Answer to Question 1
a . Most research in social psychology is experimental in nature, and conducted on college students in the U.S. or western Europe, such that it is often vulnerable to low external validity. While the college student samples used in research do not appear to pose a major problemat least for most areas within social psychologythere is reason to believe that research findings may not always generalize to different cultures and/or time periods (i.e., that cultural relativity is an issue in social psychology). That being said, not enough cross-cultural research has been done to know the extent of this problem. However, because science is self-correctingthe fact that research slowly and systematically builds off of past research, and the fact that the peer review process is in place at most major journals, help to ensure that errors in past research will be brought to lightany cultural biases/limitations in social psychological research should, over time, be corrected. Social psychologists have become increasingly aware that their research could be culturally biased, and they are more and more often seeking to replicate their research cross-culturally (and with diverse samples/methods within cultures), as well as to conduct more research on the role of culture and cross-cultural differences themselves.
Answer to Question 2
Possible Response Points:
Attitude inoculation involves exposing oneself to possible arguments against one's position to help ready that individual to fight off attempts at persuasion. This allows them to practice counterarguing against those attempts.
Be aware of when persuasion might be on the horizon. If you know a persuasive appeal is coming, you are better able to defend against it.
Stockpile resources, such as having sufficient sleep, food, and so forth, to allow energy to focus on resisting persuasion.
To resist social influence more broadly, people should not feel overly pressured to be consistent with something they agreed to without full information, should make public commitments to their position (which will help them hold that position), understand that the reciprocity principle can be re-framed as a trick, guard against emotionally driven responses to scarcity manipulations, and be wary of fake social proof.