Critical Thinking Questions

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29.

Compare and contrast situational influences and dispositional influences and give an example of each. Explain how situational influences and dispositional influences might explain inappropriate behavior.

30.

Provide an example of how people from individualistic and collectivistic cultures would differ in explaining why they won an important sporting event.

31.

Why didn’t the “good” guards in the Stanford prison experiment object to other guards’ abusive behavior? Were the student prisoners simply weak people? Why didn’t they object to being abused?

32.

Describe how social roles, social norms, and scripts were evident in the Stanford prison experiment. How can this experiment be applied to everyday life? Are there any more recent examples where people started fulfilling a role and became abusive?

33.

Give an example (one not used in class or your text) of cognitive dissonance and how an individual might resolve this.

34.

Imagine that you work for an advertising agency, and you’ve been tasked with developing an advertising campaign to increase sales of Bliss Soda. How would you develop an advertisement for this product that uses a central route of persuasion? How would you develop an ad using a peripheral route of persuasion?

35.

Describe how seeking outside opinions can prevent groupthink.

36.

Explain why the following situation is not an example of discrimination: A teacher seats students wearing short sleeves on the left half of the room and students wearing long sleeves on the right half of the room.

37.

Some people seem more willing to openly display prejudice regarding sexual orientation than prejudice regarding race and gender. Descbribe why this might be.

38.

When people blame a scapegoat, how do you think they choose evidence to support the blame?

39.

Compare and contrast hostile and instrumental aggression.

40.

What evidence discussed in the previous section suggests that cyberbullying is difficult to detect and prevent?

41.

Describe what influences whether relationships will be formed.

42.

The evolutionary theory argues that humans are motivated to perpetuate their genes and reproduce. Using an evolutionary perspective, describe traits in men and women that humans find attractive.