1. Choose two peripheral route strategies for persuasion mentioned in the text. For each strategy, explain how priming enhances, or is critical to, the effectiveness of that strategy.
2. Robert Musil, an Austrian novelist, once said: "One does what one is; one becomes what one does." Use research in Chapter 4 to explain why you think one half of the quote is probably more likely to be true than the other half of the quote.
3. Answer the following:
4. a) Use self-perception theory to explain why role playing is effective at producing attitude change.
b) Use self-perception theory to explain the foot-in-the-door phenomenon. Be sure to use the terminology of self-perception theory in your answer.
5. Researchers have found that people who express more self-confidence more often find themselves satisfying their life goals.
a) Does this research describe a correlation or a causal relationship? Explain.
b) If you said it described a correlation, change the wording so it describes a causal relationship. If you said it describes a causal relationship, change the wording so it only describes a correlation.
6. a) If multiplying
numbers quickly is actually a fairly difficult task, why might the presence
of others hurt one's performance on that task according to Zajonc's mere presence
theory?
b) If multiplying numbers quickly is a fairly easy task for
someone, why might the presence of others still hurt that person's performance
according to another theory?
7. Social facilitation and social loafing both suggest that the presence of others can lessen our performance. How is the process of lessening performance different in the two phenomena?
8. Do you believe different gender roles exist primarily because of cultural influences or primarily because of biological influences? Defend one position or the other using evidence from Chapter 5 to support your position.
9. You are trying
to design a strategy to do one of the following: 1) persuade American consumers
that McDonalds has tasty food (right now, Americans don't believe McDonalds'
food is as tasty as that of other fast food restaurants) or 2) persuade prospective
high school students in Illinois that they should attend North Central College.
Pick one.
a) Explain why you might choose to make a persuasive appeal through the central
route to persuasion for that product.
b) Using research on persuasion presented in class or the text, describe a strategy
for trying to persuade that audience through the central route.
10. You are trying
to design a strategy to do one of the following: 1) persuade American consumers
that McDonalds has tasty food (right now, Americans don't believe McDonalds'
food is as tasty as that of other fast food restaurants) or 2) persuade prospective
high school students in Illinois that they should attend North Central College.
Pick one.
a) Explain why you might choose to make a persuasive appeal through the peripheral
route to persuasion for that product.
b) Using research on persuasion presented in class or the text, describe a strategy
for trying to persuade that audience through the peripheral route.
11. Briefly describe an example of a past or current conflict between a group you belong to and some other group. Use the research on the prisoner's dilemma and the Robber's Cave summer camp to suggest two strategies that could be used to reduce the conflict you described.
12. Use each of the three social motives discussed earlier in the term to explain why the ingroup bias is a common phenomenon.
13. a) Is informational influence more likely to promote compliance or acceptance? Explain.
b) Is normative influence more likely to promote compliance or acceptance? Explain.
c) Describe an example of conformity that contains all four: normative influence, informational influence, compliance and acceptance.
14. I am eating out at a restaurant with my friends. They have all ordered and now it is my turn to order. Using the research on what predicts conformity, what would be three questions you would like to ask me about the situation to determine how likely it is that I will conform to what my friends ordered? Specifically, write the three questions, and briefly explain why you selected those questions in terms of the research.
15. a) North Central College has established a new recycling program on campus with the blue bins. Use one of Cialdini's six persuasion principles to describe how the College could increase the number of people participating in the program. Be sure to identify the principles in your answer.
b) Use a second principle to explain how the College's efforts might fail to convince people to recycle.
c) Use a third principle to describe how the College might overcome the problem you mentioned in b).
16. Do we ever find correspondent change? Yes, correspondent change can occur. But, according to Ch. 4 we typically find correspondent change only under certain conditions. Use a specific persuasion strategy discussed in Ch. 7 (central and peripheral are not specific strategies) to illustrate how sometimes attitude change may not lead to correspondent change. Use a different specific persuasion strategy from Ch. 7 to illustrate how attitude change can lead to correspondent change under one or more of the conditions described in Ch. 4. (Be sure to identify the condition(s) from Ch. 4 that you are addressing in your answer.)
17. a) According to the research in Ch. 13, would bringing groups of Arab-Americans and Jewish-Americans together in this country to discuss the conflict in the Middle East likely help reduce the conflict between Arab-Americans and Jewish-Americans? Explain.
b) According to the research in Ch. 13, would bringing groups of Palestinians and Israelis together in the Middle East to discuss the conflict in the Middle East likely help reduce the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis? Explain.