Assignment:
Short Essay Questions (answer all 8)
- What is the correspondence bias and why might it occur? Are there cultural variations in the correspondence bias?
- Non-verbal behaviors can be used to serve many functions in communication. Discuss two functions of non-verbal communication, and include two distinct non-verbal behaviors in your discussion.
- What is self-awareness and what are the possible consequences of self-awareness?
- What is self-perception theory and how do we use self-perception to increase our self-knowledge?
- Isa believes herself to be a healthy person that would not do damage to herself. Yet, Isa smokes a pack of cigarettes a day. This situation should create dissonance. Define dissonance and indicate three ways that Isa could reduce dissonance in this situation.
- You decide to start a neighborhood watch program. You want the members to be devoted to the group, to attend meetings regularly, and to be involved. How could you employ strategies of effort justification and dissonance to increase devotion and involvement in the organization?
- Fear-arousing messages can be persuasive. Discuss the circumstances that lead fear-arousing messages to be persuasive and give an example of a fear-arousing message.
- Do subliminal messages work? Discuss the effects of subliminal messages in both in-laboratory studies and in real-world applications.
Expanded Essays (choose 2 to answer)
- Summarize the results of the Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) $1/$20 experiment. How do the dissonance theorists explain the findings? How do self-perception theorists explain the findings? What additional research findings have updated the traditional cognitive dissonance findings? What resolution exists between the cognitive dissonance theory and the self-perception theory?
- Two theories are presented in the text to explain attitude change: the Yale approach to attitude change and the elaboration likelihood approach. Summarize the two approaches and compare and contrast the two approaches. Describe when people are more likely to be persuaded by each approach.
- What is the two-factor theory of emotion and how can it lead to a misattribution of arousal?
Keep the following points in mind:
- Clear demonstration of understanding of correspondence bias, non-verbal behaviors and communication, and self-awareness, self-perception theory, and its role in increasing our self-knowledge.
- Sound analysis of the two theories that are presented in the text to explain attitude change and evincing an understanding of the two-factor theory of emotion and the appraisal theory of emotion.