Chapter 16 Flashcards
Attitude
positive or negative evaluation of an entity i.e people, objects, concepts
components of an attitude
- An attitude is learnt
- An attitude is stable and enduring
- An attitude is an evaluation which come to through judgement
Attitudes influence our behaviour
Explicit Attitude
openly admit to their attitude and behave in a way that reflects their attitude
Implicit Attitude
an unconscious attitude which the person is unaware of that they have until their behaviour reveals it
behavior and attitude connection
Behaviour does not equal attitude e.g. some smokers probably hate that they have to smoke
Cognitive Dissonance
an unpleasant feeling when we feel that our behaviours and attitudes do not align.
Effort Justification
when people place a high value on a goal after having exerted a lot of effort to achieve it
Festinger and Carlsmith (1959)
- Participants were either paid 1 or 20 dollars to lie about how much they enjoyed the experiment, when asked about the study the people paid 1 dollar tended to say that they enjoyed the experience whilst those who were paid 20 dollars said they did not.
Those paid less probably felt uncomfortable lying so they said they enjoyed it whilst those paid 20 dollars told the truth as their payment was sufficient for enduring the experiment, and thus were happy to remember their boredom.
Social Identity
a person’s sense of self based upon the groups they belong to
Social Identity Theory
we form our social identity based upon the groups we are a part of and doing so allows us to have an important source of pride and self esteem. To maintain this pride and self esteem we normally boost the status of said group.
Social Categorisation
when we sort people and objects, so we can understand and identify them, for example if someone says that they are from Melbourne we categorise them as Victorian and assign them characteristics like enjoying afl.
Social identification
when we adopt behaviour, attitudes and beliefs of the group we belong to.
Social Comparison
when we compare our in group with other groups to affirm our identity.
Attribution
Inferences we make about the causes of events, the behaviour of others or our own.
Attribution theory
people have an innate need to understand why things happen.
Actor Observer Bias
People tend to excuse their behaviours due to external factors whilst explain others actions by internal factors.
Dispositional Attribution
The assumption that behaviour is due to internal or personal characteristics.
Situational Attribution
When we consider external factors to explain behaviour.
Fundamental Attribution Error
When people place to much emphasis on someone’s personal Characteristics and not enough on their external factors.
Bias
an opinion or belief about an object, person, or group.
Ross and Colleagues
- Conducted a study were people were asked to be either a gameshow host or a participant.
- The game show host would make their own questions and ask them.
- It was found that the audience thought the host was the most intelligent despite them writing the questions and thus obviously knowing the answer. In this instance the audience fell victim to fundamental attribution theory
Self-serving Bias
a perceptual process which helps us to maintain self-esteem by viewing our self-more favourably rather than another person in the same position.
Confirmation bias
the process of looking for stuff that agrees with your viewpoints
