12: Attitudes, Persuasion, & Social influence Flashcards
What is the definitions of an attitude?
a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor
What are the characteristics of an attitude?
-It is internally held (though it may be reflected outwards in behavior)
- can be fleeting and transient, or habitual and ingrained
(they can be changed - not not always easy to do)
- They are about something
- Evaluative
-An attitude has to be in your head in order to be an attitude
Why are attitudes important/what do they do?
- They are pervasive (held about almost everything)
- They guide social interaction
- predicts behavior
- Attitudes shape our perceptions and memories
Name some origins of attitudes
Parental influence, peers, personal experience
How can parental influence be the origin of attitudes?
- Information control - the parents choose what papers, channels etc. they the household read/watch etc.
- Modeling - EX: mothers attitude towards food often mirrored in daughters
- Heredity
- Provide social context (do they join a sport, religion etc.)
How can peers be the origin of attitudes?
- Information control (What is it that your friends post about politics on Facebook)
- Modeling (substance abuse etc.)
How can experience be the origin of attitudes?
Through conditioning (what do you link specific things to)
What are direct measures of attitudes measurements?
Scales - just asking people what they think
Can be used to explicit measurements
What is indirect measure of attitude measurement?
- Psychophysical methods
- Unobtrusively observing behavior
- implicit association test
What are explicit attitudes and how can they be measured?
Attitudes that are consciously held + controlled processing. Can be measured by using direct measures
What are implicit attitudes and how can they be measured?
Attitudes that are unconsciously held - automatic processing. Can be measured by indirect measures
What are 2 important characteristics on the person who is trying to persuade someone else?
- Competence (Knowledgeable, smart, well-spoken, uses complex words)
- Trustworthiness (Avoids appearance of aiming to change behavior + present both sides)
What is the sleeper effect?
Even messages from uncredible sources can have an impact when source is forgotten but the message is remembered
What things about the message have en impact when it comes to persuasion (WHAT)
- Fear (but only if paired with a solution)
- Not obvious (Harder to convince people if they recognize that you are trying)
- Length (those who pay little attention use length as a cue)
- Quality (better argument are more persuasive, especially for those paying attention)
What are some characteristics of the target of persuasion and how they are persuaded (WHOM)
- Distracted individuals are easier to persuade (distraction inhibits generation counterarguments)
- People who are high in need for cognition is convinced by quality arguments. Those low in need for cognition is convinced by source ques (length)
Why are distracted individuals easier to persuade?
Because distraction inhibits developing counterarguments
What are people high and low on need for cognition persuaded by?
High = quality arguments Low = source ques (length)
The dual-process theories of persuasion
There are 2 different routes to persuasion:
THE CENTRAL ROUTE-> considering quality of arguments
- The central route requires MOTIVATION (personal relevance, general cognitive engagement,) and ABILITY (time, distractions, cognitive resources)
THE PERIPHERAL ROUTE -> surface features of the argument
-length of the list of arguments, expert advocate etc.
This route is more susceptible to fading and counterattacks
Which route is more susceptible to fading and counterattacks (central or peripheral)
Peripheral
How does mood influence persuasion?
Mood influences motivation for accurate beliefs
- Low/bad mood indicates problems in the world and that makes it even more important for people to adopt correct positions
What is cognitive dissonance?
Recognizing an inconsistency among one’s attitudes, behaviors or believe which is uncomfortable
- people will try to remove the discomfort by shifting their attitudes, beliefs, behaviors
When is consistency in attitudes important for people?
- When the attitude in question is important to them and inconsistency is recognized
- consistency is important to you
- consistency is important in your culture
What is the definition of conformity?
A change in behavior or belief in accord with others.
“trying to fit in”
What is the definition of compliance?
The act of changing one’s behavior in response to a direct request.
Conformity that involves publicly acting in accord with an explicit or implied request despite private disagreements
What is the definition of obedience?
Compliance that occurs in response to a directive from an authority figure
What is the chameleon effect?
The tendency to mimic those we’re engaging with
What are some of the moderators when it comes to conformity?
- Size of the crowd (the more people do it the more conformity)
- Independent sub-groups (better with 2 couples then 5 friends)
- Cohesion (we conform more to members of our in-group)
- Unanimity (it is easier not to conform is someone else is also not conforming)
- status (we copy those with higher status more)
- Cultural influences
- collectivist are more likely to conform
- educated vs less educated (less educated are more likely to conform)
- new generations vs old generation (old generations conform more)
What is the norm of reciprocity?
The social norm of repaying any apparent kindness we receive
What is reciprocal favors?
Giving something before asking for compliance
EX: waiters who give some candy with the bill to get a bigger tip from you
What is reciprocal concessions?
Ask big to inspire refusal, expect acceptance of a smaller favor as a reciprocal concession. kinda like you negotiate
What is the door-in-the-face technique?
A form of reciprocal concessions
-A technique that increases compliance by beginning with a large favor likely to be rejected and then retreating to a more moderate favor.
-Ask big to inspire refusal, expect acceptance of a smaller favor as a reciprocal concession
“can you spare 100 kr? how about 10 then?”
What is the that’s-not-all technique?
A form of a reciprocal concession
Improve offer before refusal can be offered as a generous favor. Inspires need to reciprocate by accepting the better deal.
Offering something more before the person can turn the first down
“the brownie is $2 but today we are giving 2 cookies along with every brownie”
What is the foot-in-the-door technique?
a technique that increases compliance with a large request by first getting compliance with a smaller related request. Asking for a small request and then increasing the next request
What is the low-ball technique?
Inspire commitment with low price, then raise prices
What is the bait-and-switch technique
Gain commitment and then make the original arrangement unavailable and offer a less desirable replacement
How can labeling foster commitment?
When you assign the target a positive trait label to encourage behavior consistent with that label.
What is better public or private commitment?
Public
Who are we more likely to comply with?
People who are physical attractive and people who have a common background or interest
What is the Milgrim experiment?
The participant is assigned the “teacher” role and has to give an electric shock to the “student” every time he gets en error on a memory task.
-If you try to stop the experimenter tell you “please continue” “the experiments requires that you continue”
-Around 75% continued past the learner’s refusal to answer
65% persisted to the end
How many participants persisted to the end in Milgrim’s experiment?
65%
How can foot-in-the-door technique explain obedience?
Obedience for more extreme requests likely facilitated by prior obedience to less extreme requests.
What are some of the moderators in ex: Milgrim’s experiment?
- Frequency of obeying top voltage drops to 40% when “learner” is in the same room as the “teacher
- Full compliance drops to 30% further when participants are required to hold “learners” hand on the plate providing shock
- The distance of authority (more likely to obey when the authority is close to you)
- Legitimacy of authority (Not as obedient to a clerks as to the “real” experimenter)
- The reseacher place (Yale vs associates of bridgeport)
- liberation of conformity (when someone else is also disobeying you are more likely to do so as well)
- Personality (People high on authoritarianism)
strong attitudes resist change - this is true in 2 ways, which?
- strong attitudes are more stable than weak attitudes
2. strong attitudes are better able to withstand persuasive attacts
What are the 2 main reasons that strong attitudes resist change?
- commitment
- embeddedness (because it is tied to so many other features of the person it is diffucult to move it in any direction, because you would have to change so many aspects of yourself)
What are the several factors that influence the likelihood that a person’s attitude will be consistent with his or her behavior?
- Knowledge
- Personal relevance
- Attitude accessibility (if something come to mind quickly we are more likely yo behave in a consistent way to that attitude)
- Behavioral intentions
What is the difference between attitudes and beliefs?
Attitudes = favourable or unfavourable evaluations of particular things
Beliefs = thoughts (cognitions) about these things
consistency priciple
The principle that people will change their attitudes, beliefs, perceptions and actions to make them consistent with each other
What are the 6 widely used and most succesful principles of influence?
- Reciprocation
- Commitment/consistency
- Authority
- Social Validation
- Scarcity (rare)
- Liking, friendship
What 3 factors affect whether an individual is likely to accomodate to group position?
- Desire for approval
- Collective sense of self
- Resistance
Alpha forces
Influence enhancing forces
Omega forces
Factors that lead people to resist social influence
Are men or women more likely to resist public conformity?
MEN
