AP Psychology › Unit 4
How do other people shape what we think and do? Unit 4 covers attribution, attitudes, persuasion, conformity, obedience, and group behavior, plus theories of personality, motivation, and emotion. Expect scenario questions that ask which concept explains a behavior, and research questions about ethics and data. Students often confuse conformity, going along with a group, with obedience, following a direct order from an authority. Another frequent mistake is mixing up the fundamental attribution error with the self-serving bias, which concerns how we explain our own successes and failures.
These are taken from the Regular set, with the answer and explanation shown.
1. A restaurant manager believes that teenagers are irresponsible, so he refuses to interview any applicant under 18, even those with strong references. Which statement correctly labels the parts of this situation?
Answer: C. A stereotype is a generalized belief about a group (teenagers are irresponsible). It saves mental effort but can bias judgments. Discrimination is behavior that treats people unfairly because of their group, such as refusing to interview anyone under 18.
Common trap: Swapping the labels. Discrimination is always a behavior, something a person does. A belief in someone's head, however unfair, is a stereotype, not discrimination.
2. Jordan, who skips most of his online homework, tells his teacher that "basically everybody" skips it too. A survey of the class later shows that only about 15% of students regularly skip the homework. Jordan's estimate best illustrates
Answer: D. Jordan greatly overestimates how many classmates share his behavior. The false consensus effect is the tendency to overestimate how much other people agree with us or act as we do.
Common trap: Out-group homogeneity bias is seeing members of another group as all alike. Jordan is not stereotyping a different group; he is overestimating how many people are like him.
Researchers served 60 students the same lunch. One hour later, each student rated their hunger from 1 (not at all hungry) to 10 (very hungry). Students were then randomly assigned to work for 30 minutes at a desk with a clear jar of cookies in plain view or an identical jar covered by a cloth. Researchers weighed the jars afterward to find how many grams of cookies each student ate.
| Condition | Hunger rating (mean) | Cookies eaten (mean g) |
|---|---|---|
| Jar in view (n = 30) | 3.1 | 46 |
| Jar covered (n = 30) | 3.2 | 14 |
Hypothetical study and data, written for practice. Not a published study.
3. Which conclusion is best supported by the results?
Answer: B. Both groups were about equally hungry (3.1 and 3.2), yet students who could see the cookies ate more than three times as much (46 versus 14 grams). External factors, such as the presence of food, influence eating beyond internal hunger signals.
Common trap: Choosing the ghrelin option. Ghrelin is a hunger hormone, and hunger ratings were nearly equal in the two groups. Covering the jar reduced eating, which is the opposite of what that option claims.