiety disorder consists of persistent, excessive worrying that is not focused on one particular situation. Panic disorder is characterized by sudden, brief attacks of intense fear that rise abruptly, often for no reason. Situational phobias involve a fear of specific situations; crowded spaces, heights, flying, and confined spaces. Somatoform disorder occurs when there is no identifiable physical cause to explain physical symptoms.

The double-bind hypothesis suggests that in childhood, individuals with schizophrenia received disorganized and contradictory messages from his or her mother. For instance, a child may have been told to eat as much as he wanted, but punished after he finished eating. According to the theory, these individuals internalize the disorganized messages and lead to a warped perception of reality.

Aaron Beck—a cognitive psychologist—hypothesized that depression was the result of cognitive errors. In other words, depressed people were more likely to interpret the world in a maladaptive way. They have negative thoughts about themselves, the world around them, and the future. He hypothesized that all three of these cognitive beliefs feed into one another and fuel depressive thoughts that produces a vicious cycle.

Sensation seeking is an important factor in understanding the cause and development of addictions—including substance abuse. When sensation seeking is elevated in a given individual, it can sometimes be channeled into healthy avenues that include competitive sports and leadership; however, it often results in seeking pleasurable experiences that end up becoming harmful habits. Individuals with elevated sensation seeking tendencies require more stimulation than the average individual to feel the same amount of pleasure or satisfaction.

Prosopagnosia is also known as face blindness. It results from head trauma or degenerative diseases. One symptom indicative of this disorder is the patient’s reliance on non-facial cues, such as hair, clothing, or accessories, to distinguish between individuals' faces.