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7A: Individual Influences on Behavior

Nervous system, genes, personality, disorders, motivation and attitudes: the machinery under one person's behavior, as circuits, curves and rival models.

38 topics · 165 questions

Each topic is a path, not a menu: work down it in order and every question builds on the one above. Click any of them to watch the answer draw itself.

7A. Neurons and the Reflex Arc

  1. How it worksHow does a sensory neuron, an interneuron in the spinal cord and a motor neuron close a loop without the brain?
  2. How it worksWalk me through resting potential, depolarization, the all-or-none spike and the refractory period.
  3. Worked exampleTrace a tap on the patellar tendon from stretch receptor to kicking quadriceps.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't a stronger stimulus carried by a larger action potential?
  5. Going furtherWhat happens to the reflex when descending inhibition from the brain is removed by spinal injury?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
A tap on the patellar tendon travels 95 cm of axon in total, from the stretch receptor into the cord and back out to the quadriceps, at a conduction velocity of 76 m/s. Add 0.5 ms for the single synapse in the cord and 1.5 ms for the muscle to begin shortening. How long after the tap does the kick begin?

7A. Neurotransmitters and Behavior

  1. How it worksHow does a vesicle fusing, crossing a 20 nanometer gap and binding a receptor change the next cell's voltage?
  2. How it worksWalk me through dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, acetylcholine, GABA and glutamate and what each governs.
  3. Worked exampleShow me what happens at the synapse when a reuptake blocker is added to a serotonin pathway.
  4. Common mistakeHow does dopamine act on reward in one pathway and on movement in another?
  5. Going furtherWhat changes about behavior when acetylcholine-producing neurons die off in the basal forebrain?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A microdialysis probe reports extracellular serotonin in a cortical synapse at a baseline of 10 nanomolar. After a reuptake blocker is infused, the same probe reads 46 nanomolar. By what percentage has the extracellular concentration risen above baseline?

7A. The Peripheral Nervous System: Somatic and Autonomic

  1. How it worksHow does the peripheral nervous system branch into somatic and autonomic and then into two opposing divisions?
  2. Worked exampleShow me heart rate, pupils, digestion and bronchi under sympathetic and then parasympathetic control.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't the parasympathetic system simply the sympathetic system turned off?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to organ function when sympathetic and parasympathetic input fire at the same time?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A transplanted heart is completely denervated and beats at its intrinsic pacemaker rate of 110 beats per minute. Before the surgery the same recipient's resting heart rate was 70 beats per minute. How many beats per minute was vagal tone subtracting at rest?

7A. The Central Nervous System and the Spinal Cord

  1. How it worksHow do ascending sensory tracts and descending motor tracts run in separate columns of the cord?
  2. Worked exampleShow me which functions survive a complete transection at C6 versus at L2.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't the spinal cord merely a cable carrying signals up and down?
  4. Going furtherWhat changes about a reflex below the level of a spinal injury once spinal shock resolves?
Your turnhard1 of 3
The cord gives rise to 31 pairs of spinal nerves: 8 cervical, 12 thoracic, 5 lumbar, 5 sacral and 1 coccygeal. A complete transection is made immediately below thoracic segment T8. How many of the 31 pairs are left with no descending control from the brain?

7A. The Hindbrain and the Midbrain

  1. How it worksHow do medulla, pons and cerebellum split breathing, sleep arousal and coordinated movement between them?
  2. How it worksWalk me through the midbrain colliculi routing visual and auditory startle reflexes.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't the cerebellum only involved in balance and posture?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to movement when the cerebellum is damaged but every motor pathway is intact?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A sudden loud sound produces a reflexive head turn 21 milliseconds later by way of the inferior colliculus. A deliberate turn, made only after the sound has been identified in auditory cortex, takes 168 milliseconds. How many times faster is the subcortical route?

7A. The Forebrain and the Four Cortical Lobes

  1. How it worksHow do frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital lobes carve up planning, touch, hearing and vision?
  2. How it worksWalk me through thalamus, hypothalamus, hippocampus and basal ganglia underneath the cortex.
  3. Worked exampleShow me the motor homunculus with the hand and mouth taking more cortex than the whole trunk.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't the amount of cortex given to a body part proportional to that part's size?
  5. Going furtherWhat changes about the homunculus after months of training on a fine motor skill?
Your turneasy1 of 3
On one mapping of the primary motor strip the hand occupies about 26 percent of the cortical surface while accounting for about 4 percent of the body's skin area. By what factor is the hand over-represented relative to its share of the body?

7A. Lateralization of Cortical Functions

  1. How it worksHow does cutting the corpus callosum leave each hemisphere with half a visual field and no way to compare?
  2. Worked exampleShow me what a split-brain patient reports when the word HEART is flashed across the midline.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't a person meaningfully left-brained or right-brained?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to lateralized function when the corpus callosum is intact but one hemisphere is anesthetized?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A split-brain patient is shown 96 words in a session, each flashed briefly to one visual field only, and 56 percent of them fall in the right visual field. Taking language to be in the left hemisphere, about how many of the words can the patient read aloud?

7A. Methods Used in Studying the Brain

  1. How it worksHow do EEG, fMRI, PET, CT and lesion studies trade temporal resolution against spatial resolution?
  2. Worked exampleShow me which method to choose for tracking a 30 millisecond response to a flashed word.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't a bright spot on an fMRI evidence that the region caused the behavior?
  4. Going furtherWhat changes about causal inference when transcranial magnetic stimulation is used instead of imaging?
Your turneasy1 of 3
An EEG amplifier samples each scalp electrode at 757 hertz. How many milliseconds separate consecutive samples?

7A. The Endocrine System and Behavior

  1. How it worksHow does a hormone released into blood reach every cell and act only on the ones with its receptor?
  2. How it worksWalk me through the hypothalamus driving the pituitary and the pituitary driving the other glands.
  3. Worked exampleShow me adrenaline and cortisol arriving on two different timescales after one frightening event.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't hormonal control slower than neural control because the molecules move slowly?
  5. Going furtherWhat happens to behavior when thyroid hormone runs chronically low?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A frightening event triggers adrenaline release that reaches the heart 19 seconds later, while the cortisol produced by the same alarm does not peak in the blood until 25 minutes afterwards. How many times longer does the cortisol response take to arrive?

7A. Behavioral Genetics: Twin and Adoption Studies

  1. How it worksHow does comparing identical and fraternal twins reared together and apart separate genes from environment?
  2. Worked exampleFind the rough heritability of a trait when identical twins correlate 0.80 and fraternal twins 0.45.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't a high heritability the same as a trait being unchangeable?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to a heritability estimate when the sample includes far more varied environments?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
A twin registry reports concordance for a trait of 62 percent in monozygotic pairs and 30 percent in dizygotic pairs. Falconer's estimate puts heritability at twice the difference between the two concordances. What heritability does this study imply, as a percentage?

7A. Genes, Temperament and Gene-Environment Interaction

  1. How it worksHow do gene-environment interaction and gene-environment correlation describe two different couplings?
  2. How it worksWalk me through an inhibited infant selecting quiet environments that then deepen the inhibition.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't nature versus nurture a question with a percentage as its answer?
  4. Going furtherWhat changes about a genetic risk when the environment that triggers it is never encountered?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
A study follows 479 children who all carry the same risk allele. Among those raised in high-adversity homes, 53 percent develop the outcome; among those raised in supportive homes, 19 percent do. If the sample splits evenly between the two rearing conditions, how many more children in total developed the outcome in the adverse half than in the supportive half?

7A. Innate Behavior and the Adaptive Value of Traits

  1. How it worksHow does a fixed action pattern run to completion once a sign stimulus triggers it?
  2. How it worksWalk me through imprinting locking onto whatever moves during a narrow critical window.
  3. Worked exampleShow me why a behavior that shortens an individual's life can still spread through a population.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't an instinctive behavior immune to any influence from experience?
  5. Going furtherWhat happens to genetically based behavioral variation in a population when the environment shifts?
Your turnhard1 of 3
An alarm call costs the caller an average of 5 offspring over its lifetime but warns a full sibling, with whom it shares half its genes. By Hamilton's rule the behaviour spreads when the relatedness times the benefit exceeds the cost. What is the smallest number of extra offspring the sibling must gain for the call to spread?

7A. Prenatal and Motor Development

  1. How it worksHow do the germinal, embryonic and fetal periods lay down systems on a strict schedule?
  2. Worked exampleShow me the teratogen sensitivity curve for the heart, limbs and central nervous system across nine months.
  3. How it worksWalk me through rooting, sucking, Moro and Babinski reflexes appearing and then disappearing.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't motor development a matter of a child being taught how to walk?
  5. Going furtherWhat changes about the milestone timeline when a child is raised in a culture that carries infants constantly?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Clinical dating counts pregnancy from the first day of the last menstrual period, which falls about 2 weeks before conception. A pregnancy is dated at 13 weeks by that convention. How many weeks has the embryo or fetus actually been developing since conception?

7A. Developmental Changes in Adolescence

  1. How it worksHow do a limbic reward system maturing early and a prefrontal cortex maturing late open a gap for years?
  2. Worked exampleShow me both maturation curves plotted from age ten to twenty-five with the gap between them.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't adolescent risk-taking caused by underestimating the danger?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to risky choices when peers are present compared with when the teenager is alone?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Reward sensitivity in the limbic system peaks at about age 16, while the prefrontal control systems reach adult levels at about age 25. For how many years is there a gap between a mature reward system and an immature control system?

7A. The Psychoanalytic Perspective on Personality

  1. How it worksHow do id, ego and superego pull one decision in three directions at once?
  2. How it worksWalk me through repression, projection, displacement, reaction formation and sublimation as defenses.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't psychoanalytic theory testable in the way a trait theory is?
  4. Going furtherWhat changes in the neo-Freudian versions that drop the emphasis on sexual drives?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A person finds a wallet holding 360 dollars on an empty street. They feel an immediate pull to keep it, a wave of guilt at the thought, and end by handing it in at a police station where a reward is offered. Which structure is doing which part of the work?

7A. The Humanistic Perspective on Personality

  1. How it worksHow does the gap between self-concept and ideal self predict how well a person is doing?
  2. How it worksWalk me through unconditional positive regard shrinking that gap over time.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't unconditional positive regard the same as approving of everything a person does?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to the self-concept when regard is made conditional on performance?
Your turnhard1 of 3
On a hundred-point scale a client rates their actual self at 40 and their ideal self at 93. After a course of client-centred therapy, the actual-self rating has risen to 69 while the ideal-self rating is unchanged. What percentage of the original gap between the two has been closed?

7A. The Trait Perspective and the Big Five

  1. How it worksHow does factor analysis find clusters of traits that rise and fall together across many people?
  2. How it worksWalk me through openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism as five sliders.
  3. Worked exampleShow me two people plotted as five-point profiles and where their behavior should diverge.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't a trait score a prediction of how someone will act in any single situation?
  5. Going furtherWhat happens to Big Five scores as a person moves from age twenty to age sixty?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
Longitudinal data show mean conscientiousness rising about 6 percentile points per decade of adult life. A person is at the 50th percentile at age 20. What percentile does the average trajectory put them at by age 63?

7A. The Social Cognitive Perspective on Personality

  1. How it worksHow does reciprocal determinism close a loop between the person, their behavior and the environment?
  2. How it worksWalk me through self-efficacy and locus of control steering which situations a person enters at all.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't behavior in this view simply a product of the environment acting on a passive person?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to the loop when repeated failure teaches a person that nothing they do matters?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Before a mastery experience, students in a study persist on unsolvable puzzles for a mean of 7 attempts before quitting. After being led through a series of solvable problems of increasing difficulty, the same students persist for a mean of 23 attempts. By what percentage has persistence risen?

7A. The Behaviorist and Biological Perspectives on Personality

  1. How it worksHow does a history of reinforcement produce something that looks from the outside like a stable trait?
  2. How it worksWalk me through Eysenck tying extraversion to a baseline level of cortical arousal.
  3. Worked exampleShow me an introvert and an extravert performing on a task as background noise is turned up.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't a biological basis for a trait proof that the trait cannot change?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
On Eysenck's account, performance on a vigilance task is best at one optimal level of cortical arousal, taken here as 76 arbitrary units. An introvert already sits near that optimum with no added stimulation, while an extravert's baseline is only 33 units. How many units of arousal must background noise supply before the extravert reaches the optimum?

7A. The Situational Approach and the Person-Situation Debate

  1. How it worksHow does aggregating behavior across many occasions rescue trait prediction that fails on single acts?
  2. Common mistakeWhy isn't low cross-situational consistency proof that personality does not exist?
  3. Going furtherWhat happens to the power of traits in a strong situation where the rules are obvious to everyone?
Your turnhard1 of 3
A single observed occasion of a behaviour correlates 0.273 with a trait score, which looks disappointingly weak. Aggregating 17 independent occasions raises the correlation according to the Spearman-Brown formula, R = k·r/(1 + (k-1)·r). What correlation does aggregating 17 occasions give?

7A. Biomedical and Biopsychosocial Approaches

  1. How it worksHow does the biopsychosocial model place biological, psychological and social causes on one diagram?
  2. Worked exampleShow me one case of panic disorder explained biomedically and then biopsychosocially side by side.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't finding a biological correlate the same as finding the cause of a disorder?
  4. Going furtherWhat changes about treatment choice when the social layer of the model is taken seriously?
Your turneasy1 of 3
In a trial, 63 percent of patients treated with medication alone have relapsed by twelve months, against 28 percent of patients given the same medication plus psychotherapy and a structured social support programme. By what percentage does the added psychosocial care reduce the relapse rate?

7A. Classifying Psychological Disorders and Their Rates

  1. How it worksHow does a categorical classification system carve a continuous distribution into diagnoses?
  2. Worked exampleShow me lifetime prevalence bars for anxiety, mood, substance and psychotic disorders side by side.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't a diagnosis an explanation of why the person has the symptoms?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to measured prevalence when diagnostic criteria are loosened by one symptom?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A health authority serves a catchment of 303 thousand adults. A class of disorder has a lifetime prevalence of 21 percent in this population. How many adults in the catchment are expected to meet criteria for it at some point in their lives?

7A. Anxiety Disorders

  1. How it worksHow does an amygdala alarm plus catastrophic interpretation lock a fear cycle into place?
  2. How it worksWalk me through generalized anxiety, panic disorder, specific phobia and social anxiety as different shapes.
  3. Worked exampleShow me the anxiety curve during exposure therapy across repeated sessions.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't avoidance the thing that reduces anxiety over the long run?
Your turnhard1 of 3
In exposure therapy a patient's peak anxiety in the first session is 88 on a hundred-point scale. Each subsequent session's peak falls to a fraction of the one before, dropping by 32 percent each time. What is the peak anxiety in the third session?

7A. Obsessive-Compulsive and Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders

  1. How it worksHow does a compulsion get negatively reinforced by the anxiety drop it produces every single time?
  2. How it worksWalk me through intrusion, avoidance, negative mood and arousal as the four clusters of PTSD.
  3. Worked exampleShow me the anxiety curve when a compulsion is performed and when it is blocked.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't obsessive-compulsive disorder the same as being tidy and detail-focused?
  5. Going furtherWhat changes about the fear memory when a trauma is reprocessed rather than avoided?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
Of 1166 people exposed to a serious traumatic event, 19 percent go on to meet criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder. Of those who do, 58 percent still meet criteria a year later. How many of the original group are still affected at one year?

7A. Somatic Symptom and Dissociative Disorders

  1. How it worksHow does distress get converted into a physical symptom with no organic pathology behind it?
  2. How it worksWalk me through dissociative amnesia, fugue and identity disorder as breaks in one continuous self.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't a somatic symptom disorder the same as faking an illness?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to the symptom when the psychological stressor behind it is resolved?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
A neurology clinic sees 1096 new patients in a year. About 23 percent present with symptoms for which no organic pathology can be found, and about 68 percent of those meet criteria for a functional neurological disorder. How many patients does that come to?

7A. Depressive and Bipolar Disorders

  1. How it worksHow do mood, energy, sleep and appetite move together across a depressive and a manic episode?
  2. Worked exampleShow me a two-year mood chart distinguishing major depression, bipolar I and bipolar II.
  3. How it worksWalk me through the monoamine account and what learned helplessness adds to it.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't a manic episode simply being very happy and productive?
  5. Going furtherWhat happens to the mood chart when an antidepressant is given to someone with undiagnosed bipolar disorder?
Your turnhard1 of 3
A mood chart covering 10 years records 8 separate depressive episodes with a mean duration of 19 weeks each. What percentage of that period did the patient spend inside a depressive episode? Take a year as 52 weeks.

7A. Schizophrenia

  1. How it worksHow do positive symptoms add experiences while negative symptoms subtract normal functioning?
  2. How it worksWalk me through the dopamine hypothesis and the enlarged ventricles seen on imaging.
  3. Worked exampleShow me the prodromal, active and residual phases laid out along one timeline.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't schizophrenia a split personality?
  5. Going furtherWhat happens to risk when a genetic predisposition meets a major environmental stressor?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A twin study of schizophrenia reports concordance of 51 percent in monozygotic pairs and 17 percent in dizygotic pairs, against a lifetime risk of about 1 percent in the general population. How many times the dizygotic concordance is the monozygotic concordance?

7A. Personality Disorders

  1. How it worksHow do clusters A, B and C group odd, dramatic and anxious patterns into three families?
  2. Worked exampleShow me which cluster a patient belongs to from a pattern of unstable relationships and fear of abandonment.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't a personality disorder diagnosed from a single difficult episode?
  4. Going furtherWhat changes about treatment when the pattern is lifelong rather than episodic?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
A clinic assesses 718 patients. About 20 percent of them meet criteria for a personality disorder, and about 59 percent of those fall in Cluster B. How many Cluster B patients does the clinic have?

7A. Biological Bases of Nervous System Disorders

  1. How it worksHow do dopamine excess, monoamine depletion, amyloid plaques and substantia nigra loss map onto four diseases?
  2. How it worksWalk me through dopamine neurons dying in the substantia nigra and producing tremor and rigidity.
  3. Worked exampleShow me which neurotransmitter system is implicated when a drug improves one symptom and worsens another.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't a drug that relieves a symptom evidence that a deficiency caused the disorder?
  5. Going furtherWhat changes if stem cell derived neurons can be implanted to replace the lost cells?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease appear only once about 71 percent of the dopamine neurons of the substantia nigra have been lost. A person begins adult life with about 495 thousand such neurons. How many are still alive when the tremor first appears?

7A. Instinct and Arousal Theories of Motivation

  1. How it worksHow does an optimal arousal level pull behavior up when arousal is low and down when it is high?
  2. Worked exampleShow me the Yerkes-Dodson curve for a simple task and a difficult one on the same axes.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't naming a behavior an instinct the same as explaining it?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to the optimal point when the task becomes far more complex?
Your turnhard1 of 3
Model performance on a task as falling below its peak by 3 points for each unit of arousal away from the optimum, squared. On a difficult task the optimum arousal is 6 units. A performer arrives at an arousal of 14 units. How many points below peak performance does the model put them?

7A. Drive Reduction Theory

  1. How it worksHow does a need create a drive that pushes behavior until homeostasis is restored?
  2. How it worksWalk me through a negative feedback loop holding body temperature or blood glucose at a set point.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't drive reduction able to explain curiosity or riding a roller coaster?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to the loop when a drive is reduced by something that does not meet the underlying need?
Your turnhard1 of 3
A homeostatic loop corrects 51 percent of any remaining deviation from its set point each hour. Body temperature starts 24 tenths of a degree below the set point. How many tenths of a degree below the set point is it two hours later?

7A. Need Theories and Maslow's Hierarchy

  1. How it worksHow does a hierarchy of physiological, safety, belonging, esteem and self-actualization needs stack up?
  2. Worked exampleShow me which level is driving behavior for a person with a stable job and no close relationships.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't the hierarchy a strict ladder that nobody skips a rung on?
  4. Going furtherWhat changes about the model when self-determination theory replaces the pyramid with competence, autonomy and relatedness?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A workplace survey of 957 employees asks which need feels most pressing. 43 percent name belonging and 24 percent name esteem. How many more employees name belonging than name esteem?

7A. Incentive Theory and Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Motivation

  1. How it worksHow does an incentive pull behavior from the outside while a drive pushes it from the inside?
  2. Worked exampleShow me time spent drawing before a reward, during the reward period, and after it is withdrawn.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't a bigger reward always a stronger motivator?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to intrinsic motivation when the reward is information about competence rather than control?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Children who already liked drawing spent a mean of 23 minutes of free play drawing before the study. They were then paid for drawing for two weeks. After the payments stopped, free-play drawing settled at 9 minutes. By what percentage did drawing fall below its original level?

7A. Hunger, Sex Drive and Substance Addiction as Motivators

  1. How it worksHow do ghrelin, leptin and the hypothalamus defend a body weight set point against change?
  2. How it worksWalk me through wanting and liking separating so a substance is craved without being enjoyed.
  3. Worked exampleShow me hunger signals and social cues plotted across a day where meals are scheduled by culture.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't sexual motivation in humans governed by hormones the way it is in most other mammals?
  5. Going furtherWhat happens to the set point after a long period of severe caloric restriction?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
In a study, participants ate a mean of 2687 kilocalories a day when meals were scheduled at the usual social times, and 1924 kilocalories a day when they were free to eat only in response to hunger. What percentage of the scheduled intake was driven by the schedule rather than by hunger signals?

7A. Components of Attitudes

  1. How it worksHow do the cognitive, affective and behavioral components of an attitude line up or come apart?
  2. Worked exampleShow me the three components pulled apart for one person's attitude toward vaccination.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't a strongly held belief automatically an emotionally charged attitude?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to an attitude when two of its three components point in opposite directions?
Your turneasy1 of 3
In a survey of 1196 people, 69 percent say a particular activity is dangerous. Of those, 43 percent report feeling no fear about doing it. How many people hold the belief without the matching feeling?

7A. How Behavior Changes Attitudes

  1. How it worksHow does the foot-in-the-door technique use a small act to shift a self-image before the real ask?
  2. How it worksWalk me through role-playing reshaping an attitude once a person occupies the role for long enough.
  3. Worked exampleShow me compliance rates for a large request made alone and made after a trivial one.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't the door-in-the-face technique working by the same mechanism as foot-in-the-door?
  5. Going furtherWhat changes when the small first act is performed under obvious external pressure?
Your turneasy1 of 3
In a classic field study, 70 percent of householders agreed to a large, inconvenient request after first agreeing to a trivial one, while only 20 percent agreed when the large request was made on its own. How many times more likely was agreement after the small request?

7A. How Attitudes Predict Behavior

  1. How it worksHow do specificity, strength, accessibility and social pressure decide whether an attitude reaches behavior?
  2. Worked exampleShow me two survey questions about recycling, one general and one specific, against actual recycling.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't a weak correlation between attitude and behavior evidence that attitudes do not matter?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to the link when the behavior is performed privately instead of publicly?
Your turnhard1 of 3
A general question about caring for the environment correlates 0.233 with whether a household actually recycles. A specific question about intending to sort glass this month correlates 0.682 with the same behaviour. How many more percentage points of the variance in recycling does the specific question account for?

7A. Cognitive Dissonance Theory

  1. How it worksHow does holding two clashing cognitions create a tension the mind resolves by moving one of them?
  2. Worked exampleShow me why people paid 1 dollar to lie rated a boring task as more enjoyable than those paid 20.
  3. How it worksWalk me through the three routes out of dissonance: change the belief, change the behavior, add a justification.
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't the larger payment producing the larger attitude change?
  5. Going furtherWhat happens to dissonance when the behavior was clearly forced rather than freely chosen?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
In an initiation study, 96 volunteers are assigned to each of two conditions. 78 percent of those who went through a severe initiation later rated the group favourably, against 44 percent of those who went through a mild one. How many more volunteers rated the group favourably in the severe condition?

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