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29 multiple-choice questions and 12 flashcards on Social Psychology, about 19% of the HS Psychology bank. Every one carries a written rationale.
Social Psychology is one of 13 chapters in CoStudy's HS Psychology bank, and it holds 29 of the bank's 150 multiple-choice questions — roughly 19% of the total. That proportion is not arbitrary: chapters follow the certifying body's published exam outline, and the number of questions in each is set by that domain's published weight, so the share of your practice time this chapter takes matches the share of the real exam it accounts for.
Studying by chapter is worth doing once you have a diagnostic score. A single overall percentage tells you whether you are close; it does not tell you which domain is dragging. Working a weak chapter in isolation, and re-testing it in isolation, is the fastest way to move a score that has stalled — and it is why the mock exams in CoStudy report by domain rather than as one number.
10 questions drawn from this chapter, with the full rationale shown — the controlling principle behind the right answer, and why each wrong option tempts and fails.
According to the Atkinson-Shiffrin model, the three main memory stores are:
Answer: B — Sensory memory, short-term memory, long-term memory
The classic three-store model: information passes from sensory memory (briefly) → short-term/working memory → long-term memory through attention and rehearsal.
The two-track sensation model of vision suggests that:
Answer: B — Visual information travels through both conscious processing and faster unconscious processing
Visual processing involves parallel pathways: dorsal (where/how) and ventral (what), with both conscious and rapid unconscious aspects.
Psychology is best defined as the scientific study of:
Answer: B — Behavior and mental processes
Psychology is the scientific study of observable behavior and inferable mental processes (thoughts, feelings, cognition).
Maslow's hierarchy of needs places which need at the top (self-fulfillment)?
Answer: D — Self-actualization
Maslow's pyramid: physiological → safety → belonging → esteem → self-actualization. Some later versions add self-transcendence above.
An IQ of 100 represents:
Answer: C — The mean (average) of standardized intelligence test scores
Modern IQ tests are scaled so that 100 is the mean, with a standard deviation of 15 in most tests (e.g., Wechsler scales).
Ethical principles in psychological research:
Answer: C — Informed consent, minimizing harm, deception only with strong justification + debriefing, confidentiality, IRB approval, special protections for minors and vulnerable populations
Ethical principles: APA Ethics Code, federal Common Rule. IRB review required. Famous unethical studies (Tuskegee, Stanford Prison, Little Albert) shaped current standards. Informed consent foundational. Special concerns: children, prisoners, those with diminished capacity. Anonymity vs. confidentiality.
In B.F. Skinner's operant conditioning, a 'negative reinforcement' is:
Answer: B — Removal of an aversive stimulus to increase behavior
Negative reinforcement removes something unpleasant to increase a behavior (e.g., taking aspirin to stop a headache). It is NOT punishment.
Albert Bandura's Bobo doll experiment is best known for demonstrating:
Answer: B — Observational learning — children imitating aggressive behavior modeled by adults
Bandura showed children imitated adults' aggression toward an inflatable doll, establishing observational/social learning as a key mechanism.
An independent variable in a psychology experiment is:
Answer: D — The factor the experimenter manipulates
The independent variable is what the experimenter manipulates; the dependent variable is what they measure as the outcome.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to:
Answer: D — Search for, interpret, and remember information that confirms one's preexisting beliefs
Confirmation bias is a pervasive cognitive bias where people preferentially attend to belief-confirming information and discount disconfirming evidence.
3 cards from the 12 in this chapter.
Obedience (Milgram)?
Most participants administered "shocks" up to 450V when authority told them to. Disturbing finding.
Conformity (Asch)?
People conform to group even when wrong. Asch's line experiment.
Fundamental attribution error?
Overemphasize personality, underemphasize situation when judging others.
These are a sample. The full Social Psychology chapter runs 41 items with per-chapter progress tracking, on the web and in the iOS app.