Lesson 1.1.6

1.1.6 Individual and developmental differences in obedience and prejudice Quiz: Pearson Edexcel Psychology, Unit 1

20 questions

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Lesson 1.1.6, Individual and developmental differences in obedience and prejudice: 20 multiple choice questions for the Pearson Edexcel Psychology (9PS0), Unit 1: Social psychology, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. Which personality trait is linked to greater obedience in the research described?

    • Creativity, which involves a preference for novel ideas and a willingness to challenge existing norms
    • Openness to experience, which involves a preference for new ideas and a willingness to explore alternatives
    • Authoritarianism, which involves respect for authority and conventional values
    • Extraversion, which involves a preference for social interaction and high levels of outgoing behaviour

  2. A person high in authoritarianism is most likely to show which pattern of behaviour?

    • Greater respect for authority and stronger prejudice towards groups seen as outside conventional values
    • Equal respect for all authorities and no prejudice towards any group, whatever its characteristics
    • Random responses to authority and prejudice that changes from day to day without any clear pattern
    • Less respect for authority and weaker prejudice towards groups seen as outside conventional values

  3. Which statement describes a dispositional explanation of prejudice?

    • Prejudice is explained by the immediate situation, with no stable personality traits involved in the response
    • Prejudice is explained by stable personality characteristics that a person carries from situation to situation
    • Prejudice is explained only by the time of day at which the interaction takes place with others
    • Prejudice is explained only by the number of people present in the room during an interaction

  4. What does the phrase 'obedience is affected by personality' mean in the specification?

    • Obedience is controlled by the genes of the authority figure, not by the traits of the participant
    • Personality determines obedience only in children, and adults are always fully unaffected by personality
    • All people obey in exactly the same way, so personality plays no part in obedience at all
    • Some people are more or less likely to obey because of stable traits such as authoritarianism

  5. Which evaluation point is most relevant to explanations of prejudice that rely on personality?

    • They may overlook situational factors, such as competition between groups, that also shape prejudice
    • They always explain prejudice completely, so situational factors such as competition are never relevant at all
    • They rely only on animal research, so they cannot be applied to human prejudice in any setting at all
    • They cannot be tested with questionnaires, so they have no empirical support of any kind in the literature

  6. Which phrase best captures the interaction of personality and situation in obedience?

    • Obedience depends only on luck, since neither personality nor situation can predict behaviour in any way
    • Obedience depends entirely on personality, so the situation a person is in makes no difference at all
    • Obedience depends entirely on the situation, so a person's character plays no part in whether they obey
    • Obedience depends on both who the person is and what the situation asks of them

  7. A psychologist gives participants a personality questionnaire and then measures obedience. What is she most likely testing?

    • Whether the learner's responses change with the voltage, using a repeated measures design
    • Whether the participant's age changes their memory for the procedure, using a matched pairs design
    • Whether a stable trait predicts obedience, using a correlational design
    • Whether the experimenter's presence causes obedience, using an independent groups experimental design

  8. Which of these is a limitation of trait-based explanations of obedience?

    • They focus only on the learner, so they tell us nothing about the behaviour of the participant at all
    • They cannot be measured at all, so no evidence has ever been collected for any trait-based explanation
    • They may underestimate the influence of situational factors such as legitimacy and proximity
    • They always predict obedience perfectly in every situation, so no further explanation is ever needed

  9. Which evaluation point applies to using personality questionnaires in research on prejudice?

    • Questionnaires cannot be given to adults, so they are only useful for research with children in schools
    • Participants may give socially desirable answers, which can reduce the validity of the questionnaire data
    • Participants always answer questionnaires perfectly honestly, so questionnaire data are never affected by bias
    • Questionnaires measure the physical size of the brain, so they tell us nothing about personality or attitudes

  10. Developmental research suggests that obedience can be affected by gender and culture. What type of factor is this?

    • Purely genetic effects, since gender and culture are fixed at birth and cannot be changed by experience
    • Environmental effects, since gender roles and cultural norms are learned through upbringing and experience
    • Purely chemical effects, since gender and culture act only through hormones and never through learning
    • Purely random effects, since gender and culture have no consistent influence on any behaviour at all

  11. Which of these is a developmental explanation of prejudice?

    • A sudden change in the brain at the moment a person meets a member of another group for the first time
    • A fixed personality that never changes from birth to death, regardless of experience or social learning
    • Cultural norms learned during childhood can shape prejudice as a person grows up in a particular society
    • A purely random pattern of attitudes that appears without any link to upbringing or social environment

  12. A cross-cultural study finds that prejudice varies between societies with different norms. What does this support?

    • The idea that prejudice is entirely genetic, so culture cannot make any difference to it at all
    • The idea that culture, through environmental effects, can influence the level of prejudice
    • The idea that prejudice depends only on the weather, since climate is the main cause of group attitudes
    • The idea that prejudice never varies, since all societies show exactly the same levels of prejudice

  13. Which of these best reflects the individual differences explanation of obedience and prejudice together?

    • Obedience and prejudice are both caused by the same single gene, which every person either has or lacks
    • Obedience and prejudice have no individual component, since all people respond identically in all situations
    • Stable personality traits can help explain why some people obey more and hold more prejudice than others
    • Obedience and prejudice depend only on the number of years of schooling completed by the participant

  14. Which evaluation point best reflects the nature-nurture issue in individual differences in obedience and prejudice?

    • Trait and cultural explanations show that only the environment matters, so inheritance has no effect at all
    • Trait and cultural explanations show that only genes matter, so the environment has no effect at all
    • Trait and cultural explanations show that both inherited dispositions and learned environments may contribute
    • Trait and cultural explanations show that neither genes nor environment affect behaviour in any way at all

  15. Which claim is most consistent with research on personality and obedience?

    • Personality completely determines whether a person obeys, so the situation does not affect obedience at all
    • Personality never affects obedience, so all differences in obedience come from the situation alone
    • Personality affects obedience only in older adults, so the trait has no relevance for younger people
    • Personality can make some individuals more prone to obey, but the situation still matters a great deal

  16. A researcher finds that people high in authoritarianism show more prejudice towards outsiders. What type of explanation does this support?

    • A situational explanation, since the prejudice depends only on the room in which the participants are tested
    • A developmental explanation, since the prejudice depends only on the age at which the participants were tested
    • A physiological explanation, since the prejudice depends only on the hormone levels measured in the participants
    • A dispositional explanation, since a stable personality trait is linked to prejudice

  17. Which of these is a strength of personality-based explanations of obedience?

    • They can account for obedience without any measurement, so no data are needed to test them at all
    • They can account for why some individuals obey more than others in the same situation
    • They can account for obedience only in children, since personality is fixed before adulthood in all people
    • They can account for why all individuals obey equally in every possible situation with no variation at all

  18. Why might a researcher use a questionnaire to measure personality in research on prejudice?

    • It allows the researcher to directly manipulate the personality of each participant in a controlled way
    • It allows the researcher to observe the participant's actual behaviour in natural settings without any bias
    • It allows the researcher to measure brain activity while the participant answers each question on the form
    • It allows many participants to be assessed quickly, providing scores that can be compared statistically

  19. Which of these is an example of a developmental influence on prejudice?

    • Attitudes that depend only on the amount of sleep a person has in the period before a test is given
    • Attitudes that appear randomly in adulthood without any link to upbringing, culture or social learning
    • Attitudes that are fixed at birth by genes and cannot be changed by any experience in later life at all
    • Attitudes learned in childhood from family and peers, which shape how a person views other groups later

  20. Which of these is a valid conclusion from research on individual differences in prejudice?

    • Personality completely determines prejudice, so the situation and culture have no influence at all
    • Personality determines prejudice only in women, so the findings cannot be applied to men in any way
    • Personality plays no part in prejudice, so all differences are caused by the situation alone in every case
    • Personality may contribute to prejudice, but the situation and culture also play a part

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