Attitude & Social Cognition Flashcards
What is Social Psychology
Examines the influence of social processes on the way people think, feel, and behave.
What is an attitude?
- An association between an object an an evaluation.
2. Involves positive or negative impressions
What three components does an attitude contain?
- Cognitive - Exams assess knowledge
- Emotional - I get anxious about exams
- Behavioral - I studied hard for my exam.
What are the ways an attitude can vary?
- Strength - durability and impact
- Importance - personal relevance and psychological impact.
- Accessibility - ease of activation
- Complexity - specific vs. general
- Ambivalence - negative and positive feelings.
- Coherence - internal consistency.
What is a implicit attitude?
An association between attitude objects and feelings about them that regulate thought and behavior unconsciously and automatically.
In regard to attitudes, what is cognitive complexity?
The intricacy of thoughts about different attitude objects. (varies with both gender and culture)
In regard to attitudes, what is attitudinal ambivalence?
The extent to which an attitude is internally consistent. (We should like things we believe have positive consequences.)
In regard to attitudes, what is attitudinal coherence?
The extent to which an attitude is internally consistent.
Under what circumstances are attitudes likely to predict behavior.
- The attitude and the behavior are specific
- Environmental reinforcement matches attitude
- Important others share the same attitude
- Attitudes are implicit (unconscious)
- Attitude is strong.
- Attitude has developed from personal experience
What is persuasion? What are its components?
The deliberate attempt to change an attitude held by another. Has multiple components…
- Source
- Message
- Channel
- Context
- Receiver
‘Source’ is a component of persuasion, discuss.
Persuasive sources are credible, attractive, likable, powerful and similar to the recipient.
‘Message’ is a component of persuasion, discuss.
Persuasive messages match recipients level of consideration of the topic.
‘Channel’ is a component of persuasion, discuss.
Persuasive channels of delivery are personal (face to face).
‘Context’ is a component of persuasion, discuss
Messages should be delivered at the right time and in the right place.(attitude inoculation)
What is attitude inoculation?
involves building up the receivers resistance to a persuasive appeal by presenting weak arguments for it or forewarning against it.
‘Receiver’ is a component of persuasion, discuss
Persuasion is likely if the receiver has weaker attitudes and/or is attending to the message.
What is the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion?
Suggests that there are two routes through which people can be persuaded.
- Central route - recipients to consider arguments carefully to change attitudes.
- Peripheral route - appeal to emotions. classical conditioning and simple repetition.
What is conservation psychology?
The scientific study of the reciprocal relationships between humans and the rest of nature, with particular focus on how to encourage conservation of the natural world.
What is the phenomena of cognitive dissonance?
Refers to a perceived discrepancy between an attitude and a behavior that results in a state of psychological tension similar to anxiety.
Cognitive dissonance motivates the individual to reduce tension by?
- Changing the behavior
- Changing the attitude
- Changing the perception of the inconsistent information.
Post decision regret is a phenomena associated with cognitive dissonance, explain.
Worrying about whether the right decision has been made or not is the basis of post decision regret.
What is post-decision dissonance reduction?
Dissonance reduction after the fact.
How do self-perception theory and self-presentation account for the phenomena of cognitive dissonance?
- Holds that individuals infer their attitudes, emotions and other internal states by observing their own behavior
- The attitudes that people report depend on their behavior, behavior changes, so to does attitudes.
Can it be said that cognitive dissonance is a culturally universal phenomenom?
Dissonance is not universal, it varies across cultures.
What is social cognition?
The process by which people make sense of themselves, others, social interactions, and relationships.
What is used to understand social cognition?
Cognitive models such as schemas, connectionist models and parallel processing.
What are first impressions?
The initial perceptions of another person that affect future beliefs about that person.
What is the halo effect?
Tendency to assume that positive qualities cluster together. Attractive people are often assumed to have other good qualities.
What is a schema in relation to social cognition?
Patterns of thought that organize our experiences/knowledge
What is a person schema?
Schema’s that represent specific types of people (librarians, extroverts, students).
What is a situation schema?
Schemas that represent different social situations (formal vs. informal).
What is a relationship schema?
Represent expectations about self and other in unique relationships. (siblings, couple)
How do stereotypes lead to prejudice?
Schemas allow us to enter into new situations with an idea of how we and others are to act. Schemas can be rigid and prone to error.
What is a stereotype?
characteristics assigned to persons based on their membership of a specific group.
What is prejudice?
Involves judging others based on a stereotype
What is discrimination?
Acting negatively towards a person.
What is racism?
A negative attitude towards members of a racial group.
What are the components of racism?
- Stereotype is the cognitive component .
- Prejudice is the emotional component
- Discrimination of the behavioral component.
Where might the roots of racism lie?
In the personality.
What does a authoritarian personality involve/
The tendency to hate people who are different.
Associated with a dominant stern father and submissive mother.
What is explicit racism?
involves the conscious use of stereotypes and the expression of prejudice.
What is implicit racism?
The unconscious influence of stereotypes towards members of a racial group.
What is attribution?
The process of interring the causes of mental states and behaviors of yourself and others.
What are external attributions?
Behavior is directed to the situation
What are internal attributions?
Behavior reflects the person.
What three types of information do people rely on when making attributions for behavior?
- Consensus - the extent to which behavior is operative in a group.
- Consistency - the extent to which a person responds to different stimuli.
- Distinctiveness - the extent to which a person responds to different stimuli.
What are the processes that modulate attribution?
- Discounting - person downplays the role of a variable because of the influence of another variable. Because they know that others may be contributing to the behaviors in question.
- Augmentation - An increase in an internal attribution for certain behaviors despite situational demands.
- Attributional style - Personal habitual manner of assigning causes to behaviors or events.
What is fundamental attribution error?
Tendency for observers, when analyzing another’s behavior to underestimate the impact of external factors and to over estimate the impact of internal factors.
What is self serving bias?
Tendency to attribute our success to internal factors and failures to external factors. Tend to see ourselves in a more positive light than others see us.
What is involved in cognitive biases?
- Often rapid, good enough judgements are just that, god enough.
- Heuristics are involved as well.
- People usually lack the time they need to make appropriate decisions, this is where the cognitive shortcut comes in and can influence our thinking.
What is involved in a motivational bias?
1, Shemas and attributions are influenced by wishes needs and goals.
- Motivation can influence the extent to which people think in complex ways about themselves.
- The extent to which individuals think deeply about others relies on the extent to which they are motivated to do so.
What is confirmation bias?
The tendency to seek out information that confirms ones hypothesis.
What is the self?
The self is a person, including mental processes, body, and personality characteristics.
What is the self concept?
A schema that guides thinking and memory relevant to the self (cognitive component).
What is self esteem?
An individuals evaluation of the self and how much he/she likes and respects the self (affective component).
What does contemporary psychodynamic thinking focus on in regards to the self?
- Focus on self-representations - mental models or representations of the self.
- The self concept is an attitude to the self which includes beliefs, feelings and tendencies to behave towards oneself in particular ways.
- People associate the self with many different positive and negative emotions.
- Self representations can be conscious or unconscious.
What does the cognitive perspective focus on in regard to the self?
The way the self-concepts shape thought and memory.
What is self-handicapping?
A process by which individuals will set themselves up to fail when success is uncertain in order to preserve their self.
What is BIRGing?
Basking in self reflected glory.
People publicly announce affiliation with an individual or group that is successful even though they had nothing to do with that person or group. We associate ourselves with success in order to avoid failure.
What is self consistency?
The motive to interpret information to fit the way one already sees oneself.
What is self presentation (IM)
The process by which people try to control the impressions that others form of them,
What are self preservational predicaments?
Instances which our desires to influence the impressions others for of us fail.
What is self monitoring?
the degree to which people manage their impressions.
What is actual self?
Peoples views of how they actually are.
What is ideal self?
Hopes, aspirations and wishes that define the way a person would like to be.
How do collectivist cultures view the self?
As interdependent, they define the self in regards to social relationships.
How do individualist cultures view the self?
As independent, define the self in terms of personal attributes
