Chapter 13 Flashcards
social cognition
how people perceive, interpret, and classify their own and other’s social behaviours
attitudes
positive or negative reactions toward a stimulus
3 components of attitude
1.) Cognitive → beliefs, ideas
2.) Affective → emotions, feelings
3.) Behavioural → predispositions to act
when do attitudes have the strongest influence on behaviour?
- situational factors are weak
- attitude is stable
- attitude is specific to the behaviour
- attitude is easily recalled
two routes of persuasion
central route and peripheral route
central route persuasion
- logic driven through the rational mind
- influencing attitudes with evidence and facts
peripheral route persuasion
changing attitudes by going around the rational mind and appealing to fears, desires and associations
persuasion strategies
Foot in the door technique and door in the face technique
foot in the door technique
Get them to agree to something small so they will agree to something larger later on
door in the face technique
Ask them for something large, expecting a rejection, so that they are more likely to agree to a smaller request
dissonance theory
a state of emotional discomfort people experience when they hold two contradictory beliefs or hold a belief that contradicts their behaviour
implicit attidude
an attitude of which the individual is unaware
stereotypes
unfair/untrue belief about people or things with a particular characteristic (may be positive or negative)
prejudice
negative stereotypical attitudes towards all members of a group (racism, sexism etc)
contributors to stereotypes and prejudice
1.) evolutionary perspective
2.) realistic conflict theory
3.) social identity theory
evolutionary theory
says there may be some adaptive value to stereotypes
realistic conflict theory
says that the amount of conflict between groups determines the amount of prejudice between groups
social identity theory
says that social cognitive factors contribute to the onset of prejudice (social categorization, social identity, social comparison)
attributions
- how we explain others behaviour
- inferences that people make about the causes of events and behavior
2 types of attributions
1.) dispositonal (internal) = believe behaviour caused by the person’s inner traits
2.) situational (external) = believe behaviour caused by aspects of the situation
fundamental attribution error
tendency people have to overemphasize personal characteristics (dispositional) and ignore situational factors in judging others’ behaviour.
actor observer effect
make situational attributions about our own behaviour and dispositional attributions about the behaviour of others
self serving bias
use dispositional attributions for successes and situational attributions for failures
conformity
adjusting our behaviour or thinking to fit with a group standard
components of conformity
- automatic mimicry
- social norms
- normative and informative social influence