Insufficient justification occurs when:

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Question restatement: The prompt asks about the concept of insufficient justification and presents four options to evaluate.
Option A: 'A. People have an external reason for their behavior.' Here, the presence of an external reason means there is adequate external justification, which would not align with the idea of insufficient justification. This option describes the opposite situation, so it would be considered incorrect in the context of insufficient justification.
Option B: 'B. People fear they will be punished if they don’t behave in a certain way.' This describes external pressure or punishment as a motivator. While that creates external motivation, it does not capture the essence of lacking external justification for the behavior itself; the action is driven by fear of punishment, not by a lack of external justification for the action. Therefore, this option does not illustrate insufficient justification as typically defined.
Option C: 'C. People do not have an external reason for their behavior.' This corresponds directly to the core idea of insufficient justification: when an individual performs a behavior with little or no external justification, internal attitudes or beliefs are more likely to shift to align with the action. This is the standard description of the phenomenon and aligns with classic theory in social psychology.
Option D: 'D. People are asked to lie to others.' Being asked to lie describes a situational ethical pressure or potential moral conflict, but it does not define insufficient justification per se. It specifies a task context rather than the presence or absence of external justification for the behavior, so it doesn’t capture the core mechanism of insufficient justification.
Additional nuanced notes: While option C captures the defining condition, remember that insufficient justification often leads to cognitive reevaluation or attitude change when the external justification is minimal or absent. Options A and B describe external influences that would provide justification or motivation from outside, which would reduce the likelihood of incurring the cognitive dissonance or attitude shift associated with insufficient justification. Option D introduces an ethically questionable task rather than the justification structure itself, making it less about external vs internal justification and more about the content of the action.
In summary, the key distinction lies in whether an external justification is present or absent for the behavior in question; the absence of such external justification is what characterizes insufficient justification, while the other options describe conditions that do not match this core concept.

PSYC20009_2025_SM2 Exam: Personality and Social Psychology (PSYC20009_2025_SM2)- Requires Respondus LockDown Browser

Insufficient justification occurs when:

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