Explore AP Psychology Unit 4 questions on person perception, attitudes, social influence, group behavior, prosocial behavior, personality, and motivation.
Ruth is bored at home alone, so she decides to watch a scary movie. At the most tense part of the movie, when
a large, scary-looking creature is being chased through the village by an angry mob, Ruth's roommate Lynn
comes home unexpectedly and flips on the lights. Ruth is startled and spills her hot chocolate on herself.
Part A
Explain how each of the following relates to the scenario above.
- Optimal arousal theory
- Motor neurons
- Somatosensory cortex
Part A Ruth is bored at home alone, so she decides to watch a scary movie. At the most tense
part of the movie, when a large, scary-looking creature is being chased through the
village by an angry mob, Ruth's roommate Lynn comes home unexpectedly and flips on
the lights. Ruth is startled and spills her hot chocolate on herself.
Explain how each of the following relates to the scenario above.
Optimal arousal theory
1 point
The response must indicate that Ruth is motivated to watch the scary movie in order
increase her level of arousal.
OR
The response must indicate that after her roommate startles her, Ruth does something to
lower her level of arousal to a desired level.
Acceptable explanations include:
- Ruth is at a lower arousal than she would like (hence the boredom). So, she decides to
watch the scary movie to bring up her arousal level to a more desirable level for her.
Unacceptable explanations include:
Responses that refer to the Yerkes-Dodson law without describing a change in arousal.
- The optimal arousal theory says that people perform best when their arousal level is
neither too high nor too low.
- Ruth's arousal increases when she is startled by her roommate.
Motor neurons
1 point
The response must indicate that motor neurons are enabling a specific physical
movement in the scenario.
Acceptable explanations include:
- Motor neurons allow Ruth to reach for a towel to clean up the spilled hot chocolate.
- The creature's motor neurons allow him to run through the village.
- Ruth reflexively jumps when Lynn startles her.
Unacceptable explanations include:
Responses that include multiple functions.
- Ruth's motor neurons allow Lynn to flip on the lights and allow Ruth to watch the
movie, taste the hot chocolate, and feel burned when she spills the hot chocolate on
herself.
Somatosensory cortex
The response must indicate the contribution of the somatosensory cortex to Ruth's sense
of touch (e.g., temperature, body position, pressure, texture, pain) in the context of the
scenario.
Acceptable explanations include:
- Ruth's somatosensory cortex allows her to feel pain after she spilled the hot chocolate
all over herself.
Unacceptable explanations include:
Responses that refer to other senses (e.g., taste, smell, etc.) as being governed by the
somatosensory cortex.
Responses that refer to "feel" as an emotion rather than a touch sensation.
- Ruth's somatosensory cortex allows her to taste her delicious hot chocolate.
Part B
As they are cleaning up, Ruth tells Lynn the plot of the movie she was watching. While the creature
was large and scary-looking, he was actually quite gentle and friendly. The villagers discussed the
situation and concluded that the creature was going to hurt them, so they grabbed their torches and
pitchforks and chased him out of town. As the creature tried to escape, he tripped over a rock and
knocked down a villager.
Explain how each of the following concepts relates to the villagers' perceptions during this scene in the
movie.
- Out-group homogeneity bias
- Fundamental attribution error
Out-group homogeneity bias
response must indicate that the villagers have the perception that creatures all share
the same characteristics OR that creatures are all the same.
Acceptable explanations include:
The villagers in the movies think that all creatures are mean and evil.
Unacceptable explanations include:
Responses that refer to the villagers and the creature as being within the same group.
- The creatures and the villagers live in an area that has a lot of bias towards others.
1 point
Fundamental attribution error
response must indicate that the villagers perceive the creature's behavior as due to
some dispositional quality rather than the situation.
Acceptable explanations include:
Responses must contrast dispositional and situational attributions to score.
- The villagers assume that the creature knocked the villager over because he is
evil rather than because he was being chased.
Unacceptable explanations include:
- The villagers think the creature is mean.
Group polarization
response must indicate that the villagers, individually, are already threatened or
scared of the creature.
AND
The response must indicate that these feelings become more extreme when they meet to
discuss what to do about the creature.
Acceptable explanations include:
- Before the meeting, the villagers thought that the creature was terrible, and after the
meeting they thought that the creature was even more terrible.
Unacceptable explanations include:
- Some villagers actually thought the creature was probably okay, and they should
leave him alone, but they didn't say anything because they wanted to maintain group
harmony.
Rayce is exploring the idea of using online videos to sell his line of custom-made skateboards. While his friend
is making a video of him performing tricks at a local skate park, a large crowd forms to watch. Each time
Rayce successfully completes a trick, the crowd loudly applauds and yells, showing their approval.
Part A
Explain how each of the following relates to Rayce's skateboarding while the crowd is watching him.
- Vestibular sense
- Social facilitation
Social facilitation
response must indicate that Rayce will perform his tricks better if there is an
audience present.
OR
The response must indicate Rayce will perform less well at a certain trick if he is not very
good at that trick if an audience is present.
Acceptable explanations include:
- After the crowd gathers, his jumps are higher, and his turns are tighter because of
the crowd's presence.
- Because he is doing a fairly new trick the presence of a crowd impedes his
performance.
Unacceptable explanations include:
- Rayce is very social, so he enjoys performing in front of the crowd.
Incentive theory
response must indicate that Rayce is motivated to perform because he is receiving
some external reward (e.g., money, praise, applause, cheering, approval).
Acceptable explanations include:
- Rayce rides his skateboard for the crowd because he wants the applause
from the crowd.
Unacceptable explanations include:
Responses that refer to intrinsic motivation.
- Rayce likes skateboarding because he finds it fun.
Part B
Later, Rayce puts the video of himself online, complete with bright graphics and fast-tempo music. He
quickly gains new customers for his business by allowing people to try his skateboard free for an hour.
Explain how each of the following relates to the effectiveness of this sales campaign.
- Divergent thinking
- Peripheral route to persuasion
- Reciprocity norm
Peripheral route to persuasion
response must indicate the campaign used attention-grabbing elements.
Acceptable explanations include:
- Rayce uses graphics and music in his video to persuade people to buy his
skateboards.
- Customers are persuaded to buy the boards by the cool soundtrack in the video.
Unacceptable explanations include:
Responses that refer to central route to persuasion or specific information (e.g., facts,
statistics, logic, details) about the skateboard.
- Rayce informs people about a study that was conducted that showed that his
skateboards allow skaters to jump three inches (on average) higher than they
normally do when performing an Ollie.
Reciprocity norm
response must indicate that because potential customers are getting something
from Rayce (e.g., one-hour free trial, a sticker, cool hat), they feel obliged to return the
favor by making a purchase or promoting the product.
Acceptable explanations include:
- Because Rayce allowed them to try the skateboard for free, customers returned
the favor by buying a skateboard.
Unacceptable explanations include:
Responses that do not clearly refer to how the customer reciprocated.
- Rayce was nice and gave customers one free hour with the skateboard, so they
reciprocated.
Responses that refer to motivation or modeling.
- People saw Rayce do cool tricks in the video and wanted to do cool tricks like him.
Mere-exposure effect
response must indicate repeated experience to any element of the ad campaign
leads to increased liking or purchasing.
Acceptable explanations include:
Response can indicate more exposure by referring to the number of exposures to
skateboards or ads.
- The more often that people see the video the more likely they are to buy the
skateboards.
Unacceptable explanations include:
Responses that do not indicate a repeated number of exposures.
- Customers used the skateboard for an hour, so they liked it more.
Responses that refer to liking something right away.
- As soon as customers are exposed to the skateboard, they love it and think it is so
cool.
Psychodynamic theory proposes that a part of the mind known as the ego tries to protect our conscious minds from threatening thoughts using defense mechanisms. Which of the following scenarios illustrates the defense mechanism of reaction formation?
Lola loathes her sister Audrey but tells everyone she knows how much she adores Audrey.
Simeon is terrified of his grandfather but tries to emulate him.
When Evan gets angry at his parents, he breaks things in his room.
When she was six, Bella's parents went through an ugly divorce, but Bella doesn't remember it.
A