Ch.4, Behavior & Attitudes Flashcards
Attitude:
favourable or unfavourable evaluative reactions towards something, often rooted in beliefs and exhibited in feelings/inclinations to act
ABCS of attitudes
ABCS of Attitudes: AFFECT (FEELINGS), BEHAVIOUR TENDENCY, AND COGNITION (THOUGHTS)
Batson, Moral Hypocrisy:
appearing moral without being so
When do our attitudes predict behavior?
Our attitudes do predict behaviour when social and other influences on what we say and do are minimal, when the attitude is specific to the behaviour, and when the attitude is potent
Implicit Association Test and its criticisms
: measures how quickly people associate concepts;
CRITICISMS OF IMPLICIT ASSOCIATION TEST: not reliable enough for use in assessing and comparing individuals, a score that suggests some relative bias doesn’t distinguish a positive bias for one group from a negative bias against another
Advantages: confirms that dual processing is real; capacity for controlled and automatic thinking
What do explicit and implicit attitudes do?
PREDICT PEOPLES BEHAVIOURS AND JUDGEMENTS; implicit attitudes are often the better predictor, however
Principle of Aggregation
the effects of an attitude on behvaiour become more apparent when we look at a person’s aggregate behaviour rather than isolated acts
What correspondence should we expect between words and action when the attitude being measured is a general one?
When the attitude being measured is a general one, we should not expect close correspondence between words and action
Theory of Planned Behavior, Azjen and Fishbein:
Attitude toward behaviour: how do i feel about it
Perceived social norms: how do those around me feel about it
Feelings of control: how easy or difficult is it to do
^THESE THREE ELEMENTS DETERMINE ONE’S INTENTIONS WHICH GUIDE BEHAVIOUR (behavioral intention is not a perfect correlation but it does help)
Effect that reflecting on attitudes has on predicting future behavior
If we were prompted to think about our attitudes before acting, would be truer to ourselves? —people who take a few moments to review their past behaviour express attitudes that better predict their future behaviour
Foot-in-Door Phenomena
If you want people to do a big favour for you, one technique is to get them to do a small favour first
You can use small commitments to manipulate a persons self image: you can use them to turn citizens into “public servants” and prisoners into “collaboraters”
Low Ball Technique
People agree to a lower price or lesser demand; momentum of compliance–before agreeing to a small request, think about what may follow
Door in the Face Technique
Tendency for people who have first declined a large request to comply with a subsequent smaller request; principle of reciprocity
Self Presentation Theory:
assumes that for stragetic reasons we express attitudes that make us appear consistent; We express attitudes that match our actions to appear consistent; even if it meand displaying insincerity or hypocrisy (EXTERNAL CONSISTENCY)
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
assumes that to reduce discomfort, we justify our actions to ourselves
Self-Percpetion Theory
assumes that our actions are self revealing; ASSUMES THAT WE OBSRRVE OUR BEEHAVIOUR AND MAKE REASOMABLE INFERENCES ABOUT OUR ATTITUDES, JUST LIKE WE OBSERVE OTHER PEOPLE AND INFER THEIR ATTITUDES
Self-Justification, Cognitive Dissonance
ASSUMPTION THAT WE JUSTIFY BEHAVIOUR TO REDUCE INTERNAL DISCOMFORT
Cognitive Dissonance Theory, Festinger: our attitudes change because we are motivated to maintain consistency among our cognitions (INTERNAL CONSISTENCY
Insufficient Justification and moral wrongdoing
As long as there is sufficient justification for a lie, less cognitive dissonance is experienced
If you feel responsible for statements you have made, you will now believe them more strongly
Culture and cognitive dissonance
Individualist culture individuals tended to protect individualistic self-concepts by seeing their choices as good choices
Collectivist cultures will justify the decisions theyve made for others but not for themselves
James and emotion/body connection
William James: we infer our emotions by observing our bodies and our behaviours (observing that you woke up in the middle of the night suddenly must mean youre stressed
Why is botox bad for emotional expression?
Botox freezes facial emotional expression; makes it harder to express and read and empathize with others emotions because of this disconnection
Overjustification Effect:
\ rewarding people for doing what they already enjoy may lead them to attribute their doing it to the reward, thus undermining their self-perception that they do it beCause they like it; An unanticipated reward does not diminish intrinsic interest because people can still attribute their actions to their own motivation
Self presentation or dissonance; comparison
Strong support has emerged for dissonance theory regarding the tension being aroused when our actions and attitudes are not in harmony: SELF-PRESENTATION DOESN’T DISCUSS THIS AT ALL
Feeling aroused is a central part of the experience of cognitive dissonance and that people must attribute this arousal to their own actions before they engage in self-justifying attitude change
Self-Affirmation Theory: volunteering to do or say undesirable things is so arousing because such acts are embarrassing
People with secure and high self steems engage in less self-justification
Why people engage in Impression management:
being concerned with making a good impression in order to gain social and material rewards, to feel good about ourselves, or to become more secure in our social identities
Behaviour impacting attitudes
When taking ona role, our actions in that role often shape our attitude
When we state a belief, our words often shape our attitudes
When we engage in small actions inconsistent with our attitudes, these small actions can lead to larger actions that can dramatically shape our attitudes and behaviours
When we engage in moral or evil acts, these actions can powerfully shape our attitudes
When we participate in social movements, our actions can profoundly
When does cognitive dissonance become activated?
Cognitive dissonance is the best at explaining when the discrepancy between attitudes and behaviour are large
Selective Exposure:
people prefer to expose themselves with info that agrees with their point of view (similar to confirmation bias)
Selective exposure happens specifically with cognitive dissonance^^^
Physiological symptoms of cognitive dissonance
same as arousal
Self-Perception Theory, Daryl Bem
We assume that we make similar inferences when we observe our own behaviour
When we have a weak or ambiguous attitude, we take the position of a person observing us “what would this person think if i chose this thing?) to make the decision (what would my mom think if did this?)
Foot in door vs door in face phenomena
In the foot-in-the-door (FITD) technique smaller requests are asked in order to gain compliance with larger requests, while door-in-the-face (DITF) works in the opposite direction, where larger requests are asked, with the expectation that it will be rejected, in order to gain compliance for smaller requests.
