Attitudes and Social Cognition Flashcards
Attitude
The association between an attitude object and an evaluation of it
Attitude object: Object (thing) or action (event)
Evaluation: Emotional feeling that is either positive or negative
Theoretical models on the components of attitudes:
One-component model: Affect
Two-component model: Affect + Cognition
Three-component model: Affect + Cognition + Behaviour
Affect: Positive or negative emotional evaluation (i.e. feeling of like/dislike)
E.g. I don’t like alcohol
Cognition: Belief/s about the attitude object
E.g. I believe that alcohol increases the chances of domestic violence
Behaviour: Observable output of an attitude
E.g. Not drinking alcohol
Which model is best?
Two-component model … Is preferred because corresponding external behaviours are not always observable or consistent with internal thoughts (cognition/beliefs) and feelings (affect/emotional evaluations)
Thus … Attitudes refer to thoughts and feelings about an attitude object with which observable behaviours may be associated and from which attitudes may be inferred
Attitudes are comprised of several dimensions …
Attitude strength
Extent of conscious awareness
Cognitive complexity
Emotional ambivalence
Internal coherence
Attitude strength:
The durability and impact of an attitude
Durable: Persists over time and is resistant to change
Impact: The attitude affects behavior and influences the way a person thinks and feels
Attitude strength affected by
(i) attitude importance and (ii) attitude accessibility
Attitude importance:
Attitude accessibility:
AI: The personal relevance and significance of an attitude for an individual
The greater the importance, the greater the attitude strength
AA: : The ease with which attitudes are retrieved from memory and ‘come to mind’
The greater the accessibility (i.e. the quicker and more automatically an attitude comes to mind), the greater the attitude strength
Attitude importance and attitude accessibility are highly correlated:
We can remember attitudes that are meaningful to us more quickly than attitudes that are not meaningful to us
Attitudes become more meaningful to us the more readily we can remember them
Extent of awareness:
How consciously aware of our attitudes we are
Implicit attitudes:
Thoughts and feelings about attitude objects that occur automatically and outside conscious awareness, and which can affect behaviour in unconscious ways
E.g. Implicit racism: Negative attitudes toward racially different others unknown to conscious awareness
Explicit attitudes:
Thoughts and feelings about attitude objects that are within our conscious awareness and which affect our behaviour in conscious ways
E.g. Explicit racism: Overt (or obvious) negative attitudes toward racially different others
Cognitive complexity:
How intricate or simple the thoughts/beliefs underlying an attitude are
Simple: We should have the Labour party in because Liberal sucks
Complex: We should have the Labour party in because despite their historic tendency towards budget deficits, they at least make greater effort not to reduce welfare issues to economic ones
Ambivalence:
The degree to which an attitude object is associated with conflicting emotions/feelings
This indicates that positive and negative emotional evaluations are independent ‘scales’
Thus, we can be high or low on both/either
Coherence:
The extent to which an attitude is internally consistent
Coherence: When affect is consistent in valence with cognition
E.g. I like exercise (affect) because I think it is good for you (cognition)
Incoherence: When affect is inconsistent in valence with cognition
E.g. I like exercise (affect) but I think it is a waste of time (cognition)
Valence: Positive or negative
Attitudes are more likely to match behaviours if :
- The attitude and behavior are relatively specific
E.g. Attitudes about recycling (specific) are more likely to predict recycling behaviour (specific) than attitudes about protecting the environment (broad) - The behavior that is reinforced matches the attitude
If the behaviour that is reinforced (i.e. has positive consequences) does not match the attitude, the behaviour is likely to be repeated regardless of the attitude (behaviourism)
E.g. Attitude = It is important to protect the environment
Behaviour = Use of plastic bags instead of environmentally-friendly bags
Consequence of behaviour = Convenience (positive consequence/reinforcement)
Thus, behaviour that is reinforced does not match attitude
- Important others share the same attitude
If other people from our group share the same attitude, it validates our attitude and thus drives our behaviour in ways that reflect that attitude - Attitudes are explicit
If our attitudes are implicit, we have less control over their effect on our behaviour
If our attitudes are implicit, we have less control over their effect on our behaviour
E.g. A person with implicit racism towards Indigenous Australians will unknowingly make less eye contact (behaviour) with them than non-Indigenous Australians
- Attitudes are strong
Attitudes with durability have a greater impact on our behaviour
- Attitude developed from personal experience
Attitudes acquired from personal (direct) experience are more likely to match behaviours than attitudes acquired through indirect experience (e.g. observation)
One way attitudes can be changed is through persuasion
Persuasion:
Deliberate efforts to change another person’s attitude
Selling products
Running for political office
Convincing a lover to reconcile one more time
Two common theories of persuasion:
Classic model
Elaboration-likelihood model
Classic model:
Persuasion depends on a number of components …
1. Source
Sources that appear more credible (expert and trustworthy), attractive, likeable, powerful and similar to the recipient of the message are more persuasive than the opposite of these qualities
Classic model:
Persuasion depends on a number of components …
2. Message content
Type of argument: A message that presents one side of an argument rather than both is less persuasive to a person that is ready and willing to hear both sides
Fear: Moderate levels of fear are most effective in inducing attitude change
Too much fear causes people to focus on their anxiety instead of the message
Too little fear does not induce people to pay sufficient attention to the message
Classic model:
Persuasion depends on a number of components …
3.Channel
The means by which a message is sent
E.g. Words, images, verbal/non-verbal, TV, radio, in person, email, texting, etc.
E.g. It is more effective to ask for a date with a reluctant person face to face than on the phone
Classic model:
Persuasion depends on a number of components …
4. Context
Background context: Pleasant music in the background may help secure a second date with an ambivalent person
Competing context: The person may be ambivalent because there are two potential suitors (competition)
Classic model:
Persuasion depends on a number of components …
5. Receiver
Qualities of the person receiving the message
E.g. A person with a strong attitude is less likely to be persuaded
A strength of the classic model:
It describes what factors make persuasion more likely
A problem with the classic model:
It does not explain how these factors make persuasion more likely
E.g. How and when do people respond to a person’s perceived credibility?
The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) by Petty & Cacioppo (1981) addresses this problem
ELM:
There are two routes through which people can be persuaded
Central route
Peripheral route
Central route:
Cognitive engagement
The recipient of the message is induced to think carefully about the message and weigh up arguments for and against the message
People who process a message centrally are:
Highly involved with the issue
Have a higher need for cognition
Are attentive to the quality of the arguments
Peripheral route:
Appeals to the (less rational and thoughtful) emotions
The recipient of the message is induced not to think carefully about the quality of the arguments for and against the message
Instead, they are influenced by peripheral qualities such as …
The sheer number of arguments for a message
The attractiveness of the source
The likelihood that people will elaborate on (or think about) a message depends on
their (i) motivation and (ii) time
Motivation: If people want to think deeply about an issue (and have the time do so), then appeals to their central processing will be more persuasive than appeals to their peripheral processing
Time: Many people are time-poor and so peripheral (or implicit) processing becomes highly effective
Examples of implicit processing:
Classical conditioning with a pleasant emotion: The use of beautiful women on beer ads makes the implicit assumption that beer will increase access to beautiful women
Repetition:
Increases familiarity and thus liking
Strengthens the association between two pieces of information
Increases perceived credibility of the message
Social cognition:
The process by which people make sense of themselves, other people, social interactions and relationships
That is … How people perceive and think about themselves and other people
Four common ways in which we think about ourselves and other people:
Schemas
Attribution theory
Cognitive biases
The self
Schemas:
Patterns of thought that develop from, and organise, our experiences
We form schemas on many things … First impressions (Initial schemas)
Ourselves (e.g. Self-schemas)
Other individuals (e.g. Extroverts)
Groups of people (e.g. Asians, women)
Situations (e.g. How to behave during a lecture)
Roles (e.g. How a teacher should act, how a student should act)
Relationships (e.g. How a mother should act)
Schemas are “stored” in memory and guide information processing
They (i) direct attention, (ii) organise encoding and (iii) influence retrieval
We pay more attention to, encode (or think about) more deeply, and have better retrieval for information that is consistent with our schemas
Reflects the ‘confirmation bias’: The tendency to seek out information that confirms one’s hypotheses
Schemas are essential for allowing us to make predictions and thus save limited cognitive and other resources such as attention and time
That is, they are ‘cognitively efficient’
But … If we stop incorporating new information and rely only on stereotypic schemas, this can have significantly detrimental consequences for people
E.g. Racial stereotypes can lead to prejudice and discrimination
Attribution:
The process of inferring the causes of one’s own and others’ mental states and behaviours
That is … Why do we and other people behave the way we do?
theory of attribution:
Kelley’s (1973) model
Kelley’s (1973) three-factor model of attribution:
People rely on three types of information when attributing the cause of a behaviour to either external or internal factors
External attributions: Attributions to the situation (e.g. Deadline)
Internal attributions: Attributions to the person (e.g. Angry person)
The three types of information include:
Consensus
Consistency
Distinctiveness
The three types of information include:
Consensus
Consistency
Distinctiveness
Kelley’s (1973) model
Consensus:
The way most people have responded to a situation
If consensus is high, we attribute a behaviour to external factors
E.g. If everyone is angry in response to an announced pay cut, then the cause of the anger in the POI is attributed to the situation and not their personality
Kelley’s (1973) model
Consistency:
The extent to which a person responds to similar stimulus in the same way at different points in time
If consistency is high, we attribute a behaviour to internal factors
E.g. If a person is always angry when a deadline is approaching, we attribute the anger to their personality
Kelley’s (1973) model
Distinctiveness:
The extent to which a person responds to different stimuli in different ways
If distinctiveness is high, we attribute a behaviour to external factors
That is, if a person’s behaviour is highly variable (distinctive) across different situations, then their behaviour is most probably attributable to the situation rather than their personality
Our behaviour has multiple causes
That is, our behaviour is often a combination of both internal and external factors
But people have a desire to attribute causes to either internal or external factors
.
in making attributions to either personality or the situation, we may:
Discount factors: When we down-play the role of internal factors because we are aware of other situational factors that may be contributing to the behaviour
E.g. We discount ‘an angry personality’ if we know our boss’ father just died
Augment factors: When we increase our attribution to internal factors despite situational demands
E.g. I still think my boss has ‘an angry personality’ because she’s always angry
Attributional style:
A person’s habitual manner of assigning causes to either internal or external factors
Optimistic attributional style: Tendency to attribute positive events to internal factors
E.g. I did well on the exam because I worked hard (internal)
Pessimistic attributional style: Tendency to attribute positive events to external factors
E.g. I did well on the exam because I was lucky (external)
Two common cognitive biases when thinking about ourselves and other people:
Fundamental attribution error
Self-serving bias
Fundamental attribution error (FAE):
The tendency to attribute other people’s behaviour to their personality (internal) rather than the situation (external) and vice versa
E.g. My road rage is because of the annoying driver in front of me (situation) but your road rage means you have anger management issues (personality)
One main reason for the FAE … We discount external factors for others because we are less aware of them
The FAE occurs, but less so, in East Asia than in Western cultures
East Asians are culturally ‘collectivist’ and so there is less attention paid to the behaviour of individuals than in ‘individualistic’ cultures
Perhaps not so ‘fundamental’? This is why it is also referred to as the ‘Correspondence bias’
Self-serving bias:
People tend to see themselves more positively than other people see them
This bias can take many forms …
Most people rate themselves as ‘above average’ (which is not statistically possible)
People are more likely to recall positive rather than negative information about themselves
People are more likely to see their talents as striking and unusual compared to their deficiencies
People attribute greater responsibility to themselves for a group product than others in the group do
People assume they are less driven by self interest than those around them
People take credit for their successes and attribute failure to external factors
Positive illusions such as the self-serving bias help maintain self esteem, but is particularly strong in people with narcissism
The self:
The person, including their mental processes, body and personality characteristics
The way we see ourselves …
Self-concept: A person’s concept of themselves
Self-schema: A schema about the self that guides the way we think and remember information relevant to ourselves (cognitive)
Self-representation: Mental models or representations of the self (psychodynamic)
Representations of the self can be implicit (unconscious) or explicit (conscious)
E.g. Narcissism: Implicitly low self esteem; Explicitly grandiose self esteem
Self-esteem:
An individuals’ usual evaluation of themselves reflecting how much they like and respect themselves
Stability: There may be some fluctuations in self esteem, but there is also a global/core sense of self esteem
Strength: Despite our need for objectivity/accuracy, the need to maintain a positive sense of self is a very strong motivation
Domain-specific: We have high self esteem in specific areas, e.g. morality, appearance, competence
Ways in which we increase self esteem:
Domain-specific enhancement: Emphasise domains in which we are successful
Downward social comparison: Comparing the self to people worse off than them to maintain a positive view of the self and their traits and abilities
Self-handicapping: Setting ourselves up for failure to control the attributions we make to an outcome and thus preserve self esteem
I failed because I didn’t study (not because I’m dumb)
I got a CR even though I didn’t study (I must be really smart)
Basking in reflected glory: ‘We won’ vs. ‘they lost’
We won: Announcing affiliation with a group that is successful
They lost: Denouncing affiliation with a group that is not successful
