1. Using racial discrimination as the topic, explain how different disciplines might tackle the problem. Specifically, describe the emphasis or approach of a (a) social psychologist; (b) personality psychologist; and (c) sociologist.

d. . What theoretical mechanisms might each focus on? (i.e., what does each believe most "causes" discrimination).

e. . What would each of these three focus on to reduce or eliminate discrimination?

2. Social psychologists care about isolating the processes involved in understanding a phenomenon. That is, they care about having sufficient evidence that X causes Y in their research, and that it does so in the real world as well. Discuss their concerns and how they deal with, or solve, these concerns, and why these solutions work

3. Define each of the following mental shortcuts and explain why each may be inaccurate:

(a) the availability heuristic, and (b) the representativeness heuristic. Provide an example of the availability heuristic leading to a reasonable (or "correct") outcome, and an example of it leading to a biased (or "incorrect") outcome. Then do the same for the representativeness heuristic.

4. When atrocities happen, we are often tempted to label the perpetrators as "bad people" or even "monsters". For instance, when we learned that American troops were degrading soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison, the public was quick to point to the perpetrators as bad people. But some social psychologists follow a situationist approach, arguing that it is more important to consider the situational variables that drive such behaviour (and focus less on specific perpetrators)

a) Which concept from the course best explains the public's tendency here? What is it called, how does it operate or function?

b) Why does it matter whether we focus on personal or situational factors?

5. Explain discounting and augmentation effects in social perception, and how they differ from each other. Then provide a social psychology-relevant example (real or fictitious) of these mental processes in action, and explain how they can shape social perception.

6. Discuss whether people want to feel positively about themselves, or whether they want to accurately understand themselves (even if what they learn isn't flattering)? What factors can shape a tendency to go one way or the other? What benefits are there to either desire?