A: Johnny is threatened with severe punishment if he does not clean up his room.
Incorrect.
Threatening Johnny with severe punishment, will not result
in a long-term attitude change toward believing that cleaning his room
is a good idea. Recall the "Robbie the Robot" study by Freedman (1965)
(see Myers pg. 146), where children were told not to play with a specific
toy (which was very desirable) and threatened with either mild or severe
punishment. While the experimenter was in the room, no child played
with the toy. Several weeks later, the children who were threatened
with severe punishment played with the robot much more than the children
who were threatened with mild punishment. The reason hypothesized
for this, is that the children who were threatened severely, had a very
good reason not to play with the toy: they were severely threatened, while
the children who received the mild threat, did not have a very good reason
not to play with the toy, so their motivation for not liking the toy became
internal (I'm not playing with the toy, because it isn't that great).
In question 9, the same principles operate. When Jonny is threatened
severely to clean up his room, he does clean up his room, but only because
he is afraid of being punished, and not because he wants to or believes
that cleaning his room is a good idea. Therefore, a severe punishment
will not result in a long-term attitude change.