Chapter 2: Quiz
1. Walter Mischel's original marshmallow test research was primarily interested in:
- A) Predicting children's future success
- B) Measuring innate self-control as a personality trait
- C) Understanding the cognitive strategies children use to resist temptation
- D) Proving that wealthy children are more disciplined
Answer: C. Mischel's primary interest was the cognitive strategies children used to delay gratification (distraction, reframing), not predicting future success. The predictive angle came from later follow-up studies.
2. What did Sumner et al. (2014) find about university press releases?
- A) 40% contained exaggerated claims, 33% implied causation from correlational studies
- B) They were consistently accurate representations of the research
- C) They were less accurate than news articles about the same research
- D) Only 10% contained any form of exaggeration
Answer: A. The BMJ study found significant rates of exaggeration in press releases, with 40% containing exaggerated claims, 33% inappropriately implying causation, and 36% extrapolating from animal studies to humans.
3. In the Watts, Duncan, and Quan (2018) replication of the marshmallow test, what happened to the correlation between delayed gratification and later outcomes when socioeconomic status was controlled for?
- A) It doubled in size
- B) It remained the same
- C) It largely disappeared
- D) It reversed direction
Answer: C. The correlation was substantially reduced and largely disappeared when SES, cognitive ability, and home environment were controlled for. This suggested the original effect was mostly capturing socioeconomic background, not innate self-control.
4. What percentage of links shared on social media are never actually clicked by the person sharing them?
- A) 10%
- B) 29%
- C) 59%
- D) 85%
Answer: C. Research has found that approximately 59% of shared links are never clicked — people share based on the headline alone, without reading the article.
5. The mutation pipeline produces distortion primarily because:
- A) Researchers deliberately mislead the public
- B) Each actor in the pipeline responds to incentives that reward simplification and drama
- C) Social media companies suppress nuanced science
- D) Journalists are unqualified to write about science
Answer: B. The pipeline is an emergent system where each actor responds rationally to their incentives — press officers seek coverage, journalists seek clicks, users seek shares — with the cumulative effect being distortion.
6. John Bohannon's deliberate chocolate weight-loss study demonstrated that:
- A) Chocolate genuinely helps with weight loss
- B) The mutation pipeline has essentially no quality filter for scientifically interesting claims
- C) Only tabloid media falls for bad science
- D) Pay-to-publish journals are always fraudulent
Answer: B. The study was deliberately poor-quality yet was covered by 20+ major media outlets, demonstrating that the pipeline lacks effective quality filters when a finding is sufficiently interesting.
7. WEIRD populations in psychology research refers to:
- A) Unusual or atypical study participants
- B) Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic populations
- C) People with unusual psychological profiles
- D) Populations that produce unexpected results
Answer: B. WEIRD is an acronym coined by Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan (2010) to describe the narrow demographic base of most psychology research — Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic populations — which limits generalizability.
8. When a claim travels from Stage 1 (original study) to Stage 6 (audience belief), what typically happens to the certainty of the claim?
- A) It decreases at each stage
- B) It stays constant
- C) It increases at each stage
- D) It fluctuates unpredictably
Answer: C. At each stage of the pipeline, hedging language is dropped and certainty is added. "These results suggest" becomes "scientists found" becomes "science has proven." Certainty increases monotonically through the pipeline.
9. Why is the 2018 marshmallow test replication described as "more interesting" than the original finding?
- A) It confirmed the original finding with a larger sample
- B) It revealed that the test measures socioeconomic background, not innate self-control — illuminating how inequality shapes cognition from early childhood
- C) It proved that marshmallows specifically are the best test stimulus
- D) It showed that self-control training programs work
Answer: B. The replication revealed that the apparent self-control effect was largely driven by socioeconomic factors — a finding that says something profound about how economic inequality shapes children's cognitive strategies. This is more interesting but less viral than "self-control predicts success."
10. Which of the following is the best approach when you encounter a psychology claim in a social media post?
- A) Assume it's false because social media is unreliable
- B) Accept it if it's been shared by many people
- C) Recognize that it's likely at Stage 4–5 of the pipeline and treat its certainty and simplicity with appropriate skepticism
- D) Only trust claims from verified accounts
Answer: C. The chapter recommends recognizing where in the pipeline a claim sits and adjusting your confidence accordingly. Stage 4–5 claims have been through multiple rounds of simplification and should be treated with proportional skepticism.