Take your learning a step further by testing your critical thinking skills on this scientific problem solving exercise

___1___

Darren is a first-year college student who has a biting, sarcastic manner. He has a pessimistic outlook on life and feels that the world is run by a few powerful people. When he received a poor grade on a recent exam, Darren blamed the instructor and claimed the test was unfair. He stopped attending lectures, gave up studying for the course, and will probably drop it. He is experiencing similar difficulties in his other courses.

Darren always dreamed of doing well in college. Now he is despondent over his failure and believes his professors hate him. Most of all, he is concerned that if he fails in school his parents will no longer love him.

1. How might Darren's problems be explained from the psychoanalytic perspective?

2. How might Darren's problems be explained by a trait theorist?

3. How might Darren's problems be explained by a humanistic theorist?

4. How might Darren's problems be explained by a social-cognitive theorist?

5. Which perspective most closely represents your own belief about Darren's problems? Why?

___2___

In their first year of college Mary and Kathy quickly became friends, after discovering they had a great deal in common. They talked a lot about their feelings, including a shared dislike of prejudice. In their sophomore year, they pledged different sororities, with Kathy joining a sorority said to be both elitist and somewhat prejudiced against minority groups, including Mary's. Although this had concerned Kathy, she didn't notice any problem at first. As time passed, however, the comments of her sorority sisters became increasingly tinged with bigotry. Kathy gradually found herself sharing their views and even openly making a few contemptuous remarks about minority groups. Although she sometimes felt troubled by her behavior, Kathy had worked so hard to become a member of the sorority that she decided she must really have felt this way about minority groups all along.

Kathy and Mary did not see each other for several months, until their sororities met at an intramural soft-ball game. Running to greet her friend, Mary was hurt by Kathy's cool, almost haughty manner toward her and other minority members of Mary's sorority. In the midst of her sorority sisters, Kathy seemed a different person altogether. Later that evening, Mary confided in her journal that she must have initially misjudged Kathy as sharing her beliefs and that Kathy had finally displayed her true personality as a very prejudiced person.

1. What social psychological principles might help explain why Mary and Kathy became friends?

2. Illustrate how the following social psychological principles might explain why Mary and Kathy grew apart: norms and roles, normative social influence, mere exposure effect, cognitive dissonance.